INDIA CONFERENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 22 September 1931, Page 2

INDIA CONFERENCE

ri. COHCRESS LEADERS ARRIVE • 1 IN LONDON. The India Round-Table Gonl'erence which . resumed' its meetings last week contains a number of interesting personalities w;ho were,, not preseilt last ‘year! ‘ Tiiey include a number of Nationalist leaders. , Mr Mohandas Karamchaiid ■ Gandhi, tfie, famous Nationalist leuder, is in Ins sixty-second year. , The main facts of his career may be recalled. At the t.ge of nineteen he came to London, studied lor a time at University College, and was. called to the Bar. by the nner Temple. Leader from 1898 of the Indians in South Africa in connection with the representation of their lo< a grievances. Developed there his conception of resistance without violence. Was in charge of an Indian Ambulance Corps during the Boer War and the Zuiu revolt in Natal. Returned to India shortly after' the outbreak of the Great Wur. Took part in the conference called by the then Viceroy to mobilise Indian opinion. • Raised an umbu a nee- eo>'l>s mid conducted a recruiting .enmnaigm Became the leader of the non-co-operation and civil dis obedience campaign inaugurated in 1920. Sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in 1922, but released in less than two years. For a time confined himself tq social and moral reform, eoncentraring oxpressely on ivriage industry, but soon ppiu@ bppk to politics, Blnpe 1929 has been the dominant figuro af the Indian National Congress, Hig second civil disobedience campaign began jn the Hpring 1930. His intpri)-' meat and release and his conversation with the' Viceroy, Lord Irwin, which lead to the abandonment of the campaign, are recent, outstanding featur-

Mi«s Slade, - who is thirty-nine years old, was converted to the philosophy of Hindu asceticism by reading Roman Holland’s “Life of Gandhi.” She wrote to Gandhi snd received a call from hinj to become one of his followers. After a year spent in Paris learning the language in 1934 she embarked for India, On arrival she embraced/the Hindu religion,, being given the Dome Mire Rej, the name of a famous Rajput princess wfio suffered martyrdom. When visited recently she said she would not exchange her for any othpr in the world. During Gandhi’.* march to the coast a year ago, she Was left in charge of his seminary at Ahmedabad.

Mrs Sarojini Naidu is one of the most emancipated of Indian women. She broke all'established custom by marrying the husband of her own choice and completed the emancipation by separating from him later. This, however, did riot weaken her influence. She was educated at King’s College, jLolidori, find Girton, Cumoridgo, and her daugh ters have fallowed in her footsteps, In her efforts for the advancement of Indian women she has conducted coirir paigns in mapy. countries, Until the war she worked for her reform through constitutional means but thp Amritsar affair turned her against the Government, Since then she has been a prominent member ’ of the Swaraj movement and of the All-Indin Congress, She has actively abetted the civil disobedience movement, and when Gandhi was arrested last year, she took his place and led the march on the salt depot. She is a clever and outspoken woman, with a ready wit and a keen sense of humour. She is now fifty-two years old.

Sir Maneckji Dad blioy is a. Papsee and a well-known financier and industrialist. He was a member of the Royal Commission in 1925-26 on Indian Currency and Finance, and has been fo’’ some years a member of the Council of State in the Indian Legislature. He has a house at Richmond and lives a good deal in England.

Mr A. Rangaswami Iyengar is one of the foremost Congressmen of South India, and has always stood for constitutional methods of agitation. He edits a well-known Madras newspaper, the “Hindu,” which has perhaps the largest circulation of any Indian owned and edited newspaper, and is justly celebrated for its eminent fairness in controversy. He was one of the late Pandit Motilal Nehru’s right-hand men in the Legislative Assembly, and his presence at the Conference will ensure the representation of a quite distinctive branch of the All-India National Congress—namely that c n mpos n d of.a pari of the somewhat moderately inclined upper classes of the Madras Presidency.

Pandit Madan Mohan Malavlya sharshares Dr Moonjee the leadership of the All-India National Congress and was leader of the Nationalist Party in the last Legislative Assembly. He is thu s one of the most important politicians in India. His political career dates from the very earliest day of organised Indian Nationalist agitat on—t at is, from the foundation of the AllIndia National Gm ;r in (he mideighties of last century. lie was a member of the old Imperial Legislative Council of the Jut-rley Mint > reforms, and his strong opposition to many of the Indian Government’s activities dnr ing the war and immediately afterwards particularly at the time of th© Row’ 4 Hill agitation, give him a great hold on the extremer sections of Indian public opinion. His rigidly orthodox Brahminism makes him the religious and social arbiter of the majority of Hindus, and in liis accession to the

Conference a figure second only to that of Gandhi himself in Hindu eyes comes in. Sir Purshotasdas Thakurdns is one of the best-known financiers in India. He is a Bombay man, who was a member of the Royal Commission of 192526 on Indian Currency and Finance, and came prominently before the public during the violent controversy over the stabilisation of the rupee at Is 6d in 1926-7. He argued in favour of stabilisation at the old level of Is 4d. The passages in Legislative Assembly between him and Sir Basil Blackett during the discussions on the Currency Bill in which the strbilisation at Is 6d was proposed provide some of ■rhe most notable incidents in the history of the Legislative Assembly. He is a politician of long standing, and, on the whole, is best described a§ a. Liberal with a strong bias towards the Left. He is certain to be an uncompromising critic of the financial safesniard proposed by Lord Reading at the last Conference.