GANDHI INDIAN IDEALIST

Hokitika Guardian, 22 January 1921, Page 4

GANDHI INDIAN IDEALIST

MENACE TO THE EMPIRE.

(Correspondent “New York Tribune”)

LONDON, Nov. 27

A host of officials in the India Office in Whitehall, a swarm of Government servants in India, a thousand and one traders in London, Bombay and Calcutta know “Mr Gandhi” and fear him. To them he appears a greater menace to'the British .Empire than all the revolutionists, Bolshevik agitators, Indian fanatics ,ancl other trouble makers of the last fifty years.

But who is “Mr Gandhi?” In the “Asiatic Review” for October, N. M. Samarth, a distinguished lawyer and prominent leader of the Moderate movement in India, writes: “Mr Gandhi is not an extremist in the sense in which that term is generally applied and understood in Indian politics. Indian extremists, rightly viewed, are Indian patriots in an angry mood. That mood necessarily postulates absence of cool headedness. “Mr Gandhi is nothing if not coolheaded. He is an idealist, pure and simple—an idealist with an unshakable faith in adamantine ‘soul force’ as the only force opposed to physical toice which can compel the most powerful Government, however stern and unbending, to yield to the dictates of justice as he conceives it. STRENGTH IN SINCERITY. “His strength lies in bis transparent sincerity and honesty of purpose and his unflinching determination to practise what lie preaches at all risks and all hazards.”

Though the name of “Mr Gandhi’ appears in every article on India publislitd in this review, which reflects to a more or less degree the Government view, there is not one word against him morally, no charge that be is cotrupt, that he is seeking personal honour or regard. “Mr Gandhi” is incorruptible. He cannot.be bought. This remarkable Indian, vv'it'li the wisdom ol a statesman, the cleverness of a politician, the simplicity of a peaV ant, is fearless, idolised by a large part of bis countrymen, feared by many but hated by none. His “non-co-operation’’) programme, adopted by a majorit.v of the delegates of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta, provided for one of -the greatest, boycotts in the history of the world. He asked for the boycott of the Courts by Indian lawyers and of foreign goods l>v'the public generally. Mr Gandhi would withdraw boys and girls from schools and colleges and boycott the legislative councils which, have just been reformed in an effort to meet the discontent ill India-.

This is the grave danger which England fears. Mr Gandhi is at pains to warn bis followers against the use oi' force. He urges them merely to sit tight, mid that policy is infinitely Harder to beat than a force of revolutionists. © WON AID OF CONGRESS. In the opinion of the Bombay correspondent of the London “Times,” Mr Gandhi won the Indian National Congress to his programme because of the “almost universal bitterness” following the Punjab disturbances. On the other hand Mr Samarth, quoted earlier, declares that Mr Gandhi Found the soil ready after the passage of the Rowlett Act hv,the Government of India, “betraying a spirit of riding rough shod on Indian public opinion, as though it. .was absolutely unworthy of considerate treatment.”

Then came the Khalifat agitation—the Moslem emhitferment at the way in which. Turkey was treated by Hht Allies, even though it is now common knowledge that the British Government took an extremely lenient attitude toward the Turk. These are only a few of the causes of the discontent, or rather explanations of the tremendous “growth of 'the Gandhi movement.” Despite the efforts of the Indian Government to prove that it pressed the cause of Indian Moslems at the Peace Conference, the belief apparently still exists that the British have been interfering with their religion and that the Sultan of Turkey, the Khalifa, had been endangeredAn Indian, writing recently in “The Nation,” drew an interesting pen picture of Mr Gandhi. A lawyer with a lucrative practice in South Africa, Mr Gandhi is now a revivalist, “clad, in the simplest of hand-woven garments, living on the -tnos.t 1 frugal diet.” According to this writer, Mr Gandhi is not a Nationalist who points out to his followers—like a modern Moses—the land of .promise lying in the distance. He is not enamoured of Western institutions. He has no belief in industrialism, which is bound to follow in the wake of Western civilisation. GANDHI A REVIVALIST.

“He is a revivalist. His appeal is to the past. ‘What do the traditions, philosophy and culture of India lack,’ says he, ‘that we should wholesale import .Western ideas, and thus endanger our immemorial social fabric, which lias provided .so many saints and heroes? It is because India has turned away hr .ga/.e from the Vedas and the ancient philosophy that she hab fallen upon evil days. “Let her return to the past and all will he well.’ Here lies the irresistible appeal of Mr Gandhi to the populace. For in matters of religion and social reform the average Indian is what the average European was in the Middle Ages. “Religion is yet everything to him; he has not yet learned what the European has learned through hitter experience—to divorce politics from religion. BRITISH ARE PUZZLED. “Here, too, Res the distrust that most of the younger generation feel against Mr Gandhi’s proposals. For good or for evil,'’lndia has been committed to a system of government which, rightly or wrongly, has been called Western ; wo have, too, plunged into the deepest recesses of industrialism. Mr Gandhi Would have u,s deliberately sifet the hands of the clock backward. Away with lawyers, doctors, railways, machinery; they are an abomination be fort; the sigfil of the Lord.”

British Governments have had many problems, many strange opponents to handle. President De Valera of the “Irish Republic,” is ia 'worthy antagonist, hut his methods are not new nor unusual. Generals Botlia and Smuts were tough enemies twenty years ago,

hut they fought along orthodox lines. Lenin and Trotsky have, introduced some new, .tactics, but their strategy generally is not new. Mr Gandhi is ditt’eicnt; lie is a radical reactionary. He is lighting in bis own way for Indian progress, hut banning ,all Western methods. He is the antithesis of Lenin and Dc Valera. The British are frank to confess that they are puzzled.