Day .37- JAWAHARLAL NEHRU - The Discovery of India (Continued)

C H A P T E R E I G H T

T H E L A S T P H A S E (2)

Nationalism Versus Imperialism

Helplessness of the Middle Glasses

Gandhi Comes

WORLD WAR I CAME. POLITICS WERE AT A LOW EBB, CHIEFLY Because of the split in the Congress between the two sections, the so-called extremists and the moderates, and because of war-time restrictions and regulations. Yet one tendency was marked: the rising middle class among the Moslems was growing more nationaally minded and was pushing the Moslem League towards the Congress. They even joined hands. Industry developed during the war and produced enormous dividends—100 to 200 per cent—from the jute mills of Bengal and the cotton mills of Bombay, Ahmedabad, and elsewhere. Some of these dividends flowed to the owners of foreign capital in Dundee and London, some went to swell the riches of Indian millionaires; and yet the workers who had created these dividends lived at an incredibly low level of existence—in 'filthy, disease-ridden hovels,' with no window or chimney, no light or water supply no sanitary arrangements. This near the so-called city of palaces Calcutta, dominated by British capital! In Bombay, where Indian capital was more in evidence, an inquiry commission found in one room, fifteen feet by twelve, six families, in all, thirty adults and children, living together. Three of these women were expecting a confinement soon, and each family had a separate oven in that one room. These are special cases, but they are not very exceptional. They describe conditions in the 'twenties and thirties of this century when some improvements had already been made. What these conditions were like previous to these improvements staggers the imagihation [These quotations and facts are taken from B. Shiva Rao's 'The Industrial Worker i India' (Allen and Unwin, London, 1939) which deals with labour problems and workers conditions in India.]. I remember visiting some of these slums and hovels of industrial workers, gasping for breath there, and coming out dazed and

full of horror and anger. I remember also going down a coal mine in Jharia and seeing the conditions in which our womenfolk worked there. I can never forget that picture or the shock that came to me that human beings should labour thus. Women were subsequently prohibited from working underground, but now they have been sent back there because, we are told, war needs require addi-tional labour; and yet millions of men are starving and unem-ployed. There is no lack of men, but the wages are so low and the conditions of work so bad that they do not attract.

A delegation sent by the British Trade Union Congress visited India in 1928. In their report they said that ' In Assam tea the sweat, hunger, and despair of a million Indians enter year by year.' The Director of Public Health in Bengal, in his report for 1927- 28, said that the peasantry of that province were 'taking to a dietary on which even rats could not live for more than five weeks.'

World War I ended at last, and the peace, instead of bringing us relief and progress, brought us repressive legislation and martial law in the Punjab. A bitter sense of humiliation and a passionate anger filled our people. All the unending talk of constitutional reform and Indianization of the services was a mockery and an insult when the manhood of our country was being crushed and the inexorable and continuous process of exploitation was deepening our poverty and sapping our vitality. We had become a derelict nation.

Yet what could we do, how change this vicious process? We seemed to be helpless in the grip of some all-powerful monster; our limbs were paralyzed, our minds deadened. The peasantry were servile and fear-ridden; the industrial workers were no better. The middle classes, the intelligentsia, who might have been beacon-lights in the enveloping darkness, were themselves sub-merged in this all-pervading gloom. In some ways their condition was even more pitiful than that of the peasantry. Large numbers of them, declasse intellectuals, cut off from the land and incapable of any kind of manual or technical work, joined the swelling army of the unemployed, and helpless, hopeless, sank ever deeper into the morass. A few successful lawyers or doctors or engineers or clerks made little difference to the mass. The peasant starved, yet centuries of an unequal struggle against his environment had taught him to endure, and even in poverty and starvation he had a certain calm dignity, a feeling of submission to an all-powerful fate. Not so the middle classes, more especially the new petty bourgeoisie, who had no such background. Incompletely developed and frustra-ted, they did not know where to look, for neither the old nor the new offered them any hope. There was no adjustment to social purpose, no satisfaction of doing something worthwhile, even though suffering came in its train. Custom-ridden, they were born old, yet they were without the old culture. Modern thought attracted them, but they lacked its inner content, the modern social and scientific consciousness. Some tried to cling tenaciously to the dead forms of the past, seeking relief from present misery in them. Rut there could be no relief there, for, as Tagore has said, we must not nourish in our being what is dead, for the dead is death-dealing. Others made themselves pale and ineffectual copies of the west. So, like derelicts, frantically seeking some foothold of security for body and mind and finding none, they floated aimlessly in the murky waters of Indian life.

