Down a jungle walk on Bengal's marshy coast last week, two Indian political leaders stalked solemnly away from Mohandas K. Gandhi's in-roofed hut, burned out in recent communal rioting. They were Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and President Acharya Kripalani of the All-India Congress Party. Hindu women blew conch shells, and thousands of devotees showered the two leaders with flowers.
Well might Nehru and Kripalani look solemn. As India seemed to teeter on the brink of bloodshed, they were returning to New Delhi, to face the Congress organization's toughest problem: to accept or reject the...