EMERSON’S NOTE ON INTERVIEW WITH GANDHIJI

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

EMERSON’S NOTE ON INTERVIEW WITH GANDHIJI

 

 

I had a talk for about three hours with Mr. Gandhi this evening relating to difficulties arising out of the settlement. I made it clear throughout that any opinions which I expressed were my own and not those of Government. Mr. Gandhi first mentioned the points he desired to bring to the notice of Government which were as follows:

(a) He mentioned the case of the Raja of Kalakanker in which according to the A.P.I. message, elephants, motors, etc., had been attached for arrears of land revenue. He stated that he did not himself know the facts of the case, but did know that the Raja was a Congress sympathizer. He had, he said, written to ascertain the facts. I said that Government had no information, but that I personally thought it probable that the attachment had been made in the ordinary course of land revenue administration and that, if this was so, the settlement did not of course affect cases of this kind, since the revenue administration must pursue its normal course. I promised to ascertain the facts.

(b) He next mentioned a case that occurred some months ago in the district of Colaba in connection with forest satyagraha, when in the course of a riot a Mamlatdar was accidentally shot by the police. The case, he said, was now under trial in the Sessions Court, to which it had been committed. According to his information no provocation had been given by the accused and some of them certainly had not committed actual violence. He suggested that the case against those accused, at any rate, should be withdrawn. I told him that I had not seen the papers for some months; but my recollection was that the case was one of serious violence in which the police had had considerable difficulty in escaping and that, so far as I remembered, one or two forest guards had been killed. I explained that this was not a case which we could possibly represent to the local Government and that, in so far as the Government and Congress versions differed, the Court would decide.

(c) He then got on to the question of whether offences under Section 124-A, Indian Penal Code, and 108, Criminal Procedure Code came within the terms of the amnesty. His contention was that all such cases did come within it and that offences involving incitement to violence should only be regarded as exceptions, if the result of the incitement had been actual violence. He also urged that where the incitement has not resulted in violence it should be regarded as technical. I explained to him that, so far as I was concerned, there was no room for misunderstanding, since when technical violence was included in the amnesty the intention was made quite clear, and I mentioned the illustration that had been given when the settlement was being discussed, namely, that convictions for rioting would have to be examined on their merits and that, while a trivial fracas might properly be regarded as coming within the term “technical violence”, a serious riot could not be so regarded and that all persons who were concerned in it whether they had been guilty of actual violence or not would be excluded from the amnesty. He admitted that this was so, but said that he had not realized that Section 124-A, Indian Penal Code, and Section 108, Criminal Procedure Code, would come within the exceptions. I explained that, under both the sections, there were cases in which persons had been prosecuted for speeches which included incitement to serious violence and that, while it could not always, or indeed ordinarily be said that the direct result was violence, there was no doubt that speeches of this sort had gained recruits to the terrorist movement and so had been indirectly responsible for violence. In any case the criterion of actual violence had not been adopted. I said that the matter was not one merely of interpretation but of great practical importance, and I took the opportunity of stating to him the position in the Punjab and in Delhi. I mentioned the meetings in Lahore and in Amritsar, the general campaign there had been in favour of Bhagat Singh and violence generally, and the apprehensions of the local Government that a serious situation would arise. I told him that I had just received a letter from the Punjab Government giving accounts for speeches made by Dr. Satyapal and Sardul Singh Kaveeshar, both of whom were members of the Working Committee. I said that the local Government had held its hands in the desire to avoid action which was likely to prejudice the settlement, that we had told them that, while the Government of India naturally hope that the necessity of action would not arise, we did not desire to fetter their discretion if circumstances so required, and that it was no part of the settlement that action should not be taken under the ordinary law against persons who violated it. Mr. Gandhi agreed that this was so. I then mentioned the case of Delhi, told him of the meeting in honour of Chandra Shekhar Azad and the concern of the Chief Commissioner, Delhi, and of the Deputy Commissioner that the situation might deteriorate, and that it might be necessary to prohibit meetings. I said that we were anxious if possible to avoid resort to the Seditious Meetings Act, but that we could not allow a situation of danger to arise, and that, if excitement grew, we might have no alternative; but in that case we would, so far as possible, restrict the use of the Act to meetings in support of violence. I then asked him if he had seen in the papers that the Governor-General in Council had rejected the petition for mercy on behalf of Bhagat Singh. He said that he had and that he was apprehensive regarding the consequences. I did not mention the date on which the execution would be carried out, but I did explain to him that the question as to whether it should take place before or after the Karachi Congress had been very seriously considered by Government who realized the difficulties of either course, but thought it would have been unfair to the condemned persons to postpone execution and also not fair to Gandhi to allow the impression to gain ground that commutation was under consideration when this was not the case. He agreed that of the two alternatives it is better not to wait, but he suggested, though not seriously, that the third course of commutation of the sentence would have been better still. He did not seem to me to be particularly concerned about the matter. I told him that we should be lucky if we got through without disorder, and I asked him to do all that he could to prevent meetings being held in Delhi during the next few days and to restrain violent speeches. He promised to do what he could. I then applied these facts to the matter under discussion, namely, inclusion of all cases under Section 124-A, Indian Penal Code, and Section 108, Criminal Procedure Code, in the amnesty. I explained that we could not possibly approach local Governments with a suggestion of this kind in present conditions. The violence sic movement was serious menace with which we could not afford to trifle, and that, before we could even think of making a suggestion of this kind, there must be a cessation of the campaign of violence and of incitement thereto. He argued that to keep persons convicted of such offences in jail increased rather than lessened the danger by embittering feeling and he said that he would himself like an understanding by which all persons convicted before the amnesty under Section 124-A, Indian Penal Code, and 108, Criminal Procedure Code, were released while no quarter was given, in regard to prosecutions, to persons who preached violence in future. He said that Government’s interpretation of the settlement on this point placed him in a difficult position and he would like to consider it further. The matter was left in this position, but I said that I did not think the Government could possibly alter its position in this respect.