What could we do ? How could we pull India out of this quag-mire of poverty and defeatism which sucked her in ? Not for a few years of excitement and agony and suspense, but for long genera-tions our people had offered their 'blood and toil, tears and sweat.' And this process had eaten its way deep into the body and soul of India, poisoning every aspect of our corporate life, like that fell disease which consumes the tissues of the lungs and kill slowly but inevitably. Sometimes we thought that some swifter and more obvious process, resembling cholera or the bubonic plague, would have been better; but that was a passing thought, for adventurism leads nowhere, and the quack treatment of deep-seated diseases does not yield results.

And then Gandhi came. He was like a powerful current of fresh air that made us stretch ourselves and take deep breaths; like a beam of light that pierced the darkness and removed the scales from our eyes; like a whirlwind that upset many things, but most of all the working of people's minds. He did not descend from the top; he seemed to emerge from the millions of India, speaking their language and incessantly drawing attention to them and their appal-ling condition. Get off the backs of these peasants and workers, he told us, all you who live by their exploitation; get rid of the system that produces this poverty and misery. Political freedom took new shape then and acquired a new content. Much that he said we only partially accepted or sometimes did not accept at all. But all this was secondary. The essence of his teaching was fearlessness and truth, and action allied to these, always keeping the welfare of the masses in view. The greatest gift for an individual or a nation, so we had been told in our ancient books, was abhaya (fearlessness), not merely bodily courage but the absence of fear from the mind. Janaka and Yajnavalka had said, at the dawn of our history, that it was the function of the leaders of a people to make them fearless. But the dominant impulse in India under British rule was that of fear—pervasive, oppressing, strangling fear; fear of the army, the police, the widespread secret service; fear of the official class; fear of laws meant to suppress and of prison; fear of the landlord's agent; fear of the moneylender; fear of unemployment and starva-tion, which were always on the threshold. It was against this all-pervading fear that Gandhi's quiet and determined voice was

raised: Be not afraid. Was it so simple as all that? Not quite. And yet fear builds its phantoms which are more fearsome than reality itself, and reality, when calmly analysed and its consequences willingly accepted, loses much of its terror.

So, suddenly, as it were, that black pall of fear was lifted from the people's shoulders, not wholly of course, but to an amazing degree. As fear is close companion to falsehood, so truth follows fearlessness. The Indian people did not become much more truthful than they were, nor did they change their essential nature overnight; nevertheless a sea-change was visible as the need for falsehood and furtive behavior lessened. It was a psychological change, almost as if some expert in psycho-analytical methods had probed deep into the patient's past, found out the origins of his complexes, exposed them to his view, and thus rid him of that burden. There was that psychological reaction also, a feeling of shame at our long submission to an alien rule that had degraded and humiliated us, and a desire to submit no longer whatever the consequences might be. We did not grow much more truthful perhaps than we had been previously, but Gandhi was always there as a symbol of uncompromising truth to pull us up and shame us into truth. What is truth? I do not know for certain, and perhaps our truths are relative and absolute truth is beyond us. Different persons may and do take different views of truth, and each individual is powerfully influenced by his own background, training, and impulses. So also Gandhi. But truth is at least for an individual what he himself feels and knows to be true. According to this definition I do not know of any person who holds to the truth as Gandhi does. That is a dangerous quality in a politician, for he speaks out his mind and even lets the public see its changing phases. Gandhi influenced millions of people in India in varying degrees. Some changed the whole texture of their lives, others were only partly affected, or the effect wore off; and yet not quite, for some part of it could not be wholly shaken off. Different people reacted differently and each will give his own answer to this question. Some might well say almost in the words of Alcibiades: 'Besides, when we listen to anyone else talking, however eloquent he is, we don't really care a damn what he says; but when we listen to you, or to someone else repeating what you've said, even if he puts it ever so badly, and never mind whether the person who is listening is man, woman, or child, we're absolutely staggered and bewitched. And speaking for myself, gentlemen, if I wasn't afraid you'd tell me I was completely bottled, I'd swear on oath what an extraordinary effect his words have had on me—and still do, if it comes to that. For the moment I hear him speak I am smitten by a kind of sacred rage, worse than any Corybant, and my heart jumps into my mouth and the tears start into my eyes— Oh, and not only me, but lots of other men.

