Intransigent Mr. Gandhi
It is really very difficult to deal with Mr. Gandhi. Lord Halifax managed it when he was Viceroy, but his successors have found the task baffling, as is not surprising when it is a question of bringing a visionary down to ground on which prac- tical decisions must be taken. The conversations between Lord Linlithgow and the Mahatma, who is once more speaking for Congress, have broken down because Mr. Gandhi claimed the liberty for Indians not merely to refrain individually from taking part in the war-effort, but actually to conduct platform-cam- paigns against it. That is more than the representative of an Empire fighting for its very existence could conceivably con- cede, so the Linlithgow-Gandhi conversations have left things where they were. Where that is no one can very easily say. Congress is strongly anti-Nazi in sympathy (as well it may be in view of the possible menace to India involved in the new tri- partite pact), but it declines to translate its anti-Nazi sympathies into any form of anti-Nazi action. The Moslem League emphati- cally supports the Government in its war-effort, but it will nor accept the Viceroy's invitation to its representatives to join his Executive Council because it is not assured of complete equality with Congress—a question which, in fact, does not arise, since Congress for other reasons declines the invitation too. It is a deplorable situation, which will not be ended till a majority of moderate men of all parties in India realise that unless Nazism is defeated India will have no future to argue about; its fate will be settled summarily without any argument at all. Mean- while a visit to India by Mr. Amery might do good and could certainly not do harm.
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