(d) He mentioned two specific cases under Section 124-A and Section 108, namely, that of the two Delhi women and of a Professor Kripalani in the United Provinces. I said that the former had been carefully examined and that it had been definitely considered that it did not come within the amnesty. In regard to Professor Kripalani, he said that he was sure that he had said nothing in his speeches which incited to violence. I said that I would ascertain the facts from the United Provinces Government. At the same time, however, I was able to give him facts and figures of the action taken by the United Provinces Government which, he admitted, showed that that Government had acted in a very liberal spirit.

(e) He then mentioned Sholapur cases and said that, so far as he knew, no prisoners of Sholapur had been released. I said that the position in regard to Sholapur was the same as in all other cases, namely, that the test was violence or incitement to violence not being technical violence and that subject to this test there was no distinction, whether convictions were in the civil or military courts. I said that the matter was necessarily one for the discretion of the local Government and that, while I imagined they would naturally take a serious view of offences connected with the outbreaks of violence, they would not exclude from the amnesty persons convicted of breaches of Martial Law regulations, etc., where no question of violence or incitement thereto arises. I promised to ascertain the position from the local Government.

(f) He then raised the question of additional police. He said that he had received complaints regarding realization of cost after the 5th of March. I said I thought it very improbable that any such cases had occurred, but would ascertain the facts if he mentioned specific cases. He asked that, where realization had been made after the 5th owing to non-receipt of orders by District Authorities, the sums collected should be refunded. I said that I thought this was reasonable. I again made it clear to him that it has always been contemplated that some delay is likely to occur in the withdrawal of additional police, and that local Governments would wait until satisfied that conditions had become normal. He agreed that this was the understanding.

2. I then mentioned various matters which from the Government point of view were causing difficulty and misunderstanding.

(a) I first mentioned the question of the boycott of Indian mills by a system under which Congress placed on a black list those mills whose agents did not sign an agreement. I said that the principle on which Government stood was that the encouragement of Indian industries shoud not involve interference with the freedom of action of the individual and that my own view was that a system which involved placing a mill on a black list which did not take a certain course necessarily involved coercion amounting almost to blackmail, and further that any pressure on the consumer (which went beyond persuasion) to induce him to boycott the products of a mill was a breach of the settlement. I also expressed the opinion that a mill, which was placed on a black list, would have civil action for damages. Mr. Gandhi said that it was not the intention to use methods other than persuasion either with the manufacturer or consumer, but he regarded it as justifiable propaganda to let customers know that particular mills did not observe the swadeshi creed. I explained that the Directors and Agents of mills definitely objected to a boycott list as amounting to coercion and that, while, so far as I knew, they did not object to persuasion, they did most strongly object to the methods employed in the past. I said that, while I did not know the view of Government on the subject, they might not object to certificates to be used for purposes of advertisement to mills, which adopted swadeshi creed, and to the replacement of the black list by a list of swadeshi mills such a list being used for propaganda purposes only. He said that there would be no difficulty in this.

