Reprieve from Disaster

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 British version of how the Constituent Assembly should be run (TIME, Dec. 16). With Nehru and Kripalani went Gandhi's blessing and ad vice. They would not say whether the Mahatma had recommended concessions that might win Mohamed Ali Jinnah's Moslem League to Assembly participation.

Next day, Gandhi renewed his spiritual campaign against India's bitter communal feuding. At 7:35 on the morning of Jan. 2, clasping a long bamboo pole in his right hand and flanked by four companions, Gandhi set out on a walking tour of Bengal's Noakhali district. On his "last and greatest" experiment, the Mahatma said he would visit 26 Moslem villages, would seek to rekindle the lamp of "neigh-borliness" quenched in that area (and in much of India) by blood.

Few dared hope that Gandhi's saintly pilgrimage would influence more than a handful of Moslems. But few, doubted this week that it was his New Year's advice which Nehru and Kripalani ex pressed in a Congress resolution that gave a well-hedged "yes" to the British pro posal, and opened the door to Jinnah for a face-saving entry into the Assembly.

Third Alternative. The British Cabinet Mission had divided India's eleven provinces into three groups for drafting provincial constitutions, and had made it clear last month that each group must vote as a whole on each draft. Group A was incontestably Hindu; Group B lumped Moslem-dominated Punjab and Sind together with the Congress-dominated North-West Frontier; Group C paired Bengal and Assam, where 36 million Moslems live with 34 million non-Moslems. Congress held out for a prov-ince-by-province vote within each group, which would assure it of a dominant voice in eight drafts instead of six. Mohamed Ali Jinnah sat tight with the British; under the group-voting plan, he had a slight edge over Congress in Groups B and C. The apparent Hindu choices: acceptance, or an immediate showdown with the British and the Moslem League.

The ameliorating resolution was in part political doubletalk. It accepted the group voting plan, but asserted: "In the event of any attempt at . . . compulsion, a province or a part of a province has the right to take such action necessary as to give effect to the wishes of the people concerned." Since the British plan was only for constitution-drafting, this represented little change except to give the Congress Party a future out if some Congress provinces or districts later proved recalcitrant.

Anti-British Revolution. Like most compromises, the resolution satisfied no one completely (it was passed 99-to-52--the narrowest victory the Congress High Command has won in the working committee). Least of all did it please Jai Prakash Narain, 44, head of the Congress Party Socialists, who favors an anti-British revolution, has called Jinnah a British stooge. Last week he told the students and faculty of the Hindu University of Benares: "In the coming fight, Congress will not have the same objects as in past struggles. Congress workers will not go to jail. Instead, they will have strength enough this time to do the arresting themselves. When the revolution starts, our strategy will be to capture all Government offices and institutions and establish a People's Raj. British governors and pro-British officials should be jailed. . . ."

A year ago this speech would have landed Narain himself in jail. Now the British are powerless to stop his rabble-rousing without the consent of the Congress Ministry of the United Provinces. The very fact that Narain remains free to speak as he does underscores the fact that the British are virtually throwing themselves out of India.

"Steel Frame." From New Delhi, TIME Correspondent Robert Neville reported: "The British position in India is weakening so fast that in a few months' time the British will be unable to impose their will here a day longer, leaving Congress sitting pretty. Eighty-five per cent of the British personnel of the Indian Civil Service have indicated their intention of leaving soon, and 80% of the British officers of the Indian Army are leaving.

"In the press, both League and Congress are very violent, and speeches of leaders on both sides are continually inciting bloodshed. At last week's Hindu Mahasabha* Session at Gorakhpur, the mention of Nehru's name was greeted with shouts of 'Traitor!' At the conclusion of a violent speech, a member of the audience climbed on the platform, cut his hand, and offered blood then & there. The recent Sind election campaign generally consisted of speeches of vilification, one community v. another.

"In other words, there is little give-&-take these days in Indian public life. Instead of one Government, there are two. The Government's Moslem League members do not even answer the queries of Congress members, and refuse cooperation and coordination. The Government of India is simply running down. No decisions are being taken, no policies are being formulated, all actions are postponed. Unabashed communalism in the Government of India's secretariat has almost ruined that once efficient civil service. Permanent secretaries refusing to subscribe to the political and religious views of communal-minded Cabinet ministers are soon transferred or retired. The frank purpose of many Pakistan-minded Government servants is to undermine the central administration.

"Topping this, there is also an elaborate spy system throughout the secretariat, where the Government servants of one department report for the heads of other departments. There are Moslem League cells throughout the secretariat, and often the League's paper Dawn reprints secret letters and memoranda taken from Government files. The League's avowed purpose, to sabotage the Interim Government, is being rapidly achieved."

If Narain, Jinnah and their followers continued to pour oil on the troubled flames, even Mohandas K. Gandhi's genius for "neighborliness"--political and personal--might not be enough.

* The militant, Hindu communal organization, which considers the Congress Party too lenient toward the Moslem League.

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