INDIA: New Lamps for Old

The twelve members of India’s pre-independence government trooped dutifully down to New Delhi’s “Untouchables Colony” last week. They were reporting to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the unseen presence in the councils of the new regime, what the first weeks of Indian sovereignty added up to. They had:

¶ Constituted themselves a cabinet with joint governmental responsibility with the British Viceroy.

¶ Appointed their own U.N. delegates.

¶ Ordered cessation of the British bombing of villages on the North West Frontier.

¶ Debated immediate end of the salt tax, which has upped the cost of salt 400%.

¶ Announced a strongly nationalist trade policy, advocating protective tariffs, insisting on free access to Western goods, capital and technical skill.

Before they took office, Gandhi had counseled the ministers on domestic conduct: do not keep a large retinue of servants; make women do housework; “I am sure that no leader will hesitate to clean his own lavatory.” Now he questioned each minister closely about the workings of his department, and made practical suggestions to which his spiritual authority gave the weight of a military command. One minister reported that the Mahatma “is keen for industrial progress.”

Riots & famine. The new government faced even more pressing problems. In Bengal and Madras provinces, acute food shortages threatened to produce isolated pockets of starvation, while Moslem outbreaks (minor but persistent) and strike-crippled rail system threatened to paralyze transportation. Last week, even the hope’ of aid from abroad was deferred: the U.S. shipping strike (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) had tied up 225,000 tons of wheat; Siam failed to deliver any of its promised rice shipments; Indonesia delivered but a few thousand tons of the promised 700,000 tons of paddy (unmilled rice).

Indian leaders sadly admitted the difficulties. Said External Affairs Minister Jawaharlal Nehru: “What are we aiming at? Freedom? Yes. Higher standards? Yes. But we are ultimately aiming at feeding, clothing, housing, educating and providing better health conditions for 400,000,000.” Said Gandhi: “If Hindus and Moslems must fight, let them be brave and fight it out amongst themselves.” He was geometrically hopeful: “Euclid’s line is one without breadth, but no one has been able to draw it and never will. All the same, it is only by keeping the ideal line in mind that we have made progress in geometry.”

Mohamed AH Jinnah (whose Moslem League is boycotting the new government) was less ambiguous. Said he suggestively: “The Russians have more than a spectator’s interest. . . . They are not very far from India.”