'And there is one thing I've never felt with anybody else—not the kind of thing you would expect to find in me, either—and that is a sense of shame. Socrates is the only man in the world that can make me feel ashamed. Because there's no getting away from it, I know I ought to do the things he tells me to; and yet the moment I'm out of his sight I don't care what I do to keep in with the mob. So I dash off like a runaway slave, and keep out of his way as long as I can: and the next time I meet him I re-member all that I had to admit the time before, and naturally I feel ashamed....

'Yes, I have heard Pericles and all the other great orators, and very eloquent I thought they were; but they never affected me like that; they never turned my whole soul upside down and left me feeling as if I were the lowest of the low; but this latter day Maryas, here, has often left me in such a state of mind that I've felt I simply couldn't go on living the way I did.. ..

'Only I've been bitten by something much more poisonous than a snake; in fact, mine is the most painful kind of bite there is. I've been bitten in the heart, or the mind or whatever you like to call it [From 'The Five Dialogues of Plato', Everyman's Library. 360].

The Congress Becomes a Dynamic Organization under Gandhi's Leadership

Gandhi for the first time entered the Congress organization and immediately brought about a complete change in its constitution. He made it democratic and a mass organization. Democratic it had been previously also but it had so far been limited in franchise and restricted to the upper classes. Now the peasants rolled in and, in its new garb, it began to assume the look of a vast agrarian organization with a strong sprinkling of the middle classes. This agrarian character was to grow. Industrial workers also came in but as individuals and not in their separate organized capacity. Action was to be the basis and, objective of this organization, action based on peaceful methods. Thus far the alternatives had been just talking and passing resolutions, or terroristic activity. Both of these were set aside and terrorism was especially conde-mned as opposed to the basic policy of the Congress. A new technique of action was evolved which, though perfectly peaceful, yet implied non-submission to what was considered wrong and, as a consequence, a willing acceptance of the pain and suffering involved in this. Gandhi was an odd kind of pacifist, for he was an activist full of dynamic energy. There was no submission in him to fate or anything that he considered evil; he was full of resistance, though this was peaceful and courteous.

The call of action was two-fold. There was, of course, the action involved in challenging and resisting foreign rule; there was also the action which led us to fight our own social evils. Apart from the fundamental objective of the Congress—the freedom of India— and the method of peaceful action, the principal planks of the Congress were national unity, which involved the solution of the minority problems, and the raising of the depressed classes and the ending of the curse of untouchability.

Realizing that the main props of British rule were fear, prestige, the co-operation, willing or unwilling, of the people, and certain classes whose vested interests were centred in British rule, Gandhi attacked these foundations. Titles were to be given up and though the title-holders responded to this only in small measure, the popular respect for these British-given titles disappeared and they became symbols of degradation. New standards and values were set up and the pomp and splendour of the viceregal court and the princes, which used to impress so much, suddenly appeared supremely ridiculous and vulgar and rather shameful, surrounded as they were by the poverty and misery of the people. Rich men were not so anxious to flaunt their riches; outwardly at least many of them adopted simpler ways, and in their dress, became almost indistin-guishable from humbler folk.

The older leaders of the Congress, bred in a different and more quiescent tradition, did not take easily to these new ways and were disturbed by the upsurge of the masses. Yet so powerful was the wave of feeling and sentiment that swept through the country, that some of this intoxication filled them also. A very few fell away and among them was Mr. M. A. Jinnah. He left the Congress not because of any difference of opinion on the Hindu-Moslem question but because he could not adapt himself to the new and more advanced ideology, and even more so because he disliked the crowds of ill-dressed people, talking in Hindustani, who filled the Congress. His idea of politics was of a superior variety, more suited to the legislative chamber or to a committee-room. For some years he felt completely out of the picture and even decided to leave India for good. He settled down in England and spent several years there.

