Mobs, Toddy, Scotch Bankers

Battles, riots and bloodshed broke through the tense surface of Indian affairs last week to show the world what depths the non-violent campaign of St. Gandhi for Indian independence is stirring (TIME, Jan. 6). At Karachi, busy modern seaport on the Arabian Sea, a mob of 10,000, yelling, waving flags, throwing stones, swept down on the courthouse where six non-violent followers of Mahatma Gandhi were on trial for violating the British salt laws. British police rifles fired volleys point-blank into the crowd before the yelling, rushing wave of rioters dispersed. One native was killed, 33 were wounded, in- cluding two British police sergeants.

At Chittagong, a Bengal river port on the other side of India, a well organized band of armed raiders swept down on the town at nightfall, cut all telegraph wires, gutted the police armories and telephone building, fled to the hills. Seven were killed: two Europeans, two native police, three innocent-bystanding taxicab drivers.

Meanwhile in Jalalpur, Bombay, Mrs. Gandhi, elderly wife of the Mahatma, urged crowds of Indian women to picket and boycott liquor stores, foreign cloth shops.

''Only yesterday the Mahatma said." she cried in her shrill voice, " 'Women should play a greater part in our non-violent fight than men, for women are the incarnation of non-violence!' We women must go into the forests and uproot all the palm trees. Toddy* is the ruin of Mother India."

Swept with enthusiasm, a chorus of ladies followed Mrs. Gandhi to all the toddy shops of Jalalpur, singing sad and doleful songs of the evils of drink.

From Peshawar, on India's northern frontier, last week, two Scotch bankers, J. L. Hutcheson and J. V. Dunsmore of the Imperial Bank of India, motored out with an escort of a native sergeant and two soldiers to see the sunrise from the top of the Khyber Pass. Enraged by the sight of two Scotchmen looking at the Indian sun, the Indian sergeant ran amok, shot and killed both the Scotch bankers, was killed himself by the two Indian privates. Peshawar officials hastened to deny that the frenzied Indian sergeant was connected with the placid St. Gandhi movement.

*Toddy: fermented palm juice wine, not unlike Mexican pulque (cactus wine).

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