No More Mischief?

The British Raj was in an appeasing mood last week. Ostensibly because "all responsible opinion in India" is determined to support the war, the Government of India (acting for the Colonial office) decided to release civil-disobedience prisoners "whose offense has been formal and symbolic." Included were gentle, scholarly Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, President of the Indian National Congress, and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, next to Mohandas K. Gandhi the most potent man in the Party.

London's Daily Telegraph & Morning Post, which usually supports the Government's India policy, expressed British Conservative opinion as follows: "These two objectors to Indian support of the war, and the hundreds of others who have been and will be released on the same grounds, are no longer regarded as having power for serious mischief." To Congressmen in India this was a fine piece of wishful thinking. They had in mind Jawaharlal's (Nehru's popular name in India) five previous, more rigorous prison terms. They knew that his opinions had not changed, that his mischief value had increased with each term he served. Cheered and garlanded with flowers when he was released from prison last week, Nehru, almost at the jail's gate, repeated that he considers India's struggle to be against the British and not against the Axis.

The British Government hoped that these releases might bring all India in line with the Raj, if only for a short time. But to the Raj, Mahatma Gandhi had some discouraging words to say: "If the Government of India were so confident of the full support of India in the war effort, the logical conclusion would be to keep the civil-disobedience prisoners in confinement. . . . The only meaning I can attach to their release, therefore, is that the Government of India expects the prisoners to change their opinion regarding their self-invited solitude. I am hoping the Government will soon be disillusioned."

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