(d) We then discussed the new scheme for the export of foreign cloth. I said that the principle in this case was that dealers should be free from any interference with their liberty of action and that no one who did not wish to join in the scheme should be forced to do so. Also that sellers and buyers who had refrained from dealing in foreign cloth should be left free without any form of restraint to change their attitude if they so wished. He said quite definitely that this was the intention. I said I could conceive that there might be dealers who were honestly convinced that the sale of their stocks of foreign cloth in India was contrary to the good of the country and who, therefore, had real scruples against selling it and that, in cases of this kind, I myself saw no ground on which objection could be taken. I then quoted to him a reported speech of Babu Rajendra Prasad of Patna, made on the 10th of March, in which the following passage occurred:

A word to the merchants. They should not suppose that the effect of the truce was to give them perfect liberty to sell and import British cloth. The speaker was aware that they had suffered and he was grateful for the help that they had given. But what was the suffering of the rich merchants compared to that of poor people who had lost their all, whose houses had been looted and everything found either taken away or destroyed. The merchants had at least ten years’ notice not to deal in foreign cloth, and if they suffered no one else was to blame, but the Congress was anxious to see that some way was found to save them from ruin or heavy loss. The way, however, could not be to permit them to sell their stocks in India. Mahatmaji was in consultation with business magnates of Calcutta, Bombay, Ahmadabad and Delhi and other places to devise a scheme which would enable the existing stock to be disposed of outside India. It was a very big scheme as it involved ten or twelve crores worth of foreign cloth, and there was a likelihood of loss even when the scheme was put through. This will have to be borne by dealers and possibly a way would be found to give some relief. They had to wait and see how the thing developed. I said that the sentence underlined seemed to me to be quite inconsistent with Mr. Gandhi’s position. He said that this was in fact not so and that he himself had taken the same line with merchants who asked him for permission to deal in foreign cloth. He explained that it was contrary to the Congress creed specifically to give such permission, since this would amount to repudiation of the doctrine to which they attach great importance that it was one thing for Congress to recognize that merchants were free to do as they liked and another thing for the Congress specifically to accord this permission. I then asked him how merchants were to know how they stood, and said that Government regarded it as essential that they should be in no doubt on this point. He said he had no objection whatever to Government making the position clears. He added that, so far as he knew there was not any doubt on the matter and that the hesitation of merchants to deal freely in foreign cloth was due to uncertainty as to what might happen in the future. I pointed out that, in accordance with what had been said in (b) above, the description of the scheme which relates to the “certification of handloom cloth made for such Indian mills as may not be under the Congress ban” would have to be expressed in different terms since no question of a Congress ban now arises. Mr. Gandhi agreed.

(c) On the general question of the boycott of foreign cloth he was quite candid and said that he had no doubt himself that the movement would gain great momentum without resort to coercion or pressure, that Indian and English mill-owners were convinced of the benefit to themselves of the swadeshi movement and that before long those who had so far stood out would voluntarily come in. He appears to be firmly convinced that the propaganda he intended to pursue would have very big results, and he pointed out quite truly that the boycott on an extensive scale of a particular class of goods must, however unobjectionable the methods might be, influence the dealers in their future course of business and so indirectly affect their freedom of action. He was very vague about the export scheme and admitted that details had not been worked out. His chief argument in support of it was that men like Sir Ness Wadia and accepted it as workable.

