The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-05-21
REVOLUTIONARY DEVELOP
MENT IN INDIA

and it may therefore be expected that all revO-
lutionary workers organs will be compelled
shortly to suspend legal publication. Also four
important nationalist dailes in Bengal-Lib
erty, Advance, Bangbasi and Amanda Bazaar
Patrika-have been called upon to deposit
1915 each and advance" is likely to suspend
publication.
The leading nationalist pap are receiving
heavy subsidies from the Burma Oil Company
in the form of daily advertisements Corrup
ton and repression are working hand in hand.
Gandhi's Desire.
Gandhi's repeatedly expressed desire to be
arrested has at last been fulfilled. If the
government allowed him to go on breaking
laws for four whole weeks while his followers
were being sentenced to various terms of inn
prisonment it had good reasons for wishing to
gain time. Gandh and the Congress leaders
launched the movement on the express condi-
ton that it shall remain non-violent. But all
those who were acquainted with the actual con-
dition Of the workers, the peasants and the
youth were we'll aware that the masses were
not likely to be influenced by the theory of
non-violence. AS soon as the Salt Campaign
began, violent outbreaks took place through
out India, and it was proved that the workers
and the youth in the towns were not acting
under Gandhis leadership. The policy of the
imperalist Government was to give time to
the movement to demonstrate fully its violent
character, before taking any steps against
Gandh. If Gandhi had been arrested at the
very beginning, the Government would not so
easily have received the moral support even
of some sections of the propertied classes or
of the bourgeois Nationalist leaders. 1t was
necessary for the Government to convince the
propertied classes that the countrywide out
breaks that have led to armed conflicts with
the police and the military, were conse-
quence of Gandhi's non-vioent civil disobe-
dience movement, even against his will. This
''lawessness" of the masses, has been used
by the Government to obtain declarations of
sympathy and support from the propertied
classes, and the Government therefore finds
itself in more favorable position to under
take the arrest without destroying the chances
of negotiations with the landowners, the indus
trialists and their representatives in the poll
tical organizations, such as the National Con-
gress, the Liberal Party and the Muslin
League.
As far as the textile industrialists are con-
cerned, their opposition has not only been over
come but their actual cooperation has been as
sured by the recent Tariff legislation The
mill owners of Bombay are satisfied with the
raising of the import duty on cotton goods
from eleven to twenty per cent against all
freign countries except Great Britain, thus
protecting" the Indian industry against
Japan and America, although the duty against
Great Britain is raised only to fifteen per
cent, thus giving preference to Lancashire tex
tile capital. The mill owners are now demand
ing revision of the Trade Union Act so as
further to crush the revolutionary textile
workers. The President of the Bombay Mill
owners Association welcomed the legislation
because, he said, that the proposals are cal
culated to arrest the decline in our fortune and
give US breathing time to carry on complete
reorganization" This reorganization is to be
effected by ruthless naturalization and by
merger of textile factories under a common
directorate with a single Managing Director.
At least fifty mills are expected to be merged
into a single company and the government of
India is expected to advance the mill owners
a loan of nine million pounds in order to
enable them to carry out their scheme of re-
organization. Sir George Schuster, Finance
member Of the Government of India, had
long interview with the Bombay mill owners
about three weeks ago to discuss the details
of the proposed merger of the Bombay cotton
mills and the conditions on which the Imperial
Bank of India would grant the loan. The
Finance Minister is reported to have declared
that the Government would be prepared to
stand security to the Bank, but according to
the Bombay correspondent of the Lahore
Tribune" the Minister made it clear that the
guaranteeing of the loan by the Government
would be conditional on the mill owners OPP
posing the campaign of civil disobedience and
helping the Government to fight the menace
of the boycott of British goods, in other words
on their fighting even the Gandhi movement.
1t is therefore clear that the Government has
already obtained the full support of the in
dustriasts.
That the land owners naturally support the
lmperialist Government goes without saying.
But even among them, especially in Gujrat
and the United Provinces there was tendency
to support Gandhi and his non-violent cam
paign because they had received from the Con-
gress leaders the assurance that the move
ment was not directed against them. But the
facts of the recent peasant movement in Oudh
and Raj Bareili, in Bihars Orissa, in Jabbal-
pore and Breach demanding radical changes
in the system of land tenure, advocating the
non-payment of taxes, which in some cases
was carried into effect, and the growing threat
Of the appropriation of the landlords have
brought the latter face to face with the pos
sibility of an agrarian revolution. That the
landowners are alarmed by the fact that
Gandhi is no longer able to hold back the
masses as he once treacherously did in 1922,
is proved by the declaration of loyalty and
the offer of help that has just been given to
the Government in a strictly confidential
Memorandum sent on behalf of the landown-
ers Of Bengal by the Maharajah Tagore,
document that has been published by the Lib