·PCS
梁
तमसो माज्योतिर्गमय
SANTINIKETAN
VISWA BHARATI
LIBRARY
954.5
G12

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·PERVERSITIES
Wiris ile author's
Complimeats,
>> “G. L. M." <<
1942
Rs. 27-

·Published by
G. L. MEHTA
100, Clive Street,
Calcutta.
Printer: P. C. RAY
SRI GOURANGA PRESS,
5, Chintamani Das Lane,
Calcutta

·To
my FATHER
In Love and Reverence

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·FOREWORD Being encouraged by the very kind reception given to my first collection of skits entitled “From Wrong Angles", I am emboldened to publish this second volume covering articles contributed to daily and weekly journals from time to time between the period 1934-1940. The world and India have undergone a tremendous change during this period but I trust the various articles will be enjoyed by the reader. They are not necessarily arranged in a chronological order but the dates at the foot of the various chapters will indicate the period when they were written and this will enable the reader to appreciate the conditions under which they were written and the psychology at the time. These articles were published from time to time in "Indian Finance", "Indian Affairs", the "Amrita Bazar Patrika”, the “Hindustan Times" and the "Bombay Chronicle" and I am grateful to the Editors of these journals and papers for their permission to republish them in this volume. My thanks are also due to Mr. A. K. Gupta for helping me in seeing the book through the Press. GAGANVIHARI MEHTA. Calcutta, 26th January, 1942.

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·CONTENTS I. POLITICAL PAGE I .. ... 9 14 ... 23 Humour as a First Aid mo The New Commandments If Churchill Came to India The Next Test The Congress is Always Wrong On Facing Facts An Open Letter to Mussolini League of Nations A.D. 1999 Who are the Meek? A Misleading Case ... 31 36 ... ... ... 41 47 53 ... II. ECONOMIC 63 ... ... 68 ... 74 80 86 ... Second Thoughts on the Budget .. On Economic Planning Economic Forecast Laissez Faire Bi-metallism or the Silver Lining .. International Exploitation or Economic Resources If Lancashire Were in India ... Distributing World 91 96 III. GENERAL. ... 103 ... IIO ... The Other Fellow New Diseases for Old ... Goodwill Honours for the Worthy New Year Resolutions ... ... 115 ... I 20 ... ... 125 ·1V PAGE ... ... 127 ... One, Two, Three A Revised Grammar for Modern Children Last Words The Red Planet 130 133 136 ... ... .. A Test Paper ... 141 IV. Poems. ... 147 ... Oinar Khayyam on J. P. C. Report The Liberal Hamlet Who Killed Poor Sanctions ? An Alphabet of the New Constitution, Rule Brittania : (New Version) New Nursery Rhymes The Shirt Parade ... 150 152 154 156 158 162 ... ... ... ... V. DICTIONARY. An up-to-date Dictionary for India 163 ...

·PART I POLITICAL

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·PERVERSITIES HUMOUR AS A FIRST AID In H. G. Wells' "Things to Come", when the Little Girl asks the Old Man in A.D. 2054 whether people laughed at colds in the bad old days, the Old Man replies “They had a way of grinning at it. They called it humour. We had to have a lot of humour". I am afraid this is but too true. But I do hope that even in Mr. Wells' utopia, people will continue to laugh despite its scientific marvels and social peace and individual health, if such a utopia is not to be intolerably dull and lifeless. For without some sense of humour, life is apt to become unbearable. Public life even more than private life needs the alchemy of humour which can transmute the sorrows and pain and discomforts of life into laughter. The petty misunderstandings and jealousies and rivalries and a score of human weaknesses which set a limit to our collective aspirations and ambitions could not be borne if one did not possess some elements of humour. The greater the man, the greater the need. I fancy that if some of the greatest public men and leaders did not know how to laugh, they would break down and retire or commit suicide. It is not surprising to read in Pandit ·2 PERVERSITIES Jawaharlal's “Autobiography'' that in prison he practised the exercise of standing on his head which he liked particularly for its psychological effect since the slightly comic position increased his, good humour and made him a little more tolerant of life's vagaries. This, indeed, is the essence of humour-the capacity to see the world upside down. Laughter is merely the beginning of humour : it is a necessary ingredient but it is not the whole of it. A sense of humour does not consist merely in being able to joke and laugh at jokes. It is a much deeper and profounder thing : it is an attitude of mind which makes one see the ludicrous in life and thereby not to take life too seriously or to give things an undue importance : a capacity to see life from angles different from the conventional and the normal. It is truly a gift of the Heavens, as the poet said, to see ourselves as others For, in the ultimate analysis, humour is a form of criticism and an interpretation of life even when such criticism and interpretation are unconscious. It is only another name for a sense of proportion. Since the perception is very acute and correct, our normal activities and attitude appear slightly obtuse. “The sense of humour is, in the last analysis, nothing but a sense of values'', says Clive Bell in his 'Civilisation'. "Because all human achievements fall something short of the ideal, to a thoroughly civilised person, all human endeavour will appear at moments slightly comic". Humour arises out of the contrast between man and his environment, between the thing as it is and as it ought to be, or the thing a man thinks it is and see us.

·HUMOUR AS A FIRST AID 3 as it really is. Humour was originally expressed by action as in teasing, buffoonery, practical jokes of which some of us were so fond at school, April Fool on which day provincial autonomy was inaugurated in 1937. The Holee festival in India is a manifestation of such popular humour in action when people sprinkle colour water on another and spoil one another's clothes and faces. Humour in action developed into the humour of situation where the incongruity between man and his environment evokes laughter. This humour of action and situation has returned through the cinema where the visual effects have emphasised the contrast which is at the basis of humour. Humour is often confounded with wit. But humour, in a sense, is the genus, wit the species. Or, wit is the presentation of humour in words, the translation of an attitude into form and language. When Dr. Johnson told a young lady who wanted to learn French that he thought one tongue sufficient for a woman, that was wit. But a true sense of humour was revealed by the soldier who laughed continuously while being flogged and eventually explained his laughter by saying that he could not help feeling extremely amused at the thought that they were all the time punishing the wrong man. Wit has many forms and expressions—-pun and parody, paradox, howler and the Irish bull. But higher than humour in action or in words is humour of thought itself. It arises out of the deeper incongruities and the contradictions of life itself. The solemnity of Falstaff, the heroism of Don Quixote, the irrepressible optimism of Mr. Pickwick or Mr. Micawber, the pathetic cheerfulness of Charlie ·PERVERSITIES a Chaplin--these, at their best are sparks from the divine fire of humour. Humour is a tonic. It has been said that “Life is a comedy to him who thinks but a tragedy to him who feels.” Probably none of us can help feelingespecially feeling likes and dislikes for our fellow-men --and some of us can even probably think. Yet not all can have that serious irresponsibility, that solemn gaiety which is the source of humour, though few would confess their lack of sense of humour. In public life, a sense of humour is most invaluable and indispensable. For, a true sense of humour gives poise and balance, sense of proportion, intellectual integrity and humility and a tolerance for views and thought entirely different from one's own. To a public man with a sense of humour, our party factions and our fierce controversies and stupid jealousies would appear as do the quarrels and anxieties and tears of our childhood which, in the retrospect, evoke but a smile. One of the causes of the success of parliamentary government in England is a widely diffused and quiet sense of humour of the British people. If we want to make a success of parliamentary government or any form of democratic and representative government, our public men should try to develop some sense of humour instead of forming parties overnight and magnifying their scramble for power and taking their perpetual intrigues and manoeuvres too seriously. Viewed from a cosmic angle, all our quarrels are too trivial and insignificant. Nor is the immediate value of humour as a first aid less. When tempers are frayed and nerves are at an edge and when there is tension in a meeting, a ·HUMOUR AS A FIRST AID 5 more touch of laughter relieves the situation. In the lawcourts, witty judges and counsels who give smart retorts are remembered than learned and 'erudite members of the Bar and the Bench. “Laugh and the world will laugh with you”, as the old adage puts it, "weep and you will weep alone". In the legislative and municipal bodies, the same holds good. Scottish politicians, I understand, pay members of the audience to heckle them in order that they may have a chance of crushing them with a series of brilliant retorts. Unconscious humour also enlivens an assembly. Because humour is a reflection of healthy scepticisin and tolerance, dictators are afraid of it. A dictator does not and cannot laugh with his people, at least in public. For, humour is fundamentally democratic. It is both a leveller and a revealer. In democratic countries, politicians, members of Parliaient and Cabinet and the Prime Ministers are lampooned and caricatured and their platitudes and perorations, parodied. 'Punch', for instance, performs this function in England. In countries under dictatorship, jokes take the place of political criticism and public satire. It will be recollected that powerful monarchs and despots have beheaded or exiled those who attempted to crack jokes at their expense. And before this war, a German author was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment for publishing a book containing a thousand best jokes about the new Germany and its Government; the public prosecutor claiming that the offence was akin to treason. Mr. Bertrand Russell's prophecy has come true. Despairing of creed wars, Mr. Bertrand Russell observed some years ·6 PERVERSITIES people ago, “The best hope, though a faint one, is that might become bored with platitudes and turn to the humorists; from this point of view the popularity of Mr. Bernard Shaw is encouraging. But, then, if this happened, there is the possibility that Scotland Yard would institute a censorship of jokes, in which case I hope I would then be in prison with the jokers”. Humour at its best is one of the highest achievements of human culture, one of the finest expressions of man's aesthetic nature, a gift of civilisation in the truest sense. It is the Apollo of the world of thought --Healer and Destroyer in one. It relieves the tension and delights the mind : it destroys false values and unworthy idols. It has been used in all battles of social injustice. Dickens is a supreme example of this. He did as much if not more than, Bentham and Shaftsbury and Romilly and the other reformers of his time to sweep away the hardships, cruelties and injustices of his time by exposure, satire and ridicule. He showed that the pen was mightier than parliament and laughter could lead the legislature. Humour rightly conceived is, indeed, a purificatory force. It should be used not as a shield but as a sword. It is a holy instrument of pacific war. "In a world of waning beliefs, humour like Hope is still left at the bottom of Pandora's box, when all the evils flew out from it upon the world.” One of the fundamental needs of the world is to promote international fellowship and goodwill. I submit that this can be promoted by laughing together as well as lunching together. For, if to know all is to forgive ·HUMOUR AS A FIRST AID 7 all, to laugh at all should be to know all. How one wishes that in the international sphere, a sense of humour is developed to show the crudity of national glorification and the stupidity of national rivalries and the absurdity of wars. Why did not Geneva establish an International Bureau of Humour and teach the rulers of the world to laugh at one another and even more, to laugh at themselves ? Laughter needs to be internationalised. If the politicians and statesmen who met so frequently at conferences which mainly benefited the Swiss hotel-keepers and the stationery industry only remembered how to laugh and tried to follow Common Nonsense instead of common sense and were less keen on Disarmament and more alive to the possibilities of the disarming power of fun, the world would be a happier and brighter place for ordinary men and The Committee of Intellectual Co-operation should inaugurate studies and researches in comparative obsessions and superstitions and illusions of nations. Every nation, for instance, believes profoundly that it has a special message to deliver to mankind and a special mission to fulfil in the world : every nation sincerely believes that it is the other nation which begins aggression and armaments and tariff wars and that it has had to follow. Every nation imagines that other nations are "types" but that its own character is complex. When viewed from such an angle, national fever and fret are contrasted with the shortcomings of all of us, with our great illusions and the inevitable end of it all. If only we look at such problems from a sufficient distance and with some detachment, all these “vital issues" and "burning women.

