New Britain herald., 1930-04-26
GANDHI OUTLINES
 REBELLION PLANS
Stresses Fact Program Entirely
 Without Violence

The following statement by Ma hatma Gandhi, Indian nationalist leader, was received from Navsari by the Associated Press today in re- sponse to a request for an outline of the Indian situation from the na- tionalist standpoint.
 By Mohandas karachand Gandhi
 Indian Nationalist Leader
 Navsari, India, April 26 P}-The national demand is not for the im- mediate establishment of indepen- dence but as a preliminary step to a conference that must take place if independence is to be established peacefully and to remove certain prime grievances that are chiefly economic and moral. These are set forth in the dearest possible terms in my letter, miscalled an ulti- matum. to the viceroy.
 Salt Tax One Question
 Those grievances include the salt tax which in it's incidence falls with equal pressure upon the rich as well
  of the cost price having been made a monopoly. It has deprived tens of thousands of people of their sup elementary occupation and the arti- ficially heavy cost of salt has made it very difficult, if not impossible, for poor people to give enough salt to their cattle and to their land. This unnatural monopoly is sustain ed by laws which are only so-called but which are denial of law. They give arbitrary powers to police known to be corrupt to lay their hands without warrant on innocent people, to Confiscate their property and otherwise molest them in a hundred ways.
 Civil resistance against the salt laws has caught the popular imag- ination as nothing else has within my experience. Hundreds of thous- ands of people, including women and children from many villages, have participated in the open man. salt. This resistance has, been an- swered by barbarous and unmanly repression. Instead of arresting people, the authorities have violat- cd the persons of people who have refused to part with salt held gen. erally in their fists. To open their fists, their knuckles have been broken, their necks have been press ed, they have been indeccntly as saulted until they have been rem dered senseless. Some of these as saults have taken place in the pres ence of hundreds of thousands of people who, although well able to protect the victims and retaliate, being under a pledge of non-vio- lence, have not done so.
 Violence Cases Analyzed
 It is true that violence has broken out in Calcutta, karachi, Chitta- gong anad now Peshawar. The Cal cutta and karachi events should be isolated from Chittagong and Pesh- awar. The Calcutta and Karachi incidents were an impulsive out burst on the arrest of popular lead CTS. The Chittagong and Peshawar incidents, though also caused for some reason, seemed to have been serious and we'll planned affairs, though wholly unconnected with each other, Chittagong being in the extreme east and Peshawar being on the northwest border of India.
 These disturbances have so far not affected other parts of India where civil disobedience has been going on in organized fashion and on a mass scale since the 9th inst. The people in other parts have remained non- violent in spite of great provocation. At the same time I admit that there is need for caution, but l can say without Ae least hesitation that con-.