INDIA AS SHE SAW IT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 212, 16 July 1943, Page 8

INDIA AS SHE SAW IT

se HE Indians are in many ways a wonderful people, and the failure of Indians and Europeans in working together seems to me to be largely misunderstanding. The Indians are not badly treated; in fact I would say that the British treat the Indians much better than the Indians treat one another. But we expect them to have the same ideals and sense of justice as we have." That is the opinion of Miss Aldine Lantis, who is on her way back to the United States after three years spent in India in the service of the Women’s Division of Christian Service of the American Methodist Mission in India. In many ways the British were very patient, she said. At the time when Gandhi and Nehru were arrested for instance, there was a great surge of unrest all over Bombay. There were great crowds in the streets, and little flags and statuettes of Gandhi and Nehru were being sold. The British didn’t stop this, though they fired on the crowds when the Nationalist flag was raised. Moslems And Hindus "How far are the Indian people as a whole behind Congress?" we asked. "It would be impossible for me to generalise. I was in Bombay for the. greater part of the time that I was in India. Certainly in the cities, and perhaps especially in Bombay, there was wide support for Congress, and very great admiration and veneration for

Gandhi and Nehru. I have noticed, too, a tendency for the various disunited groups to unite against the British. A while ago, it was felt that the Moslems, for instance, were pro-British. And the same applied to the small but influential minority of Parsees. I don’t think this is so any more. I remember an occasion when we had a notable Moslem leader to our house. We were discussing Indian Nationalism. ‘Do you think Moslems and Hindus will work together if you get your independence for India?’ one of us asked. ‘We will work together until we get independence,’ he replied. ‘After that we shall settle our own differences for ourselves. Germany and

England have one way of settling their quarrels. Perhaps ours will be the same way. But we want to do it ourselves.’ " "The Moslems,’ Miss Lantis added, "are not so numerous as the Hindus, but they know how to fight. When the Hindu attacks another man, he will waste his strength in half a dozen strokes. With the Moslems one stroke is usually sufficient." Miss Lantis went on to say that on the whole, the Indians were very friendly toward Americans. "All the same," she continued, "I think this is mainly because they feel that we can take an impartial view of their problems. I thought I could note a distinct difference in their attitude after the arrival of American troops in India. "India has, of course, been flooded with Japanese propaganda. The Indians distrust Japan, but Japan is making all sorts of promises, and it is human to prefer, the ‘devil they don’t know to the one that they do.’" Gandhi and Non-Violence "Is Gandhi as potent a force in India as we are often told he is?" "Yes, I should think so. He has an immense following just because he is Gandhi, apart from politics and apart from Congress. I remember, for iinstance, on a certain day last year going to a store to buy something which I said I would fetch the next day. ‘We’ll be closed to-morrow,’ I was told. ‘Closed?’ I asked, in surprise. ‘Yes, for Gandhi.’ ‘For Gandhi? Has anything happened to him?’ ‘Ah, no, but to-mor-row he begins his fast. We must close so that we can pray with him and for 1 Rie tas Miss Lantis does \not think that Gandhi can be a true pacifist, because he is a Hindu. "The true Christian nonviolent attitude can be fully practised (Continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) only when the injured person feels no desire to retaliate when injured. Gandhi does not possess the spirit of Christ, and as a Hindu, he is only practising self-control. When he feels that he has been injured, he tries to refrain from feeling hate, but he does retaliate-not with guns, but with something other than love. It is easier for the Indian to practise self-control than for the Westerner, because the Indian has through the centuries suffered the injustices of Hinduism silently. Influence of Women "Has the general ferment of thought in India had much effect on the position of Indian women?" we asked. "In the towns there are women’s organisations which are sometimes very well supported. They organise campaigns for equal rights, civil rights, and so on. They also do good work on some of the many social problems-that of the beggars, for instance. But the women in the villages are very ignorant, and they hold back any sort of progress-this is much truer of the peasant women than of the peasant men. In the big towns you would find quite a large percentage of women attending public meetings, but this is not so in the country districts."