·8 PERVERSITIES questions” of the day and "the realities of the situation” would be dissolved into laughter. Seen through a cosmic vista, our perpetual feuds and irrational fanaticism would end in a smile. Perhaps our whole Universe is a huge joke perpetrated at the expense of poor Man by an intensely humorous Almighty and if there is a music of the spheres, it is the laughter of the angels.

·THE NEW COMMANDMENTS
A CHAPTER OF THE MODERN TESTAMENT
And Samuel spake all these words, saying :
2. I am the Law-Giver thy Deliverer which have
brought thee out of the Period of Dyarchy, out of the
House of Bondage.
3. Thou shalt have no other Constitutions before
me.
4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any models
or any likeness of
any government that is in the earth
where our territories are painted red nor in the heavens
above where our airships fly nor in the water where
Britannia rules supreme.
5. Thou shalt not bark even if my caravan passes
on, for I, thy Deliverer, am a most strong and jealous
and constitutional Deliverer visiting the iniquity of the
children on the fathers and unto the third and fourth
ancestry of them that flout me.

·10 PERVERSITIES 6. And bestowing favours and jobs and titles unto hundreds of them that love me and co-operate with me in accordance with my commandments. 7. Thou shalt not take the title of my Act in vain; for my successor and his successor unto several successors in office will not hold him guiltless that taketh away the title or the preamble of my Act. 8. Remember the safeguards and keep them holy. 9. Four hundred and fifty-one sections (and fifteen schedules) thou shalt remember and then do thy legitimate work. 10. But the eight special responsibilities are of thy governor-general and with them thou shalt not meddle, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy mother-in-law, nor thy 'chaprasi' nor thy chauffeur, nor thy cow, nor thy goat, nor thy visitors whom thou might lawfully harbour. 11. For, four hundred and fifty-one sections, (and fifteen schedules) I the Law-Giver made for thee and thine princes and peoples but the special respon- ·THE NEW COMMANDMENTS 11 sibilities are for the discretion and individual judgment of thy supreme governors : wherefore the Law-Giver blessed the safeguards and Parliament hallowed it. as 12. Honour thy public servants thou honoureth thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long outside the prison which thy rulers provide for thee. 13. Thou shalt not defend thy country. * 14. Thou shalt not decide who are thy enemies. 15. Thou shalt not control the purse of thy own people. 16. Thou shalt not bear any unreciprocal grudge against thy overseas neighbour ror shalt thou vote along with thine own neighbour if he but professes another faith. 17. Thou shalt not covet thy own trade nor crafts nor goods but rely on the unadulterated goodwill of thy competing trustees.

·12
PERVERSITIES
18. And all the people saw the thundering
speeches and the lightning wit and the noise of debates
and the mountain in labour; and when the people saw
it, they bowed in silent reverence.
19. And the people said unto Samuel, Speak
thou with us for we are prepared to die fighting one
another and shall never yield to our neighbours.
20. And Samuel said unto them, Carry on the
noble fight and fear not, for Britannia has come to prove
you and that her fear may be before your faces, that
ye unite not.
21. And
And ye shall not make things of silver neither
shall ye make things of gold for even distant China
has abandoned silver and the world needs your gold.
22. And thou shalt work this mine Constitution
with all thy heart and brains (if any) and shalt offer
the Army and the Services thy federal offerings and
thy provincial offerings, thy land revenue and thy
income tax. In all files when I record my name, I will
come unto thee with a red-tape and I will bless thee.

·THE NEW COMMANDMENTS
13
23. And thou shalt not obstruct this work of mine
nor wreck it that thy obstinacy and lawlessness be not
discovered therein.
24. And so saying Samuel vanished in the air
(by the Imperial Airways) and went to minister to the
needs of other lands.
12. 1. 1936.

·IF CHURCHILL CAME TO INDIA It is strongly rumoured-and the rumour by its persistence has gathered the strength, if not the respectability, of a report—that Mr. Winston Churchill will shortly visit India, in whose welfare he is deeply interested and whose masses are his first and last thought. The principal difference between Mr. Churchill and a cat, as Mark Twain would have said, is that a cat has only nine lives. For Mr. Churchill has perished neither by coalition nor by Gallipolli. “In war you can be killed but once, ” he remarked, “but in politics many times." So he is ever the Fat Boy of British politics making the flesh of British Democracy creep. Now the menace is Germany, then Soviet Russia, then again Germany, but always India. Reaction of Hoare, he describes as abdication; and where there is nothing but safeguards he sees abject surrender. After having sent an emissary from the Morning Post and a peer who is the grandson of another peer, Mr. Churchill contemplates visiting India in his own person. The news has thrilled India. The villagers, who are ignorant and illiterate for democratic purposes, are excited at the thought of meeting one who seeks to protect them from the cunning of nationalist politicians and the greed of "native" business men. Consumers are keen to welcome him, who, while in favour of high tariffs in his own country, desires to prevent the evil of protection in an undeveloped country. The ·IF CHURCHILL CAME TO INDIA 15 Harijans and the Royalists are equally eager to greet their saviour. Loyalists do not want to be left out lest he defeat Hoare and become the next S. O. S. for India or Premier of England. What will, therefore, happen is not difficult to contemplate :- MR. CHURCHILL LANDS IN BOMBAY Bombay, June 1st: Mr. Winston Churchill, the well-known British Conservative leader and opponent of the White Paper, landed to-day at Bombay. He was dressed in all black. He carried a file of black papers and refused to purchase the Times of India. Mr. Churchill was met at the Ballard Pier by the A. D. C. of the Governor of Bombay whom Mr. Churchill asked the meaning and implications of subjudice. On the A. DC. muttering something to the effect that he was not an infernal) lawyer, Mr. Churchill glowered and declined to go to the Government House. He drove in a black taxi to the Taj Mahal Hotel. He heartily waved to the Black Flag procession of supporters of the White Paper which received him outside. "It is better to be greeted by a Black Flag reminding one of the strength of the Fascist, " he exclaimed, "'than by the White Flag of unconditional surrender shown by defeatists like Hoare." AT THE TAJ On reaching the Taj Mahal Hotel, he refused to admire its architecture but enquired whether it had not been built in honour of Mumtaz Begum who was ·16 PERVERSITIES involved in the Bawla murder case and if so, whether the present Maharaja of Indore was in favour of Federation. If he favoured the Hoare policy and had been naturally bribed for the purpose, Mr. Churchill would not stay at the Hotel. Later in the day, a group of press reporters waited on Mr. Churchill in his room. He ordered the Indian press reporters to withdraw. On being asked about the morning's incident with the A. D. C., Mr. Churchill replied that he thought the man was a member of the Amateur Dramatic Club but in any case the minor skirmish was sub-judice as it was likely that his opponent might be nourishing a grievance. Further questioned, Mr. Churchill was emphatic that the outlook for the White Paper was very blackindeed, the future of coal was less black in comparison. He strongly condemned the White Paper which was sub-judice and was likely to continue as such for at least a decade to come. After that, he asked the reporters to clear out on pain of creating another subjudice affair. Mr. Churchill refused to call on the Governor of Bombay. He visited the Yacht Club and the Byculla Club and congratulated them on excluding Indians, including even the Princes patronised by Hoare, but strongly castigated the policy of discrimination against British fellow-subjects by Indians. MR. CHURCHILL WANTS CRICKET AND CINEMA REFORM Bombay, June 2nd : Mr. Churchill attended a cricket match between the Europeans and the Hindus ·IF CHURCHILL CAME TO INDIA 17 and was indignant to see the Hindus winning and the huge crowds cheering the Hindu batsmen. He told the Secretary of the Bombay Gymkhana that such things should be immediately stopped in imperial interest and either matches between European-born Britishers and Indian-born natives should be discontinued or it must be provided by special rules that Britishers in this country should not and could not lose in a game. If necessary, an ordinance might be passed to provide that the rules of games should be "a special responsibility” of the Governors and Governor-General in which Indians should have no voice or control. Referees and umpires should always be Europeans in football, hockey or cricket. This was necessary in the interest of Indians themselves. Equality in sports might tend to a demand for equality in other spheres and a defeat on the Oval might lead to defeat in the Oval-Table Conferences, observed Mr. Churchill. Mr. Churchill visited a cinema show in the evening and was grieved to find scenes and dresses which he thought would be fatal to the Indian's respect for the Britishers. He left the theatre during the interval and told the cinema proprietor to discontinue the show which the latter refused to do on the ground that it was still sub-judice. Mr. Churchill thereupon gave an exclusive interview to the Evening News of India that only films depicting the heroism, the might and the adventurous spirit of white people should be shown in India. They should be pictured as killing tigers and pigeons, hunting foxes and rabbits, subduing natives and bombing from air, digging gold and destroying surplus crops, opening huge industrial works and turn- 2 ·18 PERVERSITIES ing out the workers from them. No white woman should ever be portrayed except as a queen ruling over hordes of natives for their benefit. If wars between European nations had to be depicted, only England should win in them and her enemies should be guilty and perpetrate all the atrocities. Mr. Churchill wanted that special films should be manufactured in England for exhibition in the Eastern Dependencies, Crown Colonies and Africa for the moral alleviation of the natives and the political elevation of the Empire. He wanted pictures and theatres to be a reserved subject long with the Ecclesiastical Department. It is no use safeguarding the Church, he observed, if places of amusement and recreation are not subject to imperial control. Despite his name, concluded Mr. Churchill, he did not wish ill to the Church. Mr. Churchill was sorry to see that Indian-owned cars could overtake and pass European cars with impunity and enquired whether the police regulations permitted such an anti-imperial practice. MR. CHURCHILL VISITS SIMLA Simla, June 4th : Mr. Churchill reached Simla to-day. He called on the Home Member in the afternoon and after congratulating him for the number, variety and quality of special, emergency, amending, supplementary, implementary, complementary, enabling and unabling measures passed during the last four years for preserving law and order, Mr. Churchill suggested that as a measure of emergency both the Council of State and the Legislative Assembly might be suspended, if not abolished outright.

