A CONTRAST.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 July 1922, Page 4

A CONTRAST.

(Sydney Herald.)

A little over thirty .vein's ago all Indian student went to England to study law. He was young, rich, clever, wellborn, but with nothing particular about his appearance to distinguish him from a thousand others. His name, which has since acquired such a sinister significant was Mohamlnr Kornnichand Gandhi, an ascetic who had already taken the Jain vows of chastity and abstention from flesh and v.inc. After passing his examinations and returning to Bombay, where he became a successful lawyer, his asceticism increased : he ultimately abandoned law for religion, took a further vow of poverty, and gave up all he had to the poor. In I8!).'I he sent to South Africa to fight the battles of tbo Indians there, whose plight was extreme. For many years bis task engaged him. He was mobbed and nearly killed, he was constantly in antagonism, both in the Courts and out of them, with the Government, by whom be was, with some reason, regarded as an agitator. and a nuisance. In 1599 came the Boor War. Hespite great opposition Gandhi organised an Indian Bed Cross unit, which served throughout the campaign, was mentioned in despatches, and publicly thanked for its devotion to duty. In 190-1 there was im outbreak of plague in Johannesburg. Gandhi had I a private hospital in working order be.l'ore the authorities had even begun to take action, lit 190!i there was a native rebellion in Natal;.lie raised and , personally led a corps of stretcherbearers, and was thanked by the Governor for his services. Almost immediately afterwards he was in prison in gain as an agitator. In 1919, in the very midst of the general strike of Indians in Natal and the Transvaal, which had been largely engineered by him, the great railway strike, which thieatencd to paralyse South Africa, occurred. Gandhi had everything to gain and nothing to lose bv this new I crisis ; it played straight into his hands. 1 And yet. instead of seizing the chance, he immediately called the Indian strike | olf, and saw to it that his lollowers loyally supported the Government until I safety was.once more assured, fn that | same year the Government of India intervened, an Imperial Commission was ■ appointed, and. as a result of the coni- ' missioners’ finding, the Indian Belief i Act was passed, whereby the great nin- ! jority of the reforms for which Gandhi had worked so long became the law ol 'the land. This was the man of extraordinary contradictions who, declining from, a patriotic support of England against Germany in the opening year the war, gradually developed into a dangerous and fanatical opponent of the British Government in India, and alio, raising a monster which, lik<‘_ another Frankenstein, he was unable to quell, finally became the criminal, whom only tbo other day that Government was compelled to silence with a lengthy term of imprisonment. That he hairnet only with the justice he deserved (annul he doubted or denied hut that lie was a man who, il he had moved sanely, might have done as great tilings for his countrymen in then- own land as he had done for them in sinother is equally incontestable, The pi tv of it! Contrast with Gandhi our present visitor, the Bight Honourable Snnavusn Sastii- Mini'll of Ins Majesty's Hi ivy Council, whom we delight to honour, and in honouring whom we honour ourselves. Mr Sastri is also of Tn.linn | Trirtli. a Brahmin and an ascetic " h<> has taken vows that closely resemble , thus- by which Gandhi was also bound, lie has had almost every disadvantage to fight against and almost every prejudice to overcome, lie was horn to poverty, and has embraced it as a blessing ; he was a "native” in a country w here to he a native is a handicap: In had to educate himself as best he could. And vet, despite these great and, to a lesser man, insuperable difficulties, .1 Sastri is to-dav not only the representative of the native Indian: he is a rcpiescntative of the Government of Ind ■> itself, a man high in the councils ol Ins Emperor, eminent among the leadeis o, the nations, a man trusted and liiiiinu - o ,| to a degree. 11 is simple turban li.vs mingled with the diplomatic undorms ol the Bowers, and its wearer has moM than held its own aiming the reasone.l debaters at the great world vonuiei ', of the last few years. Mr Sastri. in a . word, has done that which with all his power ami undouhUd! •'cuius, was unable to do. jh * . I h v I,is patriotism, his sincerity, and : gifts of eloquence and reason a ftreatll ( freedom, a greater respect and a g' ■ ‘ j or place ror .the natives of Imha : a timusand Gandhis could ever I. l,y force. Ol bigotry, or imitation to i d el. By his support ol the llriti-n ( "Hnj” lie has won its sn.l'U. - m ’-'j turn'; bv honouring U he lias ir -" ' oared, and, through him, tic people lu I ivprcsifiits arc honoured :| .~o. • 1 • • * | lid 'has h 'hi sne.dallv -muted to 'a-' India by our Hi line .Mims.ci', .—1 •* coices as a delegate to "voice the - pir.il ions of his fellow-countrymen towards an improved s atus in 1 ■ 1. Ho lots -ilroadv adds eased millions. He lies am . himself vigoroiislv to that la ' Adelaide and Melbourne, lie has he. n applying himself to il in our own cityaml he has been listened to lieie as iu Ins been elsewhere, with the interested sympathy that his cause demands and liis personalitv assures, lie asser s that he has no desire to encroach upon 1 lie White Australia policy. 1J IS ,nls ‘ sion is to advocate the cause of those Indians who have lesided m tile 1 ’ l }' monwealth for years, and to oMam for them those rights of citizenship amongst us which we ourselves enjoy, j The secretary of the Trades llall Council in Melbourne, when thanking Mr Sastii I a few days ago for an address, declared j while promising on behalf of the Alls- . tralian Labour party a full eonsideia- . lion of the visitor’s representations, j that it seemed paradoxical that India should send a delegate to Australia to urge full rights of citizenship for the conip'irnliv.ely few Indians here, when . those rights were withheld from millions of Indians in their own eountiy. But the paradox is no paradox at all. , | Mr Sastri is here as the guest of Aus.ti ill in and accepted his invitation with the avowed object «<f voicing the claims of his fellow-countrymen in the Common- ( wealth. Ife Inns done eminently effective work in Tndia already, ami there is every reason to suppose that lie can i do good work here also. J