Sta,—I should like to support the position set forth in
your issue of August 21st in the letter of .Mr. Carl Heath. His plea for the calling of a conference seems to me to point out the only way of hope for the future ; on tactical grounds alone it would seem to be worthy of the serious consideration of the Government. As Mr. Gandhi said to his judge on the occasion of his first trial and imprisonment, "You may confine this frail body within prison walls but you can never restrict my spirit" ; he might have added his influence, for certain it is that whenever the Government has imprisoned Mr. Gandhi his sway over the minds and actions of the many millions of Indians who revere him (if they do not all follow him in all his social and political convictions)
has been immensely increased. One would have expected that by now even the unimaginative India Office would have learnt that fact.
But of course the real tragedy is far graver than that of a mere tactical error on the part of a harassed Government. Mr. Gandhi's unique influence is due to his spiritual qualities: it was those which led Kagawa instinctively to kneel before him when first they met: it was those which impelled Dr. Johh Mott to address him as "a conscience for' mankind ": his leadership (however mistaken it may be), is based on spiritual forces: to do God's will as he understands it is his dominant desire (even though his God is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ): his supreme demand of Britain is freedom—the ideal which Britain has taught India to desire and for which we are staking all we have in the present war. Yet that man is imprisoned by order of the Government of India, with the approval of the British Govern- ment, and the Whipping Act is brought into force. Is all this the action of a British or a Nazi Government? Whilst realising something of the perplexity of the problem with which the Government is faced, and despite deep sympathy with the Viceroy and Mr. Amery in a situation which obviously baffles them, one cannot escape a sense of shame that one's country,—officially Christian, as Mr. Carl Heath points out—should be committed to such action before the eyes of the world.
Without considering prestige or laying down any preliminary condi- tions, let the Goveptment reopen negotiations with Indian leaders of all parties, in prison and without: in that direction alone lies Christian statesmanship and the hope of an Indian settlement.—I am, faithfully
yours, G. E. HICKMAN JOHNSON,
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