·IF CHURCHILL CAME TO INDIA 19 Mr. Churchill met the President of the Assembly and demanded, in strictly constitutional terms, not only his wig but also his head on a charger. Sir R. K. Shanmukham Chetty was prepared to offer responsive co-operation but was unwilling to undergo such a painful operation and pleaded his youthfulness. Sir M. Dadabhai, whom Mr. Churchill next saw, contended that he was not only old but bald. Mr. Churchill then saw the Law Member and urged him to arrest forthwith all M. L. A.'s and M. C. S.'s who had opposed the measures against the Congress and the terrorists and to keep them under detention or banish them to the Andamans, either under Regulation III of 1818 or one of the numerous Criminal Law Amendment Acts or the Princes Protection Act—he did not care which. To him, the result was more important than the process. Simla, June 5th: A United Press report states that the Liberal Federation have sent a telegram to Mr. Churchill offering to meet him and have a friendly talk with him in an atmosphere of goodwill and cooperation in order to increase mutual understanding for the mutual benefit of India and England. It is understood Mr. Churchill refused to 'reply to the wire and put it in his pipe so that Liberal efforts have ended in smoke. An Associated Press message contradicts the above report and states that no wire has been received by Mr. Churchill from the Liberal Federation; and in any case, as it was not an express or prepaid telegram the news lacks confirmation, nor has Mr. Churchill finally decided whether not to reply to it. The version of ·20 PERVERSITIES another news agency that he has refused to reply to it is, therefore, premature as Mr. Churchill is always in a position to reply until he shuffles off his mortal coil. MR. CHURCHILL AT CALCUTTA Calcutta, June 8th : Mr. Churchill who arrived to-day by the Punjab Mail was received at the Howrah Station by representatives of the Royalists, the Anti- Federal League, the Majority and Minority Associations, the Anti-Communal Award Sabha, the Brown Paper Merchants' Association, the Black Pepper Traders' League and several other bodies. Moulvi Kabab Khan, who was present, stated that, while at present they favoured Federation and the White Paper, they were not irrevocably committed to it and if a better scheme safeguarding and promoting the interests of the Mussalmans and especially the interests of the leaders of the Mussalmans was promised by Mr. Churchill, they would change their opinion and welcome the new scheme. The other communal groups demanded that the Communal Award must be scrapped and replaced by another Award which would satisfy them all and safeguard their interests. They undertook to support Mr. Churchill's campaign if he guaranteed eachi of them something. Other speakers hoped that, if and when Mr. Churchill became Prime Minister or Secretary of State for India, he would not forget that they had not blindly supported the Hoare policy. Mr. Churchill thanked them and said that although gratitude was not a political virtue, he promised to evolve a scheme which would protect the interests of all of them all at once.

·IF CHURCHILL CAME TO INDIA 21 June, 9th : Mr. Churchill was annoyed to see Christian crackers being openly sold in the shops and saw the Police Commissioner whom he asked to prohibit the sale of anything which exploded or produced noise. On the Commissioner pointing out practical difficulties in adopting such a course and citing the instance of children's balloons which burst, Mr. Churchill regretted that even the police had become timid owing to the weak-kneed Hoare policy. Mr. Churchill saw the Home Member and asked him whether he supported the White Paper. On the latter's refusal to be drawn into a controversy relating to Government policy, Mr. Churchill cabled straightway to the Conservative Party Association in England that the Princes were bribed, independent men coaxed and officials browbeaten to support the White Paper. Mr. Churchill next saw the Advocate-General and asked him whether sub-judice did not mean something that was under consideration of somebody. The Advocate-General replied that the Government were considering this matter under instructions from Whitehall and the opinion of the Provincial Governments had been invited so that he was unable to discuss the issue as the question of what was sub-judice was itself sub-judice. DEPARTURE OF MR. CHURCHILL Colombo, June 12th : On the eve of his depar- · ture to England, Mr. Churchill in an interview to Reuter emphatically declared that his visit to India and his meeting with people of all shades of opinion had convinced him that there was not a single honest ·22 PERVERSITIES or intelligent supporter of the White Paper in India. He had prepared an alternative plan in consultation with enlightened public opinion in India including some British Chambers of Commerce, some members of the European Association and several representatives of the minority communities including the Anglo-Indians and the Aman Sabhas. He would release it after reaching England but he disclosed that its basis was the abolition of the Central and Provincial Legislatures including the Ministers (bad luck !) and the substitution of small advisory committees to assist the executive. These advisory committees were to consist of about six to eight honorary members nominated by the Government and representatives of different communities such as the Europeans, the Mussalmans, the Sikhs, the Parsis, the Jains, the Non-Brahmins, the Adi-Dravids, the Anglo-Indians, the Depressed Classes and the Hindus. Representatives of the Indian communities should be retired Government officials, preferably from the army wherever available. These Committees would have wide powers of offering advice when asked for and making recommendations and suggestions; if the experiment succeeded, their composition would be liberalised and functions enlarged. Mr. Churchill was sure that the scheme would be hailed with delight by the intelligentsia and the masses alike and the Moderates would accept it as a basis for discussion while suggesting several improvements in detail. He had no doubt that the Indian politicians after condemning it as worthless would work it for what it was worth. Mr. Churchill sailed back for England. 28. 4. 1934.

·THE NEXT TEST A STUDY IN POLITICAL CRICKET [A Reuter's message states that an analogy between a Test Match and the creation of a new constitution was drawn by Sir Earnest Hotson, the erstwhile "strong" Home Member of Bombay, in a speech in England. The analogy is very suggestive, indeed, and might be carried further.] A POLITICAL TEST MATCH (B. O. W.) London, 31st July, 1934. As there is little chance of the Federal Constitution for India functioning before 2034 A.D. and as the unemployed politicians in England and India protest that something at least should succeed the Joint Parliamentary Committee, it has been decided to take immediate action with a view to meet the legitimate aspirations of the sober-minded classes in India. The Conferences have been played out and it is no use falling back upon Committees which are stale. A new plan must be devised which must, like a Durbar, strike the imagination of the masses, It is, therefore, officially announced that it has been authoritatively decided to hold a Test Match between the British and Indian Delegates of the R. T. C.'s and J. P. C. at the Lord's. This will provide those opportunities of deve- ·24 PERVERSITIES loping "contacts” which the constitutionalists assert are very useful in dissipating old misunderstandings, creating fresh misunderstandings, strengthening goodwill, exchanging goods, ensuring wills, etc. It will also enable the Indian side to develop a sporting spirit so essential for the modus operandi of political democracy and generate good humour and good feeling, which are a sine qua non of constitutional confabulations, "bridging the gulf," "gestures," etc. The Test will, of course, be played under Rules specially framed and laid down by the India Office in consultation with the Government of India who have discussed the matter with the various Provincial Governments, who have taken into confidence their local officers, who have divulged the secrets to their chaprasis. It is pointed out in semi-official circles that such special Rules are necessary not only because of the political importance of the game which would have a bearing on the future of the constitutional negotiations to decide the Indian constitution of the future but also because many of the Delegates have never handled a bat in their livesvital as these lives have been in the life of India. FRIENDLY WARRIORS SELECTED London, August 31st, 1934. The following teams have been selected for the Great England-India (Political) Test Match : ENGLAND XI 1. Lord Sankey-(Captain). 2. Lord Reading.