It is said, and I think with truth, that the Indian habit of mind is essentially one of quietism. Perhaps old races develop that attitude to life; a long tradition of philosophy also leads to it and yet Gandhi, a typical product of India, represents the very anti-thesis of quietism. He has been a demon of energy and action, a hustler, and a man who not only drives himself but drives others. He has done more than anyone I know to fight and change the quietism of the Indian people.

He sent us to the villages, and the countryside hummed with the activity of innumerable messengers of the new gospel of action. The peasant was shaken up and he began to emerge from his quiescent shell. The effect on us was different but equally far-reaching, for we saw, for the first time as it were, the villager in the intimacy of his mud-hut, and with the stark shadow of hunger always pursuing him. We learnt our Indian economics more from these visits than from books and learned discourses. The emotional experience we had already undergone was emphasized and confirmed and henceforward there could be no going back for us to our old life or our old standards, howsoever much our views might change subsequently.

Gandhi held strong views on economic, social, and other matters. He did not try to impose all of these on the Congress, though he continued to develop his ideas, and sometimes in the process varied them, through his writings. But some he tried to push into the Congress. He proceeded cautiously for he wanted to carry the people with him. Sometimes he went too far for the Congress and had to retrace his steps. Not many accepted his veiws in their entirety; some disagreed with that fundamental outlook. But many accepted them in the modified form in which they came to the Congress as being suited to the circumstances then existing. In two respects the background of his thought had a vague but considerable influence; the fundamental test of everything was how far it bene-fited the masses, and the means were always important and could not be ignored even though the end in view was right, for the means governed the end and varied it.

Gandhi was essentially a man of religion, a Hindu to the inner-most depths of his being, and yet his conception of religion had nothing to do with any dogma or custom or ritual [Gandhi told the Federation of International Fellowships in January, 1928, that 'After long study and experience I have come to these conclusions that: (1) all religions are true, (2) all religions have some error in them, (3) all religions are almost as dear to me as my own Hinduism. My veneration for other faiths is the same as for my own faith. Consequently, the thought of conversion is impossible... .Our prayer for others ought never to be: "God give them the light thou has given to me" But: "Give them all the light and truth they need for their highest development].

  It was basically concerned with his firm belief in the moral law, which he calls the law of truth or love. Truth and non-violence appear to him to be the same thing or different aspects of one and the same thing, and he uses these words almost interchangeably. Claiming to understand the spirit of Hinduism, he rejects every text or practice which does not fit in with his idealist interpretation of what it should be, calling it an interpolation or a subsequent accretion. '1 decline to be a slave,' he has said, 'to precedents or practice I cannot understand or defend on a moral basis.' And so in practice he is singularly free to take the path of his choice, to change and adapt himself, to develop his philosophy of life and action, subject only to the over-riding consideration of the moral law as he conceives this to be. Whether that philosophy is right or wrong, may be argued, but he insists on applying the same fundamental yard-stick to everything, and himself especially. In politics, as in other aspects of life, this creates difficulties for the average person, and often misunderstanding. But no difficulty makes him swerve from the straight line of his choosing, though within limits he is continually adapting himself to a changing situation. Every reform that he suggests, every advice that he gives to others, he straightway applies to himself. He is always beginning with himself and his words and actions fit into each other like a glove on the hand. And so, whatever happens, he never loses his integrity and there is always an organic completeness about his life and work. Even in his apparent failures he has seemed to grow in stature.

What was his idea of India which he was setting out to mould according to his own wishes and ideals? 'I shall work for an India in which the poorest shall feel that it is their country, in whose making they have an effective voice, an India in which there shall be no high class and low class of people, an India in which all communities shall live in perfect harmony... .There can be no room in such an India for the curse of untouchability or the curse of intoxicating drinks and drugs.... Women will enjoy the same right as men... .This is the India of my dreams.' Proud of his Hindu inheritance as he was, he tried to give to Hinduism a kind of universal attire and included all religions within the fold of truth. He refused to narrow his cultural inheritance.

