THE RELEASE OF GANDHI

...The Raj still rules a larger area of bondage than any that lies today beneath the Nazi yoke...

...For the tide of Indian feeling has now mounted to the flood, and the flow of that tide can no more be stayed than the ocean could be stayed by Canute...

...As long as he has strength to stand and voice to speak, he will labor for India's freedom...

...Britain was losing not a moment in taking advantage of Gandhi's condition to enlist him in the war effort for the Empire...

...Yes—if not in the emancipation of India at the close of this war as a part of the peace dictated by an aroused democratic mind, then in an emancipation won in the "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" of a third World War, in which all Asiatic peoples will join with India against the imperialistic West...

...And so, as under some magic touch, the key turned, and the gates swung open...

...It is "liberty or death...

...Hence Gandhi's power—a power never so strong as at this moment, for example, when he seems most frail...

...So just as soon as he gathers strength again, he will gather his followers about him, and the old work will then go on...

...He accepted no conditions, when he was granted release...

...Nothing is more important for statesmen, and indeed for people generally, than knowledge of when a fateful hour has struck...

...Had he himself been strong and well, he would have been shown no mercy...

...The chances are, if his health is regained, that Gandhi will be arrested promptly, and the old story begun again...

...Gandhi is not the man to bargain— least of all to purchase his own freedom at the price of the abandonment of his life's purpose...

...In prison or out, the Mahatma is still the master...

...Conspicuous among these, indeed chief among them all, is Jawahar-lal Nehru, the destined successor of Gandhi as the leader of India's cause of independence, and already a statesman of unchallenged authority not only in his own country but in the world at large...

...That Gandhi would have anything to do with rallying his people to war is of course utterly inconceivable...

...If he gets well, he will enter into no retirement from public affairs...

...Here wege spiritual factors more potent in influence than all the arms and fetters of the greatest empire on earth...

...So long as this distinguished and beloved man, together with thousands of his associates, is held in prison, without indictment, trial, or conviction for any known offense, the British Raj in India remains what it is—a repressive despotism ruling a subject people by no right other than that of force...

...In him there marches to triumph the liberty for which India yearns and prays...

...Such reversals of attitude, to be sure, lie well within the measure of most of our public men today...

...Everything that comes out of India is passed, or much more likely prompted, by officialdom...

...Stories of this kind are manufactured out of whole cloth, for purposes easily apparent...

...And then, if needs be, in still another war, assuming that mankind can survive such struggles...

...Has not his pacifism long since been made manifest...

...Yet I am not fooling myself with any silly sentimentalism over this action of the British Government in India...

...If we would keep our minds clear on this issue, there are certain things to be remembered: Thus, in the first place, Gandhi was released from his Poena prison-house because he was grievously ill, and the British Government in India did not want to have him die on their hands...

...But not of Gandhi...

...That in him there moves a land, a culture, a people, to keep a "rendezvous with destiny...

...Secondly, there remain in prison today in India, on the same charge and under the same conditions, not hundreds but literally thousands of the most important leaders of Indian thought and life...

...That, if his betrayal of a lifetime's conviction were possible, he would turn to the military support of an empire which for nearly two centuries has been exploiting and browbeating his countrymen, is equally inconceivable...

...His release is a phase of that cat-and-mouse method of procedure which Great Britain has made so famous, and so infamous, in modern political life...

...For the stars in their courses fight against the Raj...

...There is no change of heart here— no alteration in a situation which is the scandal of Britain and the United Nations...

...And the Mahatma, an old man, stricken with malaria and-in danger of death...

...Thirdly, Gandhi is himself free only on sufferance...

...in scientific language, they are lies...

...Right here is the historic explanation of Mahatma Gandhi...

...What is done, or not done, for India at the close of this war, will be the touchstone of the success or failure of the war...

...Britain is here taking a leaf out of Hitler's book —telling lies which she hopes may be big enough to be believed by an amazed public opinion...

...Had Gandhi been a common citizen, or one among many ordinary political leaders, he would have been left to languish behind the bars...

...This was a momentary release as well for the Allied cause, which nowhere could be regarded with any seriousness or supported with any hope so long as the Mahat-ma was denied his liberty...

...For the logic of man's fate is inexorable...

...In polite language, they are propaganda...

...The release of Gandhi, like the original imprisonment a mere arbitrary gesture of official authority, is in reality only evidence in reverse, so to speak, of tyranny...

...Such knowledge should be ours today—that the hour for India has struck...

...That the Mahatma is greater than himself...

...How long Britain will tolerate this resumption of his national leadership will be interesting to discover...

...There is no tighter censorship in the world than that which binds India today...

...Cat-And-Mouse Game But it was the great Mahatma who was on Britain's hands—a man more deeply reverenced by a larger mass of people than any individual alive in the world today...

...Is there no end to this story...

...For Gandhi, we may be sure, will be allowed at large only so long as he behaves himself—i.e., only so long as he is ill, and thus unable to continue agitation and activity for the emancipation of his country from alien rule...

...Therefore, when within two days of Gandhi's release, there appeared in our newspapers the cabled dispatch that the Mahatma was expected soon to see the Viceroy, to discuss with him the question of the mobilization of the Indian people for the war against Japan, we knew exactly what to think...

...It is this that the Indian masses have felt in Gandhi from the beginning, and now feel more poignantly than ever in his old age...

...For when the hour of a nation's liberty has come, there appears invariably a man who incarnates within his genius and example the spirit of the time...

...For what is not done, in terms of liberty, will remain to be done in another and more disastrous war...

...Still The Master Such is one more chapter of the story of Britain in India...

...Not because of, but in spite of, the will of Britain, was Gandhi freed...

...Why therefore should we be impressed by a so-called act of grace which may thus at any moment be turned into new tyranny ? Borrowing From Hitler Lastly, as evidence of the sinister significance of this episode, there is the propaganda use of it which was instantly made by the British authorities...