| GOVERNMENT'S REPLY TO GANDHI'S LETTER Feb 8th 2022, 00:32 WE are constrained to say that the communique which the Government of India has issued in reply to Mahatma Gandhi's letter to the Viceroy is disappointing. It begins by complaining of certain alleged misstatements contained in Mahatma Gandhi's letter. The first of these has reference to the sequence of events. It is true, as the Government of India points out, that the decision to adopt a programme of civil disobedience was finally accepted on the 4th November before the recent notifications relating either to the Seditious Meetings Act or the Criminal Law Amendment Act were issued. It is true, though the Government itself does not refer to this fact, that this was largely due to the original blunder of fixing a date for the attainment of Swaraj, on which it has been our painful duty to comment again and again, and which the Congress itself has now rectified. But while this may be admitted, it is difficult to see the point of the Government of India's complaint. So far from forgetting or overlooking the Delhi decision, Mahatma Gandhi actually begins by referring to it. The clear meaning of his words is that after the Bombay riots, the decision arrived at in Delhi would have been kept in abeyance, but for the simultaneous adoption of repressive measures of a virulent type in several provinces. The Government is free to doubt how long the decision would in reality have remained in abeyance, but it is not in its power to controvert the statement itself. The second alleged misstatement is that the recent measures of the Government have involved a departure from the civilised policy laid down by His Excellency at the time of the apology of the Ali brothers, namely, that the Government of India should not interfere with the activities of non-co-operators so long as they remained non-violent in word or deed. |