'Indian culture,' he wrote, 'is neither Hindu, Islamic, nor any other, wholly. It is a fusion of all.' Again he said: 'I want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other peoples' houses as an interloper, a beggar, or a slave.' Influenced by modern thought currents, he never let go of his roots and clung to them tenaciously.

And so he set about to restore the spiritual unity of the people and to break the barrier between the small westernized group at the top and the masses, to discover the living elements in the old roots and to build upon them, to waken these masses out of their stupor and static condition and make them dynamic. In his single-track and yet many-sided nature the dominating impression that one gathered was his identification with the masses, a community of spirit with them, an amazing sense of unity with the dispossessed and poverty-stricken not only of India but of the world. Even religion, as everything else, took second place to his passion to raise these submerged people. 'A semi-starved nation can have neither religion, nor art nor organization.' 'Whatever can be useful to starving millions is beautiful to my mind. Let us give to-day first the vital things of life, and all the graces and ornaments of life will follow. ... I want art and literature that can speak to millions.' These unhappy dispossessed millions haunted him and everything seemed to revolve round them. Tor millions it is an eternal vigil or an eternal trance.' His ambition, he said, was 'to wipe every tear from every eye.'

It is not surprising that this astonishingly vital man, full of self-confidence and an unusual kind of power, standing for equal-ity and freedom for each individual, but measuring all this in terms of the poorest, fascinated the masses of India and attracted them like a magnet. He seemed to them to link up the past with the future and to make the dismal present appear just as a step-ping-stone to that future of life and hope. And not the masses only but intellectuals and others also, though their minds were often troubled and confused and the change-over for them from the habits of a lifetime was more difficult. Thus he effected a vast psychological revolution not only among those who followed his lead but also among his opponents and those many neutrals who could not make up their minds what to think and what to do.

Congress was dominated by Gandhi and yet it was a peculiar domination, for the Congress was an active, rebellious, many-sided organization, full of variety of opinion, and not easily led this way or that. Often Gandhi toned down his position to meet the wishes of others, sometimes he accepted even an adverse decision. On some vital matters for him, he was adamant, and on more than one occasion there came a break between him and the Congress. But always he was the symbol of India's independence and militant nationalism, the unyielding opponent of all those who sought to enslave her, and it was as such a symbol that people gathered to him and accepted his lead, even-though they disagreed with him on other matters. They did not always accept that lead when there was no active struggle going on, but when the struggle was inevitable that symbol became all important, and everything else was secondary.

Thus in 1920 the National Congress, and to a large extent the country, took to this new and unexplored path and came into conflict repeatedly with the British power. The conflict was inherent both in these methods and in the new situation that had arisen, yet back of all this was not political tactics and manoeuvring but the desire to strengthen the Indian people, for by that strength alone could they achieve independence and retain it. Civil disobedience struggles came one after the other, involving enormous suffering, but that suffering was self-invited and there-fore strength giving, not the kind which overwhelms the unwilling, leading to despair and defeatism. The unwilling also suffered, caught in the wide net of fierce governmental repression, and even the willing sometimes broke up and collapsed. But many remained true and steadfast, harder for all the experience they had undergone. At no time, even when its fortunes were low, did Congress surrender to superior might or submit to foreign authority. It remained the symbol of India's passionate desire for independence and her will to resist alien domination. It was because of this that vast numbers of the Indian people sympathized with it and looked to it for leadership, even though many of them were so weak and feeble, or so circumstanced, as to be unable to do anything themselves. The Congress was a party in some ways; it has also been a joint platform for several parties; but essentially it was something much more, for it represented the innermost desire of vast numbers of our people. The number of members on its rolls, large as this was, was only a feeble reflection of its widespread representative character for membership depended not on the people's desire to join but on our capacity to reach remote villages. Often (as now) we have been an illegal organisation, not existing at all in the eyes of the law, and our books and papers have been taken away by the police.

Even when there was no civil disobedience struggle going on, the general attitude of non-co-operation with the British apparatus of government in India continued, though it lost its aggressive character. That did not mean, of course, non-co-operation with Englishmen as such. When Congress governments were installed in many provinces, there was inevitably much co-operation in official and governmental work. Even then, however, that background did not change much and instructions were issued regulating the conduct of Congressmen, apart from official duties. Between Indian nationalism and an alien imperialism there could be no final peace, though temporary compromises and adjustments were sometimes inevitable. Only a free India could co-operate with England on equal terms.