·THE NEXT TEST 25 3. Lord Linlithgow. 4. Lord Lothian. 5. Lord Zetland. 6. Sir Samuel Hoare. 7. Mr. J. C. C. Davidson. 8. Mr. R. A. Butler. 9. Viscount Halifax (Ex-Lord Irwin). 10. Sir John Simon. 11. Lord Winterton. INDIA XI H. H. The Aga Khan-(Captain). 2. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru. 3. Mr. M. R. Jayakar. 4. H. H. The Maharaja of Patiala. 5. Mr. A. H. Ghuznavi. 6. Chaudhuri Zafarulla Khan. 7. Dewan Bahadur Ramaswami Mudaliar. 8. Dr. Shafat Ahmed Khan. 9. Dr. Ambedkar. 10. Sir Henry Gidney. 11. Sir Manubhai Mehta. RESERVES Lord Halisham. Lord Peel. Lord Eustace Percy. Mr. E. C. G. Cadogan. Sir Mahmud Iqbal. Mr. N. M. Joshi. Sir A. P. Patro.

·26 PERVERSITIES Pandit Nanak Chand. Sir Akbar Hydari. Sirdar Tara Singh. Sir Cowasjee Jehangir. Raja of Khalikote, etc. It is understood that the Umpires would be appointed by the British side since under the preamble of the last Reforms Act, the fitness of Indians for self-government is to be judged and the time and measure of each advance towards responsible government are to be determined by British Parliament which has to give up the power. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and Mr. Baldwin have been appointed the Umpires. (Reuter). ALL-ROUND REPRESENTATION (B. 0. W.) London, 5th Sept., 1934. Great dissatisfaction prevails in India with regard to the composition of the Indian team and at the exclusion of important persons, not to say players, representing Labour, Punjab and Bengal Hindus, Bombay capitalists, States like Baroda, Hyderabad, Pudukotah, Dewas, Jhabwa, Vav, etc. as well as communities like Parsis, Shias, Non-Agakhani Khojas, Non-Gidney Anglo-Indians, Digamber Jains, Modh Vaniks, etc.

·THE NEXT TEST 27 Constructive proposals were made to play with twelve players on each side but as there was no agreement as to who should be the twelfth player, despite good humour and goodwill all-round, the compromise suggestion was dropped. The Indian players thereupon jointly and severally appealed to the British side to make the final selection for them which the British side have, purely as a matter of sportsmanship, agreed to do. They have, however, suggested that in the meanwhile about 10 men should be kept as reserves of the Indian team who should be allowed, by turn, to field as substitutes. If the original Indian team agrees, the British side have expressed no objection to these substitutes bowling occasionally and even batting, if necessary, in the second innings. For the main point is that everybody must have a chance, not that the team should win. There was also considerable difference of opinion among the Indian players about the batting order : the Mussalman batsmen wanted to go first and insisted that at least 33% per cent. of the total runs should be scored by them; Dr. Ambedkar looked extremely depressed as his name was ninth in the batting order and no runs had been reserved for his score. Sir Henry Gidney wanted that an Anglo-Indian (namely himself) should be the second change-bowler. Eventually, the Captain of the Indian team (the Aga Khan) settled in consultation with the British Captain that the Mussalman players must be allowed to score 25 per cent. of the total runs and the batting order should be fixed by the two impartial Umpires (who were partial only to the Empire).

·28 PERVERSITIES NEW RULES ANNOUNCED London, 7th Sept., 1934. The Rules drawn up by the India Office provide inter alia a (i) that the Indian side cannot score more runs than the British side as a measure of reciprocity. This is called the Ottawa spirit in cricket. (ii) that if the Indian side is winning, the match must be forced to a "draw" because "drawn” games encourage Indians without making them over-enthusiastic. (iii) that certain proportion of Indian players must score a round figure to preserve the spirit of the Round Table Conference. This point was strongly urged by Sir Samuel Hoare who is an All-Rounder; (iv) that Indians cannot take more than one wicket in an over or catch more than one person in an hour. Mr. Jayakar suggests, however, that 1.b.w. should be exempted from this rule; (v) that the Extras should not be more than 842 per cent. of the total runs. Latest Developments : It is reported that Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru does not propose to play because he feels dissatisfied at the prospect of perpetual "draws" in the games. Another report states that he is thinking of retiring as he was hurt during practice by Lord Reading. The news has ·THE NEXT TEST 29 caused keen disappointment in sporting circles as Sir Tej Bahadur and Mr. Jayakar were expected to be the opening pair, the Umpires permitting. It is gratifying that more than one Indian player is prepared to make a "duck" as a tribute to the Round Table and to keep up the continuity in achievements. It is also stated that Dr. Shafat Ahmed Khan is very anxious to be “stumped” by Sir John Simon, England's able wicket-keeper who has tried to catch and stump, although without success, many a French, German and Italian batsman. On the other hand, the Maharaja of Patiala stated privately for public information that he would feel not only delighted but honoured if he were clean bowled by Mr. J. C. C. Davidson, England's change slow-bowler who has played with many Princes in India and got them out owing to the smart work in the slips of Mr. Rushbrook Williams. Mr. N. M. Joshi was disappointed that he could not play as none of the players had absented himself but was sure that the ground was such that it was best to hit roundly and hit all-round the wicket which was more in consonance with the Round Table tradition than to score round figures. Mr. Jayakar felt proud that he would have to face the bowling of Viscount Halifax, one of the greatest ex-Viceroys of India and the first Viceroy to have been the only Viceroy to have made an Irwin-Gandhi Pact; while Sir Manubhai Mehta held that the Indian States players should be allowed to field whenever and wherever they liked. The match is expected to be very thrilling although its result is a foregone conclusion. The

·30
PERVERSITIES
selection is hailed in both India and England (by those
who have been selected) and the event is eagerly
awaited (by those who are to participate in it).
Fortunately, till now, rain is
preventing the
game.
14. 7. 1934.

·“THE CONGRESS IS ALWAYS WRONG” was A careful study of the political events of the last forty years from the Anglo-Indian angle has convinced me as it would convince anyone with “an open (that is, vacant) mind" that the Indian National Congress is always wrong-ever since its inception until yesterday evening. For what are the facts ? There was a time when the Indian National Congress used to consist of lawyer-politicians who met once a year during Xmas and had a cold-weather holiday session that wrong. The Congress according to contemporary Anglo-Indian and authoritative official opinion, represented a "microscopic mịnority.” Its resolutions were pious and its discussions sterile. And then at Surat the Congress endeavoured to be more active and virile, and that was also wrong, as it led to a split and dissensions and the rise of political extremism. And when the Congress used to request the British Government in the most polite language conceivable for an instalment of constitutional reforms, it was not less wrong; for it demanded something far in advance of the time and the capacity of Indians to receive or of Britishers to give. Its constitutional demands were unpractical and highly detrimental to the larger interests of the masses with whom the Congress had no contact.

·32 PERVERSITIES come And if the Congress considered the Montagu reforms unsatisfactory and disappointing, the attitude was equally wrong, being short-sighted and unstatesmanlike. And the desire of the Congress to work the reforms under certain circumstances was unworthy of a political organisation. But when the Congress decided not to participate in the legislatures and boycott the reform scheme owing to the Punjab wrongs, it was utterly wrong and its decision was tantamount to a political ‘harikari.' It was as good as dead. And if the Congress, under Gandhiji, tried to bea mass organisation with whole-time political workers and dynamic political activities, it was mischievously wrong, paving, as it did, the way to demagogy and anarchy. It ceased to represent the intelligentsia and the politically conscious minority. The adoption of non-co-operation by the Congress showed, of course, how hopelessly wrong the Congress was, as its policy was the last word in futility. Its programme was at once absurd and ridiculous on the one hand, and extremely risky and dangerous on the other. When the Congress non-co-operates, it becomes negative to the point of non-existence : when it seeks to co-operate, as during the Das-Nehru regime or after the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, it becomes pretentious and dictatorial. In either case, its attitude is wrong. If the Congress launches on civil disobedience, it is a counsel of despair : if it suspends it, that is a proof ·“THE CONGRESS IS ALWAYS WRONG” 33 of defeat. Its movement is either "the most absurd of absurd movements" (Lord Chelmsford) or if it is “within an inch of success" (Sir George Lloyd) it amounts to a revolution and a rebellion which must be suppressed. Both ways, therefore, it is wrong. If the Congress does not condemn violence every time, it indirectly encourages terrorism; if it condemns violence, the condemnation is hypocritical. If the Congress decides by a majority at its huge session, it is mob-rule of the worst type. But if it vests the power in the hands of one leader, it bows to dictatorship, which hurts the democratic conscience of the bureaucrats and the liberal principles of British Parliament including the Die-hards. The Congress is, therefore, wrong either way. If the Congress boycotts the Councils, it is wrong; and if it tries to enter or capture them, that is also wrong. If it does not contest the elections, it wastes an opportunity of educating the electorate; and if it contests the elections, it only misleads the ignorant and gullible voters. If Congressmen participate in the legislatures, they are indistinguishable from the Liberals; but if they pursue a different policy within the Councils, they are obstructionists, destructionists and wreckers incapable of constructive thinking. The Congress is, therefore, wrong, whether it goes into the Councils or remains out of them. · If the Congress abstains from the constitutional deliberations like the R. T. C., it does disservice to the nation by not voicing the most advanced and organised political opinion; but if its representative attends 3 ·34 PERVERSITIES the R. T. C., its presentation of the national demand is ridiculous and pretentious. The Congress is wrong, whether it ignores the R. T. C. or presents its viewpoint there. If the Congress ignores the White Paper, it is under a state of delusion and permits the nationalist case to go by default; but if it seeks to organise and mobilise public opinion against it, it is also wrong because it will thereby strengthen the hands of the Die- Hards and a vote for the Congress would be a vote for Churchill, If the Congress promotes Swadeshi, it does so to benefit the capitalists (mostly from Bombay), with whom it is in league and who privately subsidise it. But if it endeavours to be with the masses and emphasises some fundamental rights, it betrays its revolutionary temper and is in the pay of Moscow. If the Congress encourages hand-spinning, it is reactionary and ante-diluvian in its economics; and if it includes cotton mills in the category of Swadeshi, it is in the pay of mill-owners. If the Congress consists of caste Hindus, it represents an attempt to impose caste tyranny on the other Hindus; but if it aims at eradicating untouchability, it is going against the ancient Hindu traditions and immemorial Hindu customs. If the Congress attempts to unite the different communities, its efforts are foredoomed to failure, its pacts are bribes and the leaders of the minorities who co-operate with it are unrepresentative; if it does not make any such efforts, it is self-condemned and shows