(d) I then got on to the more difficult question of what seemed to me failure on the part of the Congress to observe the general spirit of the settlement. I repeated what I had told Gandhi when I first met him that, if a settlement was to be a merely paper one without any intention on the part of Congress honestly to try to find a solution of constitutional problems, then it was better not to have one at all and that it was not possible for Government to stand by and watch Congress definitely organizing for a fight with no real wish to obtain peace. I mentioned in this connection various points that I myself regarded with uneasiness, e.g., Pandit Jawaharlal’s circular No. 12; the message to the peasants of Rae Bareilly; what appeared to be a movement in the United Provinces to replace a no-tax campaign as part of the civil disobedience movement by similar campaign on economic grounds; various speeches of Pandit Jawaharlal; reference to a “truce” with a preconceived idea that no final settlement would be attained; talks of a future war and reference to Government as opponents and enemies. I also mentioned the way in which Congress had attempted to exploit the settlement as a victory. Gandhi saw nothing objectionable in circular No. 12 and said that he could not dismiss the possibility that peace would not ultimately be reached. At the same time, he fully accepted the position that it was wrong to refer to the settlement as a truce, to talk about a future war, to prejudge the issues and refer to Government as enemies and opponents. He also expressed disapproval of the exploitation of the settlement by Congress as a victory.

I told him that I was particularly disquieted by the indication of a campaign of the Congress in the United Provinces to stir revenue payers against Government and tenants against landlords, that it was very easy to raise a rural agitation on these lines and that the consequence could not fail to be serious. That, in so far as there was economic distress, local Governments were fully alive to the gravity of the situation and would deal with it as liberally as circumstances permitted and that any attempt by Congress as an organization to intervene would merely make the situation more difficult. I mentioned to him the report I had seen that the Congress Committee or Council in the United Provinces had made a recommendation that 50 per cent of land revenue and rents should be remitted and had advised revenue payers and tenants to withhold payments pending decision by the local Government. Unfortunately I did not have the reference with me and so could not verify it. Mr. Gandhi agreed that if the facts were as stated it was wrong to advise tenants to withhold rents. I promised to look out the reference and to let him have it.

(e) I next mentioned definite disquieting reports from Gujarat saying that land revenue was not being paid, and I told him that I had seen a speech by Vallabhbhai Patel suggesting that Government would be quite content to wait a year or even two years for revenue where there was difficulty in paying it. I suggested to him that statements of this kind would naturally be taken advantage of by revenue payers who could easily pay and that, while I had no doubt that the local Government would consider any genuine cases of distress, our information was that there should be no difficulty at all in paying up by far the greater part of the revenue at once. I said that the inevitable result of unwarranted delay on the part of revenue payers would be the recommencement of coercive processes and the creation of an unfavorable atmosphere. He expressed surprise that land revenue was not coming in and said that, so far as he was concerned, there was no intention to discourage people, who could pay, not to do so.

3. He then himself mentioned certain correspondence he had with the Collector of Kaira regarding forfeited lands and other matters. He regarded the correspondence as unsatisfactory, but did not say what it was about and dropped the subject. He mentioned, however, a circular issued by a Mamlatdar of Kaira to the effect that village servants who had resigned had not only to apply for reinstatement, but had to express regret for their conduct and also to pay a penalty before reinstatement. He regarded this as contrary to the spirit of the settlement. I said that I could express no opinion on the matter in ignorance of the policy of the local Government. He said he would let me have a copy of the circular.

4. I then read to him a letter received today from the United Provinces Government mentioning a case of forcible picketing in Agra. He agreed that, if the facts were correct, it was a clear case for suspension of all picketing. I promised to let him have a copy. I also mentioned cases which had been brought to my notice by non-officials of picketing in Amritsar and Cawnpore where the transport of goods from one place to another had been prevented; but, as I had no official confirmation of these facts, I could not press for effective action.

5. The general impression left was that Mr. Gandhi is anxious to implement the settlement and to obtain a genuine solution. He seemed to be confident about the Karachi Congress; but he expected opposition from the left and said that the execution of Bhagat Singh might seriously complicate matters. He was very loyal to Pandit Jawaharlal, but, I gathered, did not regard it as altogether improbable that he would take his own line sooner or later. He recognized the difficulties that would be created by an undiluted resolution in favour of complete independence at the Karachi Congress and by a declaration that the Congress would go on fighting until they achieved this. It seemed to me that he himself had made up this mind to see that a course of this kind was not taken and that the actual resolutions of this nature would be qualified by speeches which would avoid banging the door in the way of peace.