Congress Governments in the Provinces

The British Parliament, after some years of commissions, committees, and debates, passed a Government of India Act in 1935. This provided for some kind of provincial autonomy and a federal structure, but there were so many reservations and checks that both political and economic power continued to be concentrated in the hands of the British Government. Indeed in some ways it confirmed and enlarged the powers of an executive responsible solely to that Government. The federal structure was so envisaged as to make any real advance impossible, and no loophole was left for the representatives of the Indian people to interfere with or modify the system of British-controlled administration. Any change or relaxation of this could only come through the British Parliament. Thus, reactionary as this structure was, there were not even any seeds in it of self-growth, short of some kind of revolutionary action. The Act strengthened the alliance between the British Government and the princes, landlords, and other reactionary elements in India; it added to the separate electorates, thus increasing the separatist tendencies; it consolidated the predominant position of British trade, industry, banking, and shipping and laid down statutory prohibitions against any interference with this position, any 'discrimination,' as it was called;['The removal of these statutory prohibitions is still fiercely resisted by representatives of British industry and trade in India. In April, 1945, a resolution demanding this removal was passed in the Central Assembly in spite of British opposition. Indian nationalism, and indeed all Indian parties and groups are strongly in favour of this removal, and of course Indian industrialists are most anxious about it. Andyet, it is significant to note that Indian businessmen in Ceylon are demanding exactly the same kind of protection in Ceylon which they rightly resent having been given to British business interests in India. Self-interest not only blinds one to justice andfair play but also to the simplest applications of logic and reason.]

 it retained in British hands complete control over Indian finance, military, and foreign affairs; it made the Viceroy even more powerful than he had been.

In the limited sphere of provincial autonomy the transfer of authority was, or appeared to be, much greater. Nevertheless, the position of a popular government was extraordinary. There were all the checks of viceregal powers and an irresponsible central authority, and even the Governor of the province, like the Viceroy, could intervene, veto, legislate on his own sole authority, and do almost anything he wanted even in direct opposition to the popular ministers and the provincial legislature. A great part of the re-venues were mortgaged to various vested interests and could not be used. The superior services and the police were protected and could hardly be touched by the ministers. They were wholly authoritarian in outlook and looked, as of old, to the Governor for guidance and not to the ministers. And yet these were the very people through whom the popular government had to function. The whole complicated structure of government remained as it was, from the Governor down to the petty official and policeman; only somewhere in the middle a few ministers, responsible to a popularly elected legislature, were thrust in to carry on as best they could. If the Governor (who represented British authority) and the services under him agreed and fully co-operated with the ministers, the apparatus of government might function smoothly. Otherwise—and this was much more likely, as the policy and methods of a popular government differed entirely from the old authoritarian police-state ways—there was bound to be continuous friction. Even when the Governor or the services were not openly at variance with or disloyal to the policy of the popular government, they could obstruct, delay, pervert, and undo what that Government did or wished to do. In law there was nothing to prevent the Governor and the Viceroy from acting as they liked, even in active opposition to the ministry and the legislature; the

'The removal of these statutory prohibitions is still fiercely resisted by representatives of British industry and trade in India. In April, 1945, a resolution demanding this removal was passed in the Central Assembly in spite of British opposition. Indian nationalism, and indeed all Indian parties and groups are strongly in favour of this removal, and of course Indian industrialists are most anxious about it. Andyet, it is significant to note that Indian businessmen in Ceylon are demanding exactly the same kind of protection in Ceylon which they rightly resent having been given to British business interests in India. Self-interest not only blinds one to justice andfair play but also to the simplest applications of logic and reason.

only real check was fear of conflict. The ministers might resign, no others could command a majority in the legislature, and popular upheavals might follow. It was the old constitutional conflict between an autocratic king and parliament which had so often taken place elsewhere, leading to revolutions and the suppression of the king. Here the king was in addition a foreign authority, supported by foreign military and economic power and the special interests and lap-dog breed it had created in the country.