·"THE CONGRESS IS ALWAYS WRONG"
35
utter indifference to the fundamental realities of the
Indian situation.
If there are differences between Congressmen, they
show the unfitness of Indians to unite and their inability
to work together and if their decisions are unanimous,
that unity is artificial and false.
The conclusion is, therefore, irresistible that the
Congress has been, is, and will be always wrong.
11. 11. 1934.

·ON FACING FACTS Sir Samuel Hoare has implored the journalists of the world to "face facts”. It is a pleasure to learn from such an impartial and disinterested person as Sir Samuel that when he was at the India Office, Sir Samuel himself always tried to face facts. Such a warm tribute to oneself shows that Sir Samuel can face facts even about himself and his achievements. I have not heard such eloquent and earnest exhortation to face facts since a man tried to sell me a second-hand typewriter. One regrets, however, that not merely foreign pressmen whom Sir Samuel addressed, but even some foreign rulers and governments do not have this factual outlook. Mussolini, for instance, is almost brutal in not facing the obvious fact that Abyssinia is not a part of Italy, while Egypt and Kenya are, in fact, parts of the British Empire. Hitler and Japan again ignore the fact that there is a League of Nations at Geneva. America occasionally overlooks the fact of Europe's existence though she is painfully conscious of the fact that she is a creditor of several European countries which, however, have forgotten the fact of their own indebtedness. It is in this world of unsettled debts and boundaries and armament parities that such exponents of Realpolitiks as Sir John Simon and Sir Samuel Hoare continue steadfastly to face facts. Nor is this surprising. Mr. Mr. Philip Guedella observes somewhere that whenever a Britisher feels very sentimental, he describes the state of his mind as ·ON FACING FACTS 87 “Facing Facts". The Facts that Sir Samuel faced continuously while at the India Office were, he says, to recognise that the East was changing quickly, to try to make peace among conflicting sections and to make as many friends as possible. And, he is not slow to assure us, he succeeded in all these three aims. The changing conditions in the East demanded an Indian Federation with the Princes somehow fitted in the jigsaw puzzle so that unless a Government of India Bill was immediately enacted to render possible Federation at a future date, British India alone might attain responsible government. In order to achieve reconciliation, the most moderate demands of the Indian intelligentsia were summarily rejected. Lastly, Sir Samuel tried to establish personal contacts by inviting as many people to London on as many missions as possible and eventually by sending some of his friends (like Mr. Gandhi) to jail and others (like Sapru-Jayakar) into wilderness, while driving others (like the Princes) into sullen antagonism to the whole scheme which they were too discreet to express owing, of course, to close bonds of friendship with Sir Samuel. And how did he face these Facts? Some of the inconvenient Factslike the Congress—he sought to suppress ; other Facts ---like the views and advice and importunities of Round Tablers, Liberals and the British Indian Delegation to the J. P. C.—he simply ignored ; yet other Facts—like the apprehensions of British commerce and the claims of the Services and the clamour of the Churchillites he exaggerated and magnified; still other Facts like the objections of the Princes and the inherent contradictions of a Federation between British India and ;

·38 PERVERSITIES Princely India-he either declined to face or placed his own dispassionate interpretation on them. It is evident that what governed his policy were Facts and neither tact nor (Gandhi-Irwin) pact. Indeed, he went to the length of appointing a Fact-Finding Committee to find out Facts which he wanted to be faced and gave replies in Parliament or issued communiques which not only threw new light on old Facts but even created new Facts that were stranger than Fiction ; and he constructed "settled facts" that unsettled men's minds and relations. Nevertheless, he resolutely refused enquiries to find out other kinds of Facts, such as, for instance, the treatment of political prisoners: No fact is too stubborn for those who rule India's destiny from Whitehall. The Fact of Imperialism is, after all, the most fundamental of all facts. For, it is very important to know what Facts are to be faced; otherwise we might leave unfaced those Facts which ought to be faced and face some other Facts which ought not to be faced. All facts are not born free and equal—any more than all men. Facts, too, have to be faced with discrimination : those supporting your thesis should be faced and those which do not, should be unfaced. When Sherlock Holmes gathered facts in his search of the criminal, he did not indiscriminately face all facts; he had a working hypothesis, an "inarticulate major premise" on the basis of which he proceeded to collect and sift the facts. One can no more face all the facts than can one be completely and absolutely impartial. Men who live differently face an entirely different set of facts; the mine-owner, for example, faces the fact of profits and ·ON FACING FACTS 39 royalties while the miner has to face the fact of wages and working conditions. Strong administrators like Sir Samuel, therefore, intuitively decide beforehand what . are the facts and then unflinchingly face them. Now there is no getting away from the terribly complex facts of the Indian situation. Communities and sections in this vast continent consisting of a fifth of the human race (alas for mankind !) with diverse slangs, marriage customs and funeral rites demand something that is analogous to Dominion Status, resembling responsible government and similar to self-government. But-in facing facts you always knock against a 'but'-—it is a historical and geographical and therefore scientific fact that it is impossible to have "better government” in a Federation or a province in the East without special responsibilities and emergency powers and ordinances and Governor's Acts and Counsellors and Advisers and non-votable and untouchable charges on revenue and compensations for exchange fluctuations and security of tenure and pensions for Services. It will be remenibered that the American Declaration of Independence itself contained safeguards against unfair discrimination through its insistence on equality of all men and endowment of men with inalienable' rights; Garibaldi and Cavour were both agreed about the need of reservations in constitutions, the only difference between them being as to whether it should take the form of "individual judgment” or “discretion”. Sir Samuel faced these Facts squarely at the Round Table Conferences. The main fact he noted and which you have to bear in mind is that without safeguards, there is no government, much less anything analogous ·40 PERVERSITIES to self-government so that the more stringent and numerous the safeguards, the more complex and sound and modern and Oriental the transitional form of semiresponsible government. Sir Samuel wants us to face that Fact and that Fact only. We should not go any further. We should not let ourselves face the fact that safeguards in other national constitutions are designed to protect the interests of the people themselves. Or, when you find yourself facing the rather unfortunate Fact that all the progressive and nationalist groups and politicians and organisations in the country unequivocally and unanimously condemn the constitution framed by you, turn round and look the other way. Follow the example of the illustrious and Fact-facing statesman who, when confronted by hostile public opinion, quietly asked, “how many fools does it take to make a public?” For, men who face facts should always possess the presence of mind and the decency to look at some other facts when unwanted facts face them. Because facts, in the ultimate analysis, are faith. And we know what is the faith of Sir Samuel Hoare. We can at least face that fact without his help. 27. 7. 1935.

