In the first days the full impact of Mahatma Gandhi's peculiar program of civil disobedience had not yet had effect. Riots spread around Bombay, like boils, over the face of the Central Provinces. A few were reported in Bengal, where the Japs may invade from India's northeastern border.
The death of a Moslem police inspector sounded another warning of communal riots. Police had orders to warn crowds to disperse, then use tear gas, then ironbound lathees, then, as a last resort, to fire. Student demonstrators tried to confiscate all hats and neckties—symbols of Western domination—worn by Indians and Europeans in Bombay. Then they seized topees, burned them merrily in street-corner bonfires. This week, with rioting still sporadic, the pressure of an Indian National Congress party boycott and a general slowdown of the war effort faced the British.
Having clapped all Congress leaders into jail, the British were prepared to deal with rioting. The Raj even hoped that prompt action would break the back of the Congress party once & for all. Optimistically, Government officials announced that resistance was virtually under control. Immediately new riots broke out in Madras, where four men were killed trying to attack a railway station. Ahmadabad mills closed. A Karaikkudi mob tried to free an Indian being jailed. Calcutta brooded restlessly, heard threats of work stoppages at vital war plants. Poona, Nagpur, Cawnpore, Wardha reported fresh riots. An airplane dropped tear gas on a crowd of Bombay mill workers. The New Delhi Town Hall was burned.
The British claimed Gandhi's program of disruption called for: 1) closing shops to destroy public morale; 2) interference with telephone & telegraph lines; 3) fomenting strikes in munitions and war materiel factories; 4) interference with A.R.P. services; 5) dislocating transport; 6) a strike by lawyers.
Whether or not these assertions were true, Gandhi could not publicly affirm or deny: he was locked up in a luxurious jail, the Aga Khan's million-rupee "bungalow" at Poona. But the British threatened use of the whip on rioters, execution of anyone sabotaging trains or communications.
Race. No European was killed, but there were ominous undertones of racial antagonism. From a rooftop in Old Delhi a TIME correspondent watched a riot area a mile and a half long in Chandni Chauk, heart of the bazaar district. Exploding tear-gas bombs sent the demonstrators into alleyways, wiping their eyes. Then banners peeked around corners again, lines re-formed and marched forward. The sound of rifle fire or sudden panic would send the demonstrators racing away. When police charged or fired into the crowds, angry roars burst with the hysterical fervor of a high-school cheering section. It sounded like: "Rhubarb! Rhubarb! Rhubarb!" Soon the crowd began chanting "Inqilab Zindabad!" (Revolution Forever!)
At one end of Chandni Chauk troops were drawn up under the old Mogul Fort built by Shah Jahan, who also built the Taj Mahal. (Inside the Fort, where the Shah kept his harem, the walls are inscribed: "If there is a heaven, this is it, this is it!") At the other end of the area, mounted police faced Congress adherents packed in the Clock Tower Square.