China Hand. John Paton Davies, Jr.
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and sometimes tortured, but they stopped short of killing. With the Japanese it would be for the Indians success or death.
Some of his friends, like Mr. Rajagopalachari, had argued with him that the British were civilized and the Japanese were barbarians, and that therefore Indians should at this juncture cooperate with the British to check the greater evil. His reply, Mr. Gandhi stated, was that India wanted neither British nor Japanese rule, that non-violence was the strongest force in the world and that its impact on the barbarian might be greater than on the civilized man. He said that the Japanese had experienced little contact with the Indian mind, and implied that if Japanese troops were met by non-violent non-cooperation from the Indian masses, they would in effect be defeated.
I alluded to his statement in Harijan that guerrilla warfare “is foreign to the Indian soil” and asked if he meant that to apply to the Muslims and the people of Northwestern India. The Mahatma replied that it was true that the people of the northwest had experience in guerrilla warfare, but it was against the small British garrisons there and would be of little value in fighting the Japanese. He intelligently discussed the exacting nature of guerrilla warfare, its limited value and the careful training and coordination with the regular army required for its success. He observed that training the masses for effective guerrilla warfare was a more difficult task than training regular troops.
In commenting on the futility of cooperating with the British at this juncture, Mr. Gandhi said that the British had been particularly oppressive following the conclusion of the First World War; he expected them, in the event that they were still in India at the conclusion of this conflict, to be even more overbearing than they are at present. He would not admit that the hold of British imperialism on India is relaxing; nor that the United States might exert its good offices on behalf of India. He stated that American diplomacy was under the control of the British, and that the voice of those Americans in the United States friendly to India was being stifled by the British.
I asked whether in connection with his wish that the British withdraw he also desired that we leave too. “Naturally, yes,” he replied.
I inquired of Mr. Gandhi whether he felt that there might not ultimately be general acceptance of Mr. Rajagopalachari’s proposal that the Congress concede the principle of Pakistan in order to achieve an understanding with the Muslim League leading to the formation of a National Government. The Mahatma replied in vague terms, seeming to indicate an answer in the negative.
The conflict between the Hindu and Muslim communities Mr. Gandhi attributed to British machinations. Remove British control over India and the differences between the two would “disappear like the miasma that it is.” I observed that this interpretation had been given to me by Hindus and by Muslims as well. In as much as both Hindus and Muslims seemed to recognize that they were being used against one another, I found it difficult to understand why they were not able to make common cause to thwart the designs on the communal unity which, as the Mahatma implied, both groups desired. Mr. Gandhi explained that notwithstanding this mutual Hindu and Muslim desire for unity, the British were able to play the communities off one against the other because “it is the British who distribute the loaves and fishes.” They favor first one group and then the other, thus fostering communal difference.
Mr. Gandhi remarked that in his five hour conversation with General Chiang Kai-shek and “Madame Shek” he had gone over in detail the same ground which he had covered with me, save for his theory of immediate and complete British withdrawal, which he had only recently evolved. He expressed great sympathy for China, adding that the way for the British and us to help China was to get out of India.
Throughout the interview Mr. Gandhi was very cordial. Although not seeming to do so, he apparently watched my face closely, for he commented with amusement on a smile, which I thought was wholly inward.
In my journal I added: “As the interview was closing he said, ‘You can tell whomever you report to that the old man is raving mad.’ I must have had a look of bewilderment about me. Once or twice in the conversation I felt somewhat at a loss as to what I should say. There didn’t seem to be any logical question to ask or comment to make.”
While Gandhi did not make sense in the Anglo-American view of the war against Japan, he was persuasive to the majority of Hindus. He was able to lead them because he not only understood them but also was a concentrated reflection of themselves. He and they knew that the Hindus, at least, lacked confidence in their ability to dispose of the British by force. So for a score of years he had preached satyagraha, non-violent resistance, as the strategy for struggle against the British rule.
For Gandhi, satyagraha was also an expression of the morality that he taught. Non-violent resistance was therefore more than patriotic: it was virtuous. Gandhi was a revolutionary leader, but in the tradition of the Indian ascetic holy man. His pietistic stance and words consequently carried far more weight with many simple people than did the pronouncements of secular politicians. An Indian editor told me that the secret of Gandhi’s power over people was that he treated everyone as a child. During the visit of Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek to India, they met with Gandhi and, the editor smiled, the Mahatma offered to the imperious Madame Chiang the sanctuary of his ashram where she might “live as my daughter.” I did not doubt that Gandhi’s treatment of people as children had brought many under his spell. But Madame Chiang—whose troubled psyche caused her to treat everyone as a subject—was hardly one to have been captivated by the Mahatma’s playfully audacious soul appeal.
CHAPTER VII
NEHRU AND “THE PROBLEM”
India, I had come to realize, was of concern to the United States not only as a base from which to prosecute the war against Japan but also as a potential entanglement in postwar colonial upheavals. I foresaw dreadful troubles in the final stages of and after the war when the European imperial nations attempted to hold on to or reoccupy their Asian colonies. The United States, following announcement of its intention to grant independence to the Philippines, was in Asian eyes relatively free of the colonial incubus. Indeed, many South Asians thought of Americans as champions of their desire for independence.
The cause of potential entanglement was our alliance with Britain, the Netherlands and the Free French in the war against Japan. These necessary and desirable ties could easily lead us into helping the imperial countries to maintain or reimpose authority over colonial peoples and thus involve us needlessly in alien conflicts contrary to our interests and convictions. With these anxieties in mind, I continued my exploration of India.
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About a week after my session with Gandhi, a top Indian official in the Government, Ghulam Mohammed, told me that the Mahatma was preparing to incite some form of mass civil disobedience. I sought out Nehru in New Delhi, hoping to find out what was afoot.
In a two and a half hour visit on May 24, I asked Nehru about the reported plans for civil disobedience. He seemed to be disturbed that the alleged preparations were known. Unconvincingly he pled ignorance; he had been vacationing in the hills. I pointed out the obvious—the damage that disruption in India would do to our efforts to help China. Not only China would suffer, but straining the point in an appeal to his pro-Soviet sympathies, so would the Soviet Union. Nehru expressed, as I reported to Stilwell, “unemphatic agreement and continued to be his charming, dissemblingly sincere self.”
Would he support Gandhi in the projected campaign? Nehru was noncommittal. Following the advice of two Indian friends who said that “the only way to induce Jawaharlal to reveal what he is thinking is to make him flare up,” I asked him if he believed that he should follow the dictates of the Congress Party (that is, Gandhi) even though they were counter to his convictions. He was evasive.
Gandhi had recently said, I went on, that Nehru was virtually his heir, that the Mahatma was not disturbed by Jawaharlal’s occasional “apostasy” because he had faithfully carried out the Congress policy defined by Gandhi. Nehru pretended to be unaware that the Mahatma had claimed him as heir and asserted that he had more often won Gandhi over to his