Gandhi Foregoes Independence

INDIA Gandhi Foregoes Independence

India's native leaders present a spectacle not unlike a steeplechase. They are all headed for the same finish line--independence from Great Britain. At the risk of breaking their necks at the various hurdles, fences, hedges and ditches interposed along the course by Britain, they compete for the No. 1 position. Sometimes this competition is so bitter that they lose sight of the finish and run off the course. Most remarkable single fact about this strange race: when the running gets hottest, the leading courser is almost invariably mounted by a tiny, leathery, ascetic man in a white cotton loincloth. Last week the leaders were bunched at an important hurdle, and once again the first over was Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Last week's barrier was the 53rd session of the All-India' Nationalist Congress. The meeting was the most important and potentially the most dangerous to date along the long grind to independence. With Britain busy at war, many leaders were set to demand immediate, violent, decisive action. Mohandas Gandhi has always been convinced that India would eventually get more from Britain by moderation, discussion, compromise, delay. He argues that dominion status after Europe's war would be better than the repression which would surely follow an immediate violent Indian revolt. The Congress was split wide open: the followers of Mahatma Gandhi on the one hand, the advocates of activism--ranging all the way from Communists through middle-of-the-road Moslems to extreme Conservatives--on the other. The situation was tense because the latter were led by Subhas Chandra Bose, the only Indian who has come anywhere near successfully opposing Gandhi.

In a specially constructed city of bamboo huts, roofed with waterproofed hubla nettings, equipped with waterworks and baths, deep in the malarious, tiger-infested Hazaribagh jungle of Bihar, over 100.000 Congress members had gathered. The site, Ramgarh village, had been chosen because 20 years' meteorological records showed it to be among Indian towns least subject to the torrential rains of March.

The weather was clear and the Congress track was fast on the afternoon when Gandhi's first spring put him out in front. He urged the Congress guiding committee to approve a resolution in favor of delaying civil disobedience while pressing for independence by negotiation. The committee obeyed. Saint Gandhi thanked them in a speech bristling with humility: "I am called Mahatma, but I am an ordinary man. I have blundered and committed mistakes. ... I am perhaps the poorest general any army ever had. My only wealth is your love. If you don't like me, remove me, but while I am your leader you must obey me."

Punjah Leader Gopal Singh Himh tried to ride the Mahatma off by an attack on his behind-the-scenes tactics. "Everyone," he charged, "is ready for action except Gandhi. I demand that Gandhi become at least a four-annas member of Congress [cheapest price of membership]. ... If he wishes to lead Congress he should at least be a member."

The Punjah challenge was quickly checked when another Punjah member, Sardar Kartar Singh, answered: "Gandhi may not be a four-annas member, but Gandhi and Congress are identical."

The sun still shone violently next day when Activist Bose staged his big challenge. In a field across the Damodar River, within shouting distance of the Gandhi camp, Suhhas Bose harangued 5,000 of his followers. He damned Gandhi's dilatory tactics, pointed out how Mussolini sprang into action in 1922, demanded similar sudden decisions in the India of 1940. Then he mounted a farmer's cart drawn by two white bullocks, and as his followers carried banners (including the hammer-&-sickle), he rode in loud triumph right through the Gandhi camp. For the moment, the race was to Bose by a nose.

Gandhi's next maneuver disposed of both Bose and the opposition Moslems. Up rose Congress President Abul Kalam Azad. He told the delegates that Gandhi wanted independence as much as Bose and would get it by shrewder means. Himself a Moslem, he was a flesh & blood answer to the Moslem League charge that the Congress leaves Moslems out of its counsels.

While Azad spoke, the sky grew dark, and it began to drizzle, then to rain, then to pour. Delegates retired to their flimsy huts. As the night wore on roofs caved in or were blown off, bedding became soaked, the water system bogged down, the main avenue flooded. Next morning the bedraggled members stood in water half way up their shins, hastily and overwhelmingly voted confidence in Mohandas Gandhi, and hurried home. Once again, Mahatma Gandhi had proved that, wet going or dry, he is the best political jockey of all.

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