Between
the Roy* and the Viceroy there is this difference: The Earl of
Willingdon on his throne at Delhi can initiate action, decree the most
drastic measures—in short, can rule. Last week the return to India of
Mahatma Gandhi gave the Viceroy a chance to seem every inch a king.
When Mr. Gandhi begged audience by telegram to discuss Lord
Willingdon’s recent ordinance suppressing free speech, freedom
of assembly
and virtually all civil rights in Bengal , he received
from the Viceregal court the telegraphic answer: “. . . His
Excellency feels bound to emphasize that he will not be prepared to
discuss with you the measures which the Government of India, with the
full approval of His Majesty’s Government, have found it necessary to
adopt in Bengal, the United Provinces and the North-west Frontier
Province. . . .” In Bombay the Viceregal telegram was publicly
called “insulting” by President Vallabhai Patel of the
Gandhite Indian National Congress. Other Gandhites shouted: “This
means war!” Squatting in his little tent pitched atop a Bombay
tenement house, the Mahatma meditated half the night. Then loyal
followers heard the scratch, scratch of his pen as he wrote to the
Viceroy: “You demand co-operation from the Congress without
returning any on behalf of the Government. … I can read in no other
way your peremptory refusal to discuss the ordinances. . . . The Congress
must resist with its prescribed creed of non-violence such
measures of legalized terrorism as have been imposed in various
provinces.” Next morning Disciple Madeline Slade, daughter of a
deceased British Admiral, hastily washed all the Mahatma’s loin cloths,
so that he might not lack fresh ones in jail. Meanwhile leading British
and Indian merchants and businessmen peppered the Viceregal Court with
telegrams, cables. They reminded Lord Willingdon that Mahatma
Gandhi’s arrest would mean a trade loss of millions of dollars to the
Empire, since it would unquestionably provoke a fresh Indian boycott
of British goods. Even the Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal
Opposition, George Lansbury, successor to James Ramsay MacDonald as
Parliamentary Leader of the Labor Party, cabled from London to the
Viceroy: “Many friends are profoundly disturbed by your refusal to
discuss the working of the ordinances with Gandhi . . . should be
treated as one whose advice and goodwill on all matters should be
considered.” The Viceroy’s next act was 100% kingly. He ordered
the Government of Bombay to arrest Mr. Gandhi in the dead of night
and lodge him before dawn in Yerovda Jail near Poona, where the
Mahatma had twice before been imprisoned . At 3 a. m.
Police Commissioner Wilson, Inspector Hirst and two strapping Indian
policemen climbed the tenement stairs, approached the tent with-in
which Mr. Gandhi was sleeping, bearing a warrant arresting the
Mahatma “for good and sufficient reasons.” Under a century-old
ordinance enacted in the reign of King George IV. 50 years before
Britain became an Empire, Prisoner Gandhi was to be lodged in jail for
an indefinite term “during the pleasure of the Government.” “Bapoo, Bapoo!” cried Miss Slade softly, awakening the
Mahatma by his pet name. “The police are here.” As it was
Bapoo’s day of silence, he received the warrant of arrest with a silent
nod and smile,
