Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
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Gandhi, for the Mahatma, for St. Gandhi, for Jailbird Gandhi not thou- sands but millions of individual Indians are taking individual beatings which they could, escape by paying what His Majesty's Government call, quite accurately, "nor-mal taxes." Physical extortion, even of taxes, is in law virtually everywhere a crime. Briton Brailsford reports that the Indian agents of the British Government have pursued tax evaders out of British India into the native State of Baroda and beaten them there. This is a crime for which the Man of the Year in Yerovila Jail at Poona is to blame. He is to blame because, although His Majesty's Government have got him in a jail staffed by British jailers, they have not yet stopped him from producing writings which are smuggled out somehow, week after week, to his people. What Chance Success? The Viceroy of India last week admitted at Calcutta that "some concessions" will have to be made to the Indian Nationalism, which for twelve months he has been trying to stamp out. Meantime, in London, before adjourning for the holidays, the Indian Round Table Conference decided "in principle" that the upper and lower houses of the new Indian Legislature which they are trying to create, shall be called the "Senate" and .the "House of Representatives.'' The Irishmen asked independence but were content with the "Irish Free State," which has a "President" and a "Senate." If Indians would be content with so little, it is still not likely that Britons would grant it. Up to last week the Round Table Conference had not touched the red-hot question of India's status. The Conference had touched, and showed signs of splitting on the question of Hindu-Moslem representation in the new legislature. India's 70,000,000 moslems are "the largest minority in the world." When the Aga Khan, No. i Indian Moslem, left London for Paris (he has a home in Paris) last week, it was rumored and denied that he was not gone "for the holidays" but to India for momentous consultations. Stock reasons why Britain must hold India: 1) "she cannot relinquish her trust"; 2) deprived of the Pax Britannica, India would be torn with Hindu-Moslem civil war; 3) "Britain is the only sure defense of the Untouchables," some 45,000,000 souls; 4) politically Indians are too "childish" to rule themselves. In India Last Week:
¶ The Viceroy reimposed his decree gagging the Indian press (TIME, May 12) which he lifted when criticism became keen.
¶ A newspaper straw vote among the occidental community in Bombay brought 1,000 ballots, 830 of them for granting India "dominion status."
¶ The Indian National Congress maintained its grip on the entire native market for foreign cloth in Bombay (several hundred shops), which has been closed for six months. Nevertheless Bombay (chief commercial city) and Bombay Presidency are not India, and imports to the entire continent fell only 25% during the first eight months of 1930. Mr. Gandhi's boycott is credited with reducing imports (i. e., sales by Britain) 5%, the rest of the decline, 20%, being charged to "Depres-sion."