INDIAN CONGRESS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 144, 14 March 1939, Page 9

INDIAN CONGRESS

Dissociation From British Foreign Policy TRIPURI, March 12. Congress concluded after adopting resolutions dissociating itself from British foreign policy, which was deserbe’d as aiding Fascist Powers, demanding self-determination for India,-'paying a tribute to the courage of tlie Palestinian Arabs, and deploring the deterioration of the position of Indians overseas, specially in the Empire. Congress expressed confidence in Mahatma Gandhi by an overwhelming majority. S’

GANDHI TRIUMPHS ApAIN Enigma Of His Enormous Power In India Only last week’ the 70-year-old Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi brought off another of his spectacular victories by the simple method of fasting. The world might well be staggered to account for the reason for the triumph of this voluntary act of self-abnegation. Only those who know India, and the power that Gandhi’s name and “mana” exert over 350.000,000 people can understand the apparent enigma.

Gandhi, despite what many people of the west believe, is not a spent force. He is still one of the greatest men of the age, certainly one who wields more power than any other single person in Asia. One writer recently described him as “the incredible combination of Jesus Christ, Tammany Hall, and tlie greatest Indian since Buddha.” He further says that like Buddha, Gandhi will be worshipped when he dies —his name will live for ever.

His greatest works not yet quite accomplished, but on the way, have been the creation of a national spirit in India, and the uplifting of the “untouchables.” By the latter it should be mentioned that Gandhi does not mean the abolition of caste —the iron rule that governs social life in India —but he would have the “untouchables” treated more like human beings, within the caste Jaw.

Poorest Of The Poor.

Who are the untouchables? One writer says that the miseries and degradation meted out to the Jews in Germany by the Hitler regime could be multiplied twice before it would represent the social depths of the “untouchables” of India. “Not only are they the poorest of the poor, but they suffer social indignities. “The child of ‘untouchable parents may not enter a schoolroom; untouchables may not use the ordinary water from the village wells; or mingle in any way with the rest of the community.

The name Gandhi means grocer, and a grocer is a caste Hindu; yet Gandhi’s father was a Dewan, whiclt is a chief of a local principality. His father married four times and Gandhi was a child of the fourth wife. His mother was passionately devout; his father truthful and incorruptible; so that the Mahatma was truly well-born. Gandhi’s early life history is set out in his book “The Story of My Experiments witli Truth.” He married a 13. Th 1803 he felt that his life in India was a failure, so he went to England and later to South Africa, where he practised successfully as a lawyer, remaining there for 20 years. He is said to have been earning £5OOO a year when he made himself a power in the land. Return To India. At 48 years of age, in 1014—the year the Great War broke out—Gandhi returned to India and his tremendous years began. The following year he founded his Satya Graba hermitage near Ahmadabad. The word —Gandhi invented it—may mean "right effort,” “the force of truth,” “soul force,” but it has also been loosely translated to mean “non-co-operation” or “civil disobedience.”

Gandhi’s powers approach the occult. He could say—“l will sleep for 20 minutes," and he would lie down and immediately sleep for exactly that length of time. The attitude of the Mahatma toward religion is not easy to define. One writer said —“His insistence on rendering good for evil; his feeling that one can win justice only by giving justice to the enemy, his injunction to hate the sin aud not the sinner, tire the essence of practical Christianity. “Gandhi is probably more like Christ than any man in the political sphere who has ever lived. But lie does not. call himself a Christian. When watching him pray 1 asked his intimate friends to whom he prayed, but they said they did not know, He is a devout Hindu, but believes that the scriptures of ail the great religions are equally the word of God—Bible, Talmud, Zend Avesta, Koran and the Buddhist canon,”