·AN OPEN LETTER TO MUSSOLINI [I have often an irresistible desire to write Open Letters to the Great Ones who decide the destiny of this world, including your fate and mine, telling them exactly what I think of them and humbly advising them what they should do to clear up the mess in which we find ourselves. Years ago when Mr. Montagu was on his way to India, a Bombay publicist wrote a series of "Open Letters” to him explaining to him what constitutional reforms should be given to India. He made it clear that nothing less than that would satisfy him and his self-respect. Probably, Mr. Montagu never read them, though I have no doubt they must have been posted to Aden and Port Said. But the public, at any rate, was educated-or so the letter-writer thought. Mr. B. F. Bharucha has in his inimitable numerical style addressed numerous “Open Letters” not only to all the political leaders of India but to all the Viceroys since Lord Chelmsford and the several Secretaries of State since (and including) Sir Austin Chamberlain. But somehow I could never muster enough courage to write open letters. The Italo-Abyssinian crisis, however, leaves me no option. I want to prevent war and to urge this on the Rulers of the world with all the emphasis at my command-having nothing but emphasis to command at present. I feel that India has a distinct contribution to make in this incident, she has a great message to give to stricken and suffering ·42 PERVERSITIES humanity on the eve of a world-war. On behalf of India, therefore, self-dedicated and self-elected, deliver this message.] I 3rd September, 1935. To SIGNOR BENITO MUSSOLINI IL DUCE OF ITALY. Respected Sir, I call upon you in all humility but in the name of humanity, liberty, fraternity and stability to give up the rash adventure on which you are now engaged in Abyssinia. Permit me to point out that India deeply resents your wanton disturbance of the status quo in Africa which is the sine qua non of world-peace. Your ex cathedra pronouncements on the coloured races have deeply pained me. Please remember, revered Signor, that India has a hoary civilisation and its people were most enlightened, cultured and upright even before Rome was built-and, you will agree, not built in a day. Even to-day India is an original member of the League of Nations and although she cannot reduce the scale of her own military expenditure or reorganise her own army or prevent air-bombing on her own frontiers, she is decidedly in favour of world-disarmament and has given practical proof of it by her own Arms Act prohibiting carriage of Arms within the country. Disarmament, like charity, must begin at home. Similarly, despite the fact that India could not get a single recommendation of even the Joint Memorandum of the Indian Delegation to the J. P. C. accepted by that ·AN OPEN LETTER TO MUSSOLINI 43 august and impartial body, she is definitely agreeable to the grant of self-determination to other lands such as the Saar and Esthonia and Lithuania and Anatolia and Albania and Abyssinia. Let me warn you plainly, dear Signor, that since the last war (which is still fortunately called the Great War and will be so-called until the next one), we have been lifted, as we fully realise, into what is a larger or higher and rarefied atmosphere. Indeed, we breathe with difficulty there. When we look back at the narrow horizon of politics that exists in our cities (you might have heard that we are still worried about our water-supply and our cityfathers are worried about mayoralty and standing committee elections), we stand appalled. We are becoming intensely internationally-minded and have developed a world-outlook in all affairs. It is wonderful to think that our politics now embrace larger and bigger issues of the world, such as Manchukuo, Mexico, mandates as well as the internationalisation of Suez (but not sewage). You would have been deeply interested, sir, if you had been privileged to listen to some of the strong speeches at the meetings on the Abyssinia Day when international control was immediately and unequivocally demanded for all places lying between Cape and Cairo. We have no illusions now about the real position of Abyssinia. Before you hurled your challenge to it, I imagined that it was somewhere on the Mediterranean and never suspected that it was the same country as Ethiopia or that it has a place called Ulal (now called Wal-Wal). You have not only roused the consciousness of the coloured peoples but re-taught geography to their grown-ups. The long notice of four ·44 PERVERSITIES months that you gave before making war on Abyssinia is no doubt an act of chivalry on your part due to your desire to enable your enemy to be fully prepared between June and October. Let me make it plain, Signor Mussolini, that we in India have nothing but good feeling towards the people of Italy as such. In fact, personally, I like speghatti and macaroni. Indians have no designs upon any other peoples of the world and they bear no ill-will towards anyone—except towards one another in India itself. But that, you will appreciate, is an intra-national and domestic problem outside the purview of the League of Nations. Indians want to live at peace with all the other peoples and make their own peculiar contribution (whatever it is) to human progress. But Indians are a proud and sensitive people (though it takes some time to wound their pride or sensitiveness) and they cannot stand such flagrant violation of the liberties of a coloured people. They can perhaps understand conquest committed in " a fit of absence of mind” as Seeley described the British Empire in the East ; they can even reconcile themselves to mandates with preferential markets, colonies with concessions and protectorates as spheres of influence. But not to the invasion of Abyssinia. We draw the (imaginary) line there. I would even at this late hour (it's 11-30 p.m. now and nearing mid-night) urge upon you with folded hands to retrace your steps and accept the modus vivendi suggested by Mr. Anthony Eden which is the only practical modus operandi that I can think of. I hope as a worthy descendant of Rome, you will at least accept these bona fide Latin phrases for solving the ·AN OPEN LETTER TO MUSSOLINI 45 crisis and not provide a casus belli for whole Europe. Mr. Eden has most generously offered you other people's lands; he and M. Laval have even gone up to the limit of concession by offering you control of Abyssinia's post offices, railways and mines which belong to neither of them. They are as keen as you to put Abyssinia's house in order which is quite laudable since you have all successfully put your own houses in order in England, France and Italy. Meanwhile, let me remind you that Herr Hitler, the Fuehrer, is busy putting the German house in order and will soon emerge to put the whole of the European house in order. But the other Powers want to save Abyssinia's face by a compromise and formula whereby her face would be about the only thing that Abyssinia would save. Sir Samuel Hoare is so sympathetic to your legitimate ambition for expansion of whose legitimacy he will be the sole judge as he was of the legitimacy of Indian aspirations --that he is prepared to suffer contraction in British territories in Africa and put up with concessions in Abyssinia. They all want to see Abyssinia proselytised, industrialised, civilised, concessionised, mandatised and finally internationalised. The difference is of means, Signor Mussolini, not of ends. I suggest that the solution is simplicity itself. If you can do in Rome as the Romans do, why not do in the Empires what Empire-builders do? Issue a Black Paper for Abyssinia (preferably in consultation with Sir Samuel Hoare), promising Abyssinia autonomy with adequate safeguards, reservations and emergency powers. Japan now intends to issue a Yellow paper for Manchuria. Appoint Counsellors and Advisers to ·46 PERVERSITIES the Emperor in regard to Finance, Defence and Foreign Affairs and a statutory railway authority to manage the railways and a reserve bank to look after the currency. Even the Ethiopian leopard might then change his spots. The Emperor might reconcile himself to his being the first constitutional Emperor of Africa or simply abdicate. In either case, the status quo will be preserved, the peace of the world secured, outlet for surplus population and goods assured and dividends on investments ensured. All roads might lead to Rome but don't forget that they begin now-adays at the counting-house. 7. 9. 1935.

·LEAGUE OF NATIONS-A. D. 1999 [Being Extracts from a Travel Book written by an Indian Tourist in Switzerlund in the year of (dis)grace 1999 A.D. or thereabouts.] While at Geneva, I was suddenly reminded of the fact that many years ago there used to be in this place an Association or Society called the League of Nations (or Notions ?) where representatives of governments of various countries met frequently in order to maintain Peace and War. I remember to have read, in my childhood, that this place was selected not only because Switzerland had already adopted the principle of naval disarmament but because Swiss hotel-keeping was the best in Europe. If I am not mistaken, some Rajas and Maharajas from India also came here every year with officials from India Office (situated, curiously enough, in London !) to represent India. I had, therefore, a keen desire to visit this institution, if possible. Unfortunately, neither the Tourist Agency nor the Hotel Manager nor the Policemen knew anything about the existence of any such society. Some directed us to Calvin's monuments, others to anthropological and archaeological museums and still others to the local Zoo ! But this is nothing strange. How many people visiting Delhi know, for instance, that the Purana Killa is just near the Irwin Stadium or that there is a tower called Kutub Minar higher than Ochterlony Monument? But my discovery was accidental. I happened to meet a taxi-driver who had a faint recollection that ·48 PERVERSITIES he had seen some such building some years ago; and after wandering round and round the streets of Geneva, he brought me to a place where there was an old signboard on which could still be read, although with difficulty, the words “League of Nations-In Voluntary Liquidation; Entrance by the side lane near the Coiffeur (hair-dresser)." I jumped out in joy and went inside the building. After I had knocked at the main door and rung the bell for several minutes, an old man eventually appeared. He wanted to know the object of my visit; and, when told about it, he was evidently surprised. He said that except a feudal noble from India who paid an occasional visit, no one ever came even to see the deserted house of the League. The building was in a dilapidated condition and was dark and dingy. I asked my guide who he was. He said that he was the Secretary-General of the League but since that body was not functioning, he was now called the Caretaker. He was a Russian by birth and had been an Ambassador on behalf of Bolivia in Paraguay, in Paraguay on behalf of Bolivia, in Lithuania on behalf of Esthonia, in Czechoslovakia on behalf of Manchukuo and lastly at Dublin on behalf of England. In the end, he had had become become completely internationalised and accepted the League of Nations post. "Meanwhile, however, " the ex-Ambassador-cum- Caretaker continued, “the League itself was in a bad way-politically, economically, geographically, morally, etc. First, Japan left it because the Press in America became more yellow than even the Mongolian. Then ·LEAGUE OF NATIONS-A.D. 1999 49 in Germany, there arose a mighty man named Heil Hitler who, with his General Boring (so-called because he bored everyone by his marches), made a lot of furore and was, therefore, known as the Supreme Furore of the Reich. It is said by contemporary historians that his moustache resembled that of a cinema comedian, Charlie Chaplin, of whom the Furore was consequently very jealous and whose films he banned in Germany, lest his moustache be rivalled. Heil Hitler left the League because the League wanted bilateral and multilateral repudiation of treaties. Hitlerji (as he was called owing to Aryan usage) believed in securing universal disarmament by heavy rearmament of his own nation—a notion in which every nation, of course, believed. He desired to achieve stability by first upsetting everything, beginning from the League downwards; and wanted to ensure Perpetual Peace through a Great Pacific War. He even wanted to rejoin the League in order to resign on equal terms with the other countries; büi France rejected this via media. In the meanwhile, Signor Benito Marconi (or Macaroni) who, although ill, always gave a Dictation to Italian youths, carried on a Gorilla warfare in Africa and was spreading civilisation by poison-gas and air-bombs. As the League wanted him to hasten slowly and not be too aggressive in his aggression, he also walked out of the League. “Subsequently, France wanted England de-sanction Italy (a technical expression meaning to re-trade with her) while at the same time declare a sanction-peace against Germany. As England was opposed to this alternate dose of sanctions and performed to 4 ·50 PERVERSITIES some marvellous tight-rope walking between France and Germany, France also severed her connection with the League. It appears that, at this time, England had a powerful Minister of Foreign Affairs, named Sir Samuel Eden, who was either young or old but certainly not both. Although attempts have been made to connect his name with the Eden Gardens of Calcutta, there is little doubt that he assumed the name because of his earnest desire to make Europe a Garden of Eden as it was before Satan found some mischief for busy hands to do. “As the whole burden of collective security now devolved upon England and the non-League countries were demanding either the return of the mandated colonies or the mandatisation of Britain's own protectorates, England after waving the olive branch with no olive on it also decided to leave the League and the decision was hailed by a leading British journalist-peer called Lord Beavergarvin. “The only countries which are now Honorary Members of the League are Abyssinia, Mexico and Montecarlo—all others having resigned and withdrawn from the League one by one. But even these three countries hardly send Delegates or Representatives or Advisers. We are also in financial difficulties owing to the economic consequences of War and of Peace as well as due to Mutual Sanctions, International Debts and cancellation of Debts. In fact, no repairs to the League building are possible until the Reparations are fully paid up. Some countries were in arrears in their payment of fees for nearly fifty years and even their ·LEAGUE OF NATIONS-A.D. 1999 51 token payments and symbolic subscriptions have stopped long since," he concluded with a post-depression but cosmopolitan sigh. Thanking profusely my venerable guide, I inquired as to India's present connexion and relation with the League. A ray of light shone in the otherwise gloomy eyes of the Caretaker. He continued, "I deeply regret I forgot to mention India. India, of course, still continues to be the only Active Member of the League and shows her genuine interest and keeps up her world-contacts by a regular annual contribution towards the upkeep of this building and by the yearly visit of their distinguished Representative whose name, if I am not mistaken, is Maharaja of Zambo. He comes to Geneva with a large retinue and reserves 125 rooms in the Hotel International and engages its ballroom for two months with an option to extend the period. His rich turban and bejewelled dress are the talk of all Switzerland which is charmed by his personality which consists mainly of his dress and his jewels. I understand that under the new constitution devised by Britain a few years ago, India's membership of the League is a statutory obligation like the salaries of civil servants ; and the Governor-General of the Federal Government has, in accordance with his special responsibilities, to send an Indian Prince to represent India at the League. Thus, India has attained an international status even though the League is now closed down and has ceased to function." I asked my guide whether the Indian Representative attended any of the meetings of the League Assembly or Council.