About this time also Burma was separated from India. In Burma there had been a conflict between British and Indian and, to some extent, Chinese, economic and commerical interests. It had therefore been British policy to encourage anti-Indian and anti-Chinese sentiments among the Burmese people. This policy was helpful for sometimes, but when it was joined on to a denial of freedom to the Burmese, it resulted in creating the power-ful pro-Japanese movements in Burma which came to the surface when the Japanese attacked in 1942.

The Act of 1935 was bitterly opposed by all sections of Indian opinion. While the part dealing with provincial autonomy was severely criticized for its many reservations and the powers given to the Governors and the Viceroy, the federal part was even more resented. Federation as such was not opposed and it was generally recognized that a federal structure was desirable for India, but the proposed federation petrified British rule and vested interests in India. Only the provincial autonomy part of it was applied and the Congress decided to contest elections. But the question whe-ther responsibility for provincial governments should be under-taken, within the terms of the Act, led to fierce debate within the Congress. The success of the Congress in the elections was over-whelming in most of the provinces, but still there was hesitation in accepting ministerial responsibility unless it was made clear that there would be no interference by the Governor or Viceroy. After some months vague assurances were given to this effect and Congress governments were established in July, 1937. Ultimately there were such governments in eight of the eleven provinces, the three remaining ones being Sind, Bengal, and Punjab. Sind was a small, newly-created, and rather unstable province. In Bengal the Congress had the largest single party in the legislature, but as it was not in a majority, it did not participate in the Government. Bengal (or rather, Calcutta) being the principal headquarters of British capital in India, the European commercial element has been given astonishingly heavy representation. In numbers they are a mere handful (some thousands) and yet they have been given twenty-five seats as compared to the fifty seats for the general non-Moslem population consisting of about seventeen millions (apart from the scheduled castes) of the whole province. This British group in the legislature thus plays an important part in Bengal,politics and can make or unmake ministries.

The Congress could not possibly accept the Act of 1935 as even a temporary solution of the Indian problem. It was pledged to independence and to combat the Act. Yet a majority had decided to work provincial autonomy. It had thus a dual policy: to carry on the struggle for independence and at the same time to carry through the legislatures constructive measures of reform. The agrarian question especially demanded immediate attention.

The question of Congressmen joining other groups to form coalition governments was considered, although there was no necessity for this as the Congress had clear majorities. Still it was desirable to associate as many people as possible in the work of government. There was nothing inherently wrong about coali-tions at all times, and indeed some form of coalition was agreed to in the Frontier Province and in Assam. As a matter of fact, the Congress itself was a kind of coalition or joint front of various groups tied together by the dominating urge for India's inde-pendence. In spite of this variety within its fold, it had developed a discipline, a social outlook, and a capacity to offer battle in its own peaceful way. A wider coalition meant a joining up with people whose entire political and social outlook was different, and who were chiefly interested in office and ministerships. Conflict was inherent in the situation, conflict with the repre-sentatives of British interests—the Viceroy, the Governor, the superior services; conflict also with vested interests in land and industry over agrarian questions and workers' conditions. The non-Congress elements were usually politically and socially con-servative; some of them were pure careerists. If such elements enter-ed government, they might tone down our whole social programme, or at any rate obstruct and delay it. There might even be intrigues with the Governor over the heads of the other ministers. A joint front against British authority was essential. Any breach in this would be harmful to our cause. There would have been no binding cement, no common loyalty, no united objective, and individual ministers would have looked and pulled in different directions.

Our public life naturally included many who could be called politicians and nothing more, careerists, both in the good and bad sense of the word. There were able, earnest, and patriotic men and women, as well as careerists, both in the Congress and in other organizations. But the Congress had been, ever since 1920, something much more than a constitutional political party, and the breath of revolutionary action, actual or potential, sur-rounded it and often put it outside the pale of the law. The fact that this action was not connected with violence, secret intrigue, and conspiracy, the usual accompaniments of revolutionary activity, did not make it any the less revolutionary. Whether it was right or wrong, effective or not, may be an arguable matter, but it is manifest that it involved cold-blooded courage and endurance of a high order. Perhaps it is easier to indulge in short violent spurts of courage, even unto death, than to give up, under the sole compulsion of one's own mind, almost everything that life offers and carry on in this way day after day, month after month, year after year. That is a test which few can survive anywhere and it is surprising that so many in India have stood it successfully..

