A FALLEN IDOL

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 601, 4 August 1933, Page 4

A FALLEN IDOL

The obvious waning of the influence of Mr. Gandhi in India should afford a sobering object lesson to some other of the popular demogagues who, in various . countries of the world, have mounted to leadership borne on the shoulders of the people. In a country intense in; its racial and religious antipathies, the ascetic personality of the j Mahatma commanded a tremendous : foliowing. Whether this asceticism was a skilful pose to enshrine the prophet and catch the imagination of the people or whether it was the gennine expression of a sanctified spirit, will be largely for the historians to determine for Gandhi, in the end, must be judged by Eastern and not by Western standards. Yet this man, who in his day has swayed literal millions has dwindled so in the public esteem that to-day, when he is threatened by a fresh term of imprisonment, his one time adherents remain almost entirely indifferent to his welfare. In this is a lesson for sundry others of the world's popular i leaders. Dictators, throned in the pomp and pride of circumstance, are prone to forget that it was in the first place the will of the people which placed them there. Even a Mi^ssolini or a Hitleir carinot stand against the will of the people when it either turns actively against them or becomes indifferent to them.