·52 PERVERSITIES “No such meetings are, indeed, held, so that he has nothing to attend," he replied : “But His Highness pays us a gracious visit to see if the League building is yet standing." 2. 5. 1936.

·WHO ARE THE MEEK? A MISLEADING CASE May 23, 1933. The hearing of this case was commenced to-day before Justice Crank and Justice Stout in the High Court. The facts of the case briefly are that one Mr. Sarbabinash Nikhal stated in conversation with five persons in the street of Mangoostan that "the meek shall inherit the earth” and quoted the world-wide moral influence of Mahatma Gandhi as an illustration of the truth of the dictum. One C. I. D. Inspector who was among the five persons present, followed him closely and as immediately he (the accused) purchased one yard of khadi, he was arrested under the Emergency Powers Ordinance and tried for creating disaffection. The accused defended himself and applied for sub-poenas being issued on Mr. Ramsay Mac- Donald, Stalin, M. Briand, Mussolini, de Rivera, Madame Sun Yat Sen, Senator Borah and Sir Maneckjee Dadabhai to appear as defence witnesses. The Magistrate rejected all the names except that of M. Briand but he (the Magistrate) held that as he (M. Briand) was now a corpus-officio, he (M. Briand) could not be called. The defendant appealed against the orders on the ground that it was prima-matteris to the case of the accused that the witnesses cited should be called and, if necessary, recalled from the other ·54 PERVERSITIES world with the aid of a medium and referred to Justice Macardie's ipse dixit in a recent spiritualist case. The appeal was rejected mainly as ab-origine voluntario and the Magistrate sentenced the accused to 20 months' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 30,000 on the ground (not of his offence) but of his relationship with a rich uncle-in-law or, in default, another 30 months' imprisonment. The Magistrate refused to take into account the status of the accused and owing to the grave offence placed him in "Z" class. The defence appealed to the Sessions Judge, who quashed the sentence and the prosecution therefore appealed against the acquittal to the High Court. The case came up for hearing this morning. The Court room was crowded with lawyers as it had created a keen interest and was regarded as a test case. Sarbabinash, who had been released on a bail of one and a half lakh of rupees and a personal bond of one lakh, was seen calmly talking to his lawyer. The Advocate-General opening the case, congratulated their Lordships on their occupying the Bench once again after it had been repaired during the weekend and said that ať the Bar he always needed the cooperation of the Bench especially after the fourth bottle. He appealed to their Lordships to be perfectly impartial and dispassionate in their judgment before convicting the accused. The Advocate-General, proceeding, submitted a plan of the street in Mangoostan where the accused expressed the highly inflammatory words for which he had met with an exemplary punishment in the lower ·WHO ARE THE MEEK ? 55 Court, a punishment which should be not only an exainple to himself but also a warning to others. Recapitulating the facts of the case, he cmphasised that the words which had been attributed and which were admitted and were therefore no longer in dispute were spoken before five persons. According to the orders served under the Ordinance, persons were prohibited from speaking at any place where there are five or more people present. If the objectionable words had been spoken to four persons, it would have been a differeni matter. Crank J: Why is this so? Is the maximum limit of four laid down because according to Muslim law there can be at the most four wives ? (Laughter). The Learned Judge warned that if the people laughed at inappropriate places, he would have the Court cleared at once. He said that they should laugh only at his jokes which would be uttered with a becoming smile. Continuing his address, the Advocate-General said that he did not know the precise reasons for fixing the number four but he understood that in Hindu mythology, the number five was equivalent to God as seen by the custom of Panchanama and felt that political pollution began with five while four were immune. As regards the point of his Lordship, it had been held by the Privy Council in Nawab of Zabardast versus Usha Dasi that no maximum limit had been fixed in respect of illegitimate wives, so far as rulers are concerned. Crank J: Does monogamy lead to monotony? (Loud laughter).

·56 PERVERSITIES The Advocate-General : Your Lordship is very witty. Crank J. (Smiling): I I am also a bachelor. (Laughter). Proceeding the Advocate-General pointed out that the whole case hung on these three important words :- Stout J.: (Suddenly startled from a nap). Is the learned counsel asking for capital punishment ? The Advocate-General: No my Lord. I was arguing not that the accused should be hanged but that the case hung, in other words, rested or, depended on three or four words namely, “the meek" "inherited" and the "earth". It is my submission that the term "the meek” was only a cryptic symbol. Stout J.: A what? The Advocate-General : A symbol, my Lord, that is a private code word used in political secret societies for something specific. Crank J.: What does it stand for? The Advocate-General : It means Congressmen. As a result of the teachings of one Mr. Gandhi, Congressmen are supposed to be “meek” because they are presumed to follow his non-violent precepts. The Counsel for the Defence enquired whether Mr. Gandhi would be brought as a witness by his learned friend, failing which, he would object to any reference to him. He cited Mr. Queen vs. the King- Emperor to show that irrelevant materials are in vacuo.

·WHO ARE THE MEEK ? 57 The Advocate-General insisted on his right to refer to Mr. Gandhi because the accused had mentioned him in so many words as an example of the meek inheriting the earth. He cited the opinion of Lord Dumphill in Joharmal vs. Joharmal and others that "relevance is strictly relative" and contended that his reference was absolutely sua sponte. The objection was overruled. On resuming, the Advocate-General observed that without troubling their Lordships with the different laws of inheritance such as Mitakshar and poisoning old uncles or dwelling on the joint family system, he would straightway submit that the word "inherit” in this context stood in a very sinister sense and meant nothing less than the appropriation, acquisition and possession of wordly goods by every possible device. "Surely, your Lordships are aware", he continued, "that the world cannot be left as a bequest to the meek by the forefathers of those said meek in perpetuity. There is no other meaning that this word can bear save and except illegal acquirement not only of British India or the British Empire but the entire world through surreptitious means described by its leader as an open conspiracy. It had been held in Julius Caesar vs. the Bengal Nagpur Railway that even a lunatic's desire to dominate the whole world was unlawful' * * In this case one Julius Caesar, a lunatic confined in the Mental Hospital at Ranchi escaped and travelled to Calcutta without a ticket. He assaulted the ticket-collector who demanded his ticket on the ground that he had conquered the whole world and could go wherever he pleased. The Court rejected his plea, Justice Dad remarking that lunacy of one single individual cannot entitle him to seek to rule the world.

