Force & Soul Force

Indians who believe in achieving their ends without resorting to violence put a great deal of faith in satyagraha, or reliance on soul force. Sometimes this takes the form of marching demonstrators who may provoke attack but won't respond to it. As a method of persuading Portugal to give up Goa, the Rhode Island-sized colony on India's west coast, satyagraha was a failure last year. So was diplomacy.

Portuguese Dictator Salazar stubbornly held on to Goa, warned that there would be no transfer to sovereignty "by peaceful means," as Prime Minister Nehru suggested. The challenge was an embarrassment to Nehru, who constantly advises other countries to settle their differences by nonviolent means, and is reported to have boasted to Red China's Chou Enlai: "Watch how we get Goa without using force." This month, as India's Independence Day approached, in the absence of any better policy towards Goa, Nehru permitted his followers to try satyagraha again.

Through the Mud. On the Goa border near the town of Banda last week while the sullen monsoon rains fell, some 60 satyagrahis, watched by a small group of foreign newsmen, unfurled India's tricolors and squashed through the mud towards Goa, shouting "Goa India ek hail" (Goa and India are one). In a stone customs post at the border were ten Portuguese and Goan policemen armed with rifles and Sten guns. Half concealed in thick bush behind them were white Portuguese and Negro soldiers from Mozambique. The satyagrahis had advanced 30 feet inside the Goa border when the Portuguese fired a burst over their heads. At once the satyagrahis, as previously instructed by their leaders, crouched down on the muddy ground. Then one woman satyagrahis jumped up and, holding the Indian flag overhead, ran forward. A second burst from the customs house brought her down. Two men satyagrahis tried to reach her, but the police shot them down and continued firing into the rest of the crouching satyagrahis.

At this point CBS Cameraman Arthur Bonner signalled the Portuguese to cease firing and walked slowly towards the customs house, his arms over his head. Bonner, in tears, brought the wounded woman back to the Indian side of the border and then, with U.P. Correspondent John Hlavacek, went out for the two men who had rushed after the woman. Indian onlookers began shouting "Please withdraw, satyagrahis, please withdraw." The satyagrahis crawled backward inch by inch until they reached Indian soil.

What happened near Banda was repeated with variations at five other points around Goa's 184-mile border with India. From the Indian town of Castle Rock, 185 satyagrahis began marching into a railroad tunnel, intending to come out within a few yards of the border, but soldiers awaiting them fired down the tunnel, killing six. At the day's end 22 satyagrahis had been killed, and scores wounded.

Communists Move In. When news of the shootings reached India, riots broke out and effigies of Salazar were hanged and burned. At this point, soul force was all but forgotten. Communists were in the forefront of the agitating, eager to cock a snoot at NATO partner Portugal. In Bombay, police fired on the rioters, wounding 85. The mob retaliated with stone-throwing, injuring 100, surged into the British High Commission building, smashed windows, manhandled the staff and demanded lowering of the Union Jack. Pakistan's office was also attacked, while 10,000 smashed up the Portuguese consulate and hoisted the Indian flag over it.

Another mob fought its way into the secretariat building of the Bombay Provincial government, shouted down Bombay Chief Minister Morarji Desai and smashed up automobiles in the secretariat courtyard before police dispelled them with rifles, tear gas and lathis (steel-tipped poles). Some 200,000 Bombay factory workers went on strike and all colleges and schools closed. In Bombay streets scores of automobiles had ripped tires, and stones were hurled at passing streetcars and trains. Hundreds of people were forced to remove their neckties "to show respect for the satyagrahis." Bombay Education Minister Dinkarrao Desai, caught by the mob, was brutally assaulted for refusing to remove his Gandhi cap.

In New Delhi, thousands paraded through rainy streets holding aloft black umbrellas and banners, shouting slogans and forcing offices, shops, restaurants, banks and movie houses to close. A mob of 100,000 paraded from New Delhi's Red Fort to Ramlila ground, where Nehru often addresses open-air meetings. But this time it was Communists who harangued them. In Calcutta and in Patna the picture was similar. With suspicious spontaneity the rioters, in many cases led by Communists, denounced the Nehru government for not backing the satyagrahis and demanded that troops be sent into Goa.

Nehru Fights Back. In the New Delhi Parliament, while mobs paraded outside, Nehru declared the Portuguese action in Goa "brutal and uncivilized," but added: "We will not be forced or hustled into what we consider wrong action . . . The Portuguese are deliberately trying to provoke us." At a specially summoned meeting of the parliamentary parties, he denounced the riots, accused opposition parties, especially the Communists, of organizing the riots deliberately to discredit him. Next day in Parliament he apologized to all foreign missions and foreign firms who had suffered, offered full compensation.

For once the India press was sharply critical of Nehru. The influential Times of India attacked him for "vacillation, contradiction and appeasement." The Bombay Free Press Journal accused the premier of "obliquely encouraging the satyagrahis with vague, irresponsible statements that satyagraha will solve the problems of Goan freedom." Many influential Indians, itching for a little direct action in Goa, were asking, "What do we spend $400 million a year on an army for?" But Nehru clung stubbornly to what he called his "basic policy of peaceful approach." He cautiously added: "Of course there may be variations."

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