The Fast at Yeravda Gaol Mr. Gandhi began his fast
on Tuesday in accordance with his declared intention, and though there is nothing to be said for his decision so far as it was designed as an instrument of pressure on the British Government, there does seem to be some prospect that the anxieties it has aroused among his own countrymen may result, after the eleventh hour has struck, in an understanding between Hindus and Depressed Classes. There is, unfortunately, the usual difficulty of rival leaders in both camps. It is next to impossible, for example, to decide what are the respective degrees of influence exercised by Dr. Ambedkar and Rao Bahadur M. C. Rajah as representatives of the untouchables, and to what extent their views differ, but it is already clear that Dr. Ambedkar will only accept the joint-electorate-with-reserved-seats plan, attributed to the Hindu Liberals, if the allowance of seats is abnormally generous. The British Government has, of course, from the first declared its readiness to withdraw its communal award in favour of any agreed scheme the Indian parties might adopt. The trouble is that no scheme has any chance of winning the unanimous accept- ance of either of the two parties concerned, and the Government might in the end be involved in the difficult task of deciding whether the dissidents were numerous enough to make the revision of the award in favour of some plan adopted by precarious majorities dangercius. * * * *
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