THE TASK IN INDIA
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Six,—You have written very sensibly on the " Task in India " (Spectator, May 7th). You say truly : " No advance towards self-government . . . can be taken without some element Of risk . . . But we are committed to taking that risk in India."
How very appalling is that risk will be seen from what has occurred in Bombay recently. For the second time in three years the unfortunate city has received its baptism of blood. Three and a half years ago the Coroner of Bombay said in open Court that " Bombay would shortly see rivers of blood flowing in the city streets." Three months later, in February, 1029, his words became literally true. In 1930 Sholapur followed suit, and Calcutta, Cawnpore, Benares and many other cities in 1931 saw lorries piled high with mutilated bodies and dismembered human corpses proceeding to the burning and burial grounds with their loads of sons and daughters of Mother India—Muslim and Hindu, united at last in death. To-day, Bombay once more stands aghast at this awful fratricidal fury, and the end is by no means yet. Within a few months, if present anticipations are realized, the people of Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Lahore, to take a few examples, will be responsible themselves for good order in these cities, probably with a Hindu Minister in control of the police. Unless an agreement can be reached now that will prevent the communities flying at each other's throats on the smallest provocation, then nothing can save us from happenings beside which the recent riots and murders will look like a minor incident. Anybody who pretends that a binding agreement between communities is an easy matter is a fool. It is the outstanding difficulty in India to-day, and has ever been since the fresh advance in government was contemplated. Com- munal understanding is the bed-rock upon which the new structure must be built. Mr. Gandhi may dismiss the com- munal trouble with a gesture as he dismisses every difficulty that he has failed to solve, but that only hinders progress. And for twenty years the Mahatma has done nothing but prove a hindrance to progress. To talk optimistically, as he and his Congress have always done, of this quarrel disappearing under self-government is a deception. It has intensified the nearer we have approached to self-government. The Mahatma has talked lightly about " the sacrifice of a million lives " for India's freedom. He will live to see it.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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