A Letter from India
[To The Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
WE have been struggling all this week to follow the workings of Mr. Gandhi's' flexible and far from simple 'mind: If that is our difficulty here, how much greater must be yours in Britain seeking-1,o -sift the wheat from the chaff in Indian politics with no -better. guide than fragmentary cablegrams ! As we are oil the eve of a direct Challenge to ordered Government, and of an effort to bring the administration to a standstill by organized lawlessness, some thread through this labyrinth must be sought. Gandhi has a hatred of fOrce: Ile has equally a deep tegaid for ahimsa, which he translates as love or -charity. But at the same time he has a profound belief in non-co-opera- tion, . first as a means of bringing the Government to its knees, and fOrther as a means of-preparing the Indian people thiOugh sacrifice- to fitness for independence. We do him no injustice when We say he associates With theie attributes a love of power" and a dislike Of any form-of. control ; he sees... ower slipping finni him- through the growth of the revolutionary movement fanned. by the CongreSs • he is not a rilAng pan, and if he is to strike it-must be quickly.
-At the Lahore Congress Mr. Gandhi -suffered the most severe setback in his political career. For all the outward veneration expressed for his . personality and character, he was almost beaten by ..a determined body of revolutionaries who reject his, creed of non-violence-; he failed in the attempt so -to- reorganise the Congress. Committee that it should be subservient to his views. It is scarcely exaggerating to add that he was tolerated in this session with the intention of shelving him wt the next Congress. He found himself, in the presence of this band of uncompromising youths, what he described himself as not long ago—a back number. This situation was met in a manner which illustrates the elasticity of mind. The Working Committee of the Congress— not the Congress Committee which is really the executive body —was called to meet at Ahmedabad under the shadow of his own ashram. This Committee gave Mr. Gandhi and those who believe in non-violence a free hand to start civil dis- obedience as and when they desire and in the manner and to the extent they decide.
Let us try to see precisely what this means. The Congress steps aside ; Mr. Gandhi is given dictatorial powers to lead the no-tax movement ; members of the Congress are free to co-operate or abstain as they choose. He frankly says that he represents no one but himself ; for the moment he propose; to use none but inmates of his ashram, eighty in number, who have become seasoned in its discipline. Evidently he is torn by doubts. Having said at Lahore that the country is not prepared for civil disobedience, especially a no-tax campaign on a mass scale, even this week he has confessed that he is not at all certain that such a state of preparedness has been reached. The most charitable interpretation we can place on his determination to launch a no-tax campaign is that he fears lest, if Congress inaugurates the work, it will immediately become violent and revolutionary ; over his followers in the ashram he exercises despotic control. But it is impossible to resist the impression that this is the act of an old gentleman in a hurry, ready to risk all on what lie recognizes is a gambler's throw. . Nothing could better illustrate Mr. Gandhi's divorce from realities than the selection of the Salt Tax for the experiment in civil disobedience. An official generation ago the tax was a matter of acute controversy, as it was high_ and the position was being consolidated. Successive reductions in the duty closed the sore, and save for the most unwise step of Lord Reading in certifying the doubling of the tax in. 1923, to raise revenue which was not imperatively necessary, it is now of no more than academic interest. The great bulk of the salt consumed in India is won from the sea in the Bombay Presidency and Madras, or from the brine lake of Sambhar in Rajputana, supplemented by the great deposits in the Salt Range of the Punjab. Bengal alone is largely dependent on imports, chiefly from Aden and Port Said, because the sea freight is so much lower than rail charges over the immense distances of India. At the present moment the Tariff Board is completing an inquiry into the best methods of developing the Indian supply to meet the Bengal demand. The cost of salt at the works is between three and four annas a maund of eighty-two pounds. The duty is one rupee four annas a maund, collected at source, and it brings in a revenue of about 25,000,000 sterling a year. Supposing Mr. Gandhi and his volunteers succeeded in interrupting the supplies from one or more of the works, the only result would be a shortage in the consuming centres and a great raising of price by the middlemen. The loss of a few lakhs of revenue to the Government would not amount to "a row of beans."
The politico-economic absurdity of the proposal does not affect the social menace involved in it. In England you are so accustomed to the respect for law of a disciplined people that you cannot understand the thinness of the crust which separates placidity from murder and arson in this land. The slightest relaxation of authority and we stand on the eve of a holocaust, witness the tragedy of Chauri Chaura which disgraced the non-co-operation movement and the bloody disturbances in Bombay last February. A population ordinarily so peaceful and law-abiding that order is easily maintained by a small police force becomes uncontrollable in a few seconds if the bonds of authority are relaxed. No Government worthy the name can afford to stand idle in India the moment its authority is directly challenged • Mr. Gandhi's activities may force the Government of India into measures it would gladly avoid, especially on the- eve of the publication of the Report of the Simon Commission and the summoning of The Round Table Conference. In that task it must have the unfaltering support of the 'British Cabinet. Any weakness, here will set back the hands of the clock for a generation. If I may try to interpret the general attitude of the Indian community towards Mr. Gandhi's fantasies it is one of mild exasperation. The paramount need of India is tran- quillity in order to restore her credit ; concentration on an economic policy to alleviate the weight of unemployment. The root causes of the present discontents are largely economic ; the lack of a field for the thousands of graduates of our universities ; the agricultural distresses arising from the "heavy decline in the values of all produce ; the severe depres- sion in the Bombay textile industry. These will be separately discussed ; they can only be aggravated by the confusions of a no-tax campaign.
Bombay. YOUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. February 22nd.
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