The Congress parties in the legislatures were anxious to pass legislative measures in favour of the peasants and workers as soon as possible before some crisis overwhelmed them. That sense of impending crisis was always present; it was inherent in the situation. In nearly all the provinces there were second chambers elected on a very limited franchise and thus represent-ing vested interests in land and industry. There were also other checks to progressive legislation. Coalition governments would add to all these difficulties and it was decided not to have them •to begin with, except in Assam and the Frontier.

This decision was itself by no means final and the possibility of change was kept in view, but rapidly developing circum-stances made any change more difficult and the Congress governments in the provinces became entangled in the numerous problems that urgently demanded solution. In subsequent years there has been much argument about the wisdom of that decsiion and opinions have differed. It is easy to be wise after the event, but I am still inclined to think that politically, and situated as we were then, it was a natural and logical decision for us. Never-theless it is true that the consequences of it on the communal question were unfortunate and it led to a feeling of grievance and isolation among many Moslems. This played into the hands of reactionary elements who utilized it to strengthen their own position among certain groups.

Politically and constitutionally, the new Act and the establish-ment of Congress governments in the provinces made no vital difference to the British structure of government. Real power remained where it had so long been. But the psychological change was enormous and an electric current seemd to run through the countryside. This change was noticeable more in the rural areas than in the cities, though in the industrial centres the workers also reacted in the same way. There was a sense of immense relief as of the lifting of a weight which had been oppressing the people; there was a release of long-suppressed mass energy which was evident everywhere. The fear of the police and secret service vanished for a while at least and even the poorest peasant added to his feeling of self-respect and self-reliance. For the first time he felt that he counted and could not be ignored. Government was no longer an unknown and intangible monster, separated from him by innumerable layers of officials, whom he could not easily approach and much less influence, and who were bent on extracting as much out of him as possible. The seats of the mighty were now occupied by men he had often seen and heard and talked to; sometimes they had been in prison together and there was a feeling of comradeship between them.

At the headquarters of the provincial governments, in the very citadels of the old bureaucracy, many a symbolic scene was witnessed. These provincial secretariats, as they were called, where all the high offices were congregated, had been the holy of holies of government, and out of them issued mysterious orders which none could challenge. Policemen and red-liveried orderlies, with shining daggers thrust in their waistbands, guarded the precincts, and only those who were fortunate or greatly daring or had a long purse, could pass them. Now, suddenly, hordes of people, from the city and the village, entered these sacred precincts and roamed about almost at will. They were interested in everything; they went into the Assembly Chamber, where the sessions used to be held; they even peeped into the Ministers' rooms. It was difficult to stop them for they no longer felt as outsiders; they had a sense of ownership in all this, although it was all very complicated for them and difficult to understand. The policemen and orderlies with shining daggers were paralysed; the old standards had fallen; European dress, symbol of position and authority, no longer counted. It was difficult to distinguish between members of the legislatures and the peasants and townsmen who came in such large numbers. They were often dressed more or less alike, mostly in handspun cloth with the well-known Gandhi cap on their heads.

It had been very different in the Punjab and in Bengal where ministries had come into existence several months earlier. There had been no impasse there and the change-over had taken place quietly without ruffling the surface of life in any way. In the Punjab especially the old order continued and most of the ministers were not new. They had been high officials previously and they continued to be so. Between them and the British administration there was no conflict or sense of tension, for politically that administration was supreme.

This difference between the Congress provinces and Bengal and Punjab was immediately apparent in regard to civil liberties and political prisoners. In both Bengal and Punjab there was no relaxation of the police and secret service raj, and political prisoners were not released. In Bengal, where the ministry often depended on European votes, there were in addition thousands of detenus, that is, men and women kept indefinitely for years and years in prison without charge or trial. In the Congress provinces, however, the very first step taken was the release of political prisoners. In regard to some of these, who had been convicted for violent activities, there was delay because of the Governor's refusal to agree. Matters came to a head early in 1938 over this issue and two of the Congress Governments (United Provinces and Bihar) actually offered their resignations. There-upon the Governor withdrew his objections and the prisoners were released.