Friendly Chat

Down the streets of Simla--mountain resort and summer capital of His Majesty's Government in India--to the very gates of the Viceregal Lodge, the scene of as much pomp and circumstance as is displayed at Buckingham Palace, ambled a toothless little Hindu. Drawing his khaddar (Indian "Village Industries" homespun) loincloth and shawl about him, the wizened old man shuffled in to meet the Viceroy. Thus last week took place the long-awaited meeting between Mohandas K. Gandhi, de facto head of the Indian National Congress, and Sir Victor Alexander John Hope, Marquess of Linlithgow, Viceroy of India. It was the end of a five-year estrangement between the British Raj and the longtime leader of the Indian masses.

Typical of Lord Linlithgow's efforts in his year-old rule to allay Indian distrust of the new Constitution was this crowning gesture, an invitation to Gandhi because the Viceroy wanted to make his "personal acquaintance." The Scottish laird-banker-viceroy, who shuns the glitter of his throne, has made himself popular with India's peasants and underprivileged castes. They like their Muluk-i-lat-sahib. Lord Master of the Land, particularly because he can often be seen puttering about in his garden, jogging down the streets of Simla in a rickshaw.

Last week's friendly chat capped recent events which have cleared the Indian political atmosphere. Ever since the Congress Party agreed to participate in forming provincial governments granted them under the new Constitution (TIME, July 19), the way has been open for the exchange of Anglo-Indian expressions of goodwill. According to the official news, the Viceroy and his scrawny visitor exchanged charitable views on "rural uplift" and the "condition of the peasantry," but when India's Legislative Assembly meets this autumn, and the Viceroy in his pale blue robes rises to address it, most of Mr. Gandhi's political followers are expected not to make themselves conspicuous by their absence.

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