·58 PERVERSITIES “No doubt my learned friend will argue that the whole phrase is taken from the Bible which was half of the size of the Round Table Conference Reports and two-thirds of the Simon Report." The Counsel for the Defence enquired whether they intended to place all these books as exhibits. Crank J: Will the learned counsel quote the authority for citing these books. The Advocate-General : In all respect and with due humility- Stout J : (Smiling) Do you also intend to be one of the meek? (Laughter). The Advocate-General : My Lords, with due deference Crank J: We want reference. The Advocate-General : In Dean Inge versus the Hair Dresser's Union, both the New Testament and the Old Testament had been cited. Lord Sludge had, in fact, in the course of his obiter dicta stated inter alia that there was nothing wrong in holiness provided it was legal. The Advocate-General, continuing, said that the intention of the accused, namely, that he wanted the Congress to capture and dominate the whole world through what are professedly non-violent means, was clear from the fact that he mentioned Mr. Gandhi referred to as an example of this process of world-wide inheritance. “That a habitual law-breaker who is now a prisoner in Yervada should be referred to in these ·WHO ARE THE MEEK ? 59 glowing terms shows the wicked motive of the ipse dixit which was the cause loquendi in the present case." The Counsel for the accused made a plea of ignoratio elenchi on this point but was prepared to submit to argumentum ad baculum if the Court so ruled. The Advocate-General in bringing his remarks to a close said : This highly inflammatory speech is being represented as a mere conversation. That was, as Justice Blight said in Banerjee vs. the Corporation of Calcutta, a distinction without difference. Even this distinction between a conversation and a speech did not now exist and seditious conversation with one's wife and children, provided their number came to more than four, was definitely illegal. The object and the temper and the method of conversation were the same as those of a speech. Moreover, even after making this speech under the cover of conversation, the accused had proceeded to a Khadi Store and purchased a yard of khadi. Stout J: What is Khadi? The Advocate-General : My instructions are, my Lord, that it is home-spun cloth which is- Stout J: Whose home? The Advocate-General : I regret, I am not in a position to inform your Lordships on that point but I have to make it clear that it is not manufactured at Home. My submission is that this cloth although white in colour is red in its significance. Stout J: Red ?

·60
PERVERSITIES
The Advocate-General : Yes, my Lord I am
advised that it is red but not the red colour with which
the British Empire is painted in maps but the red
colour which is associated with Moscow and the
Bolsheviks.
The hearing was adjourned when the Court rose
for lunch. The Advocate-General, however, had only
tiffin and the Counsel for the Defence a bare cup of
tea.
23. 5. 1933.

·PART II ECONOMIC

·No text on this page.

·SECOND THOUGHTS ON THE BUDGET The first thought on the Central Government's recent Budget found expression in the leading articles of the papers the next day, in the inevitable interviews, in special supplements and enlarged issues, in criticisms in the Assembly, in outbursts in the Provinces. It is time, therefore, to collect the second thoughts on this Budget of Sir George Schuster, which is his last, but not his least. The Budget has been balanced. These few plain words sum up the story of a nation's financial emancipation. The glad news that Sir George had shown a slight surplus flashed across the whole country. It filled everyone with joy. Clark bowled a slow ball not aimed at the head of the batsman so that the batsman could play at least one ball with safety. Jail warders told the political" prisoners what had happened and allowed them to go on one day's voluntary hungerstrike to celebrate the happy event without insisting on forcible feeding. Nobody snored in the Assembly or in the Councils that day. Theasurcharge on incometax appeared attractive. The rural areas felt uplifted and the faces of the agriculturists were beaming. Even the unemployed ceased to tramp the streets for a day in search of a job in order to bring a little brightness into the life of the nation whose Budget had been balanced. Financial authorities assure the country that it is now definitely in a position to pay its way. Not ·64 PERVERSITIES merely that Sir George Schuster is able to pay his way. Nor even that the Government of India are able to pay their way by increasing old and imposing fresh taxes, by raiding Sinking Fund and by manipulating the Depreciation Fund and by juggling with the Public Debt. But the country is paying its way. My neighbour who is harassed by the durwan of the rent-collector told him plainly : "Don't trouble me. I have transferred rent charge to capital instead of revenue expenditure and am not going to pay it now. The surplus Budget clearly shows that I am paying my way. The country is doing it and I am a part of the country. Sir George Schuster says it; and how can you doubt his word?” From every home where there is a deficit budget each month, because there figures cannot be juggled and windfalls cannot be expected, a shout of joy goes out that the nation at least has got a surplus Budget. For the nation does not live in homes and cottages and huts where there is penury and hunger. Puzzled by this dilemma of a surplus in the midst of deficit, sumptuary allowances in the midst of starvation, I turned to the Financial Authority for an explanation. “How is it," I enquired, "that the period of trade slump and fall in prices corresponds with additional taxation and restoration of cuts in salaries of the most highly paid Services in the world ?" “The explanation”, he said, "is very simple. Industries are thriving in this country more than they ·SECOND THOUGHTS ON THE BUDGET 65 should. Government can welcome that only if they are in non-Indian hands. But take sugar". I took it. It tasted sweet. He continued, He was, however, not satisfied. "Now take salt. I took a pinch of salt but it was very saltish. “On the other hand”, said the great Authority, "take matches". I took that also, but had to return the box after lighting a cigarette. This provided a link to continue the argument. "Now take cigarettes and tobacco", he said. I picked up both indigenous and imported brands. However, when the Financial Authority wanted me to "take" not only cotton piecegoods but also hides which smelt rather badly and steel which was too heavy to carry, my patience was exhausted. Suddenly a bright idea struck me. With a hopeful gesture, I asked, “But what about the duty on silver and gold exports ?” I was disappointed. The Authority did not ask me to take silver or gold. Throughout this vast land on the morrow of the Budget, men asked one another to "take" sugar and salt, cotton and jute, linseed and groundnuts, hides and skins, matches and cigarettes. 5 ·66 PERVERSITIES The Authority changed the subject. “Which do you think is the Cinderella Province of India, Layman?' "Assam”, I hazarded, “because it is deprived of excise revenue on oil”. ) "Wrong. Try once more". "Bengal,” I ventured, “because it is deprived of the proceeds of jute export duty." “Wrong. Try once again.” "Madras," I said almost in tears, “because its rice is threatened from Siam and Bangkok and unlike wheat or jute or cotton, its case is not heard.'' “Wrong again, Have another guess." "Punjab," I muttered sobbing, “because its wheat growers are not fairly treated.” "No. Can you still try?" “Orissa and Sind are not yet separate Provinces and have not, therefore, reached the stage when they could claim the privilege of being Cinderella Provinces,” I pleaded ; “I do not know if you refer to Burma which wants to separate from, but maintain commercial relations with, India ; or Bihar owing to the earthquake; or the Central Provinces whose Government cannot subscribe to the earthquake fund owing to poverty and is worried about Berar; or the North-West Frontier Province which probably wants an increased subvention from the Central Government or Ajmer Merwara where there are no tariffs against detenus. If you had said, which is the Oliver Twist Province ·SECOND THOUGHTS ON THE BUDGET 67 I would have said, all the Provinces because they all ask for more. But who, O Great Authority, who is the Cinderella Province of India ?" “Why do you forget that benighted Province of Bombay ? Its development by Baron Lloyd at breakneck speed has made it barren but it also bears some grudge against New Delhi and now comes forward with a beggar's bowl. The Meston Settlement is the Aunt Sally of Indian public finance. Everybody can hit it. With so many Cinderellas competing to dance with the Prince of Finance and put their feet in the lost slipper of Prosperity, who can say that the future of India is not bright? "When all are for a Section And none is for the Nation And while the poor go on starving The Services ask for ration!” 17. 3. 1934.

·ON ECONOMIC PLANNING are I am a firm, almost a fervent, believer in what is called Economic Planning or alternately, Planned Economy. Since Soviet Russia had her two Five-Year Plans (total one Ten-Year Plan)* and Roosevelt had a Recovery Plan (no time-limit laid down), I feel that this country must also adopt a Plan. It must not only adopt it but also execute it. I insist, of course, that the Plan must be well-conceived, carefully thought-out, comprehensive, integral, quinquennial and energetically pursued. These adjectives and adverbs absolutely essential or no advocacy of a Plan is wellplanned. Organisation of the man-power, mobilisation of available resources and co-ordination of all factors—these are the requisites of Economic Planning or at least of a plea for it: they solve all intricate problems from currency to transport and agriculture to aviation. No peroration on economic or industrial reconstruction is complete without this appeal for and emphasis on Planning. The urgency of a Plan is, therefore, plain. Now the main questions to decide in all Planning are : what is to be planned, how it is to be planned and who is to plan it? Once you decide these points, the Plan simply grows like a Plant. It is not difficult to decide who is to plan. Obviously, the Government. They may have advisory councils or economic staff * The idea of having a quinquennial or decennial period is the only one I am prepared to borrow from Soviet Russia.

·ON ECONOMIC PLANNING 69 consisting of honorary or paid, nominated or elected persons; but care should be taken to see that only the right kind of men (which, as a rule, means ourselves). are selected. Businessmen are biassed and professors of economics are theoretical; so that only, those practical men, who expound the right kind of theories, (that is, in consonance with official practice) and those economists who have actually speculated in jute, bullion, shares or linseed and lost, should be selected for such specialised jobs. How to plan will then be evident. The path to Planning is strewn with Conferences, Commissions, Committees, surveys, data, statistics, special officers, ad hoc posts and so forth. For instance, the recent Crop-Planning Conference was preceded by an abortive Wheat Conference and a Provincial Ministers' Conference and will be followed by definite action leading to the creation of a number of marketing officers--central and provincial. In all Planning, you have to proceed cautiously yet boldly between disappointments on the one hand and appointments on the other. You have not only to plan the crops but also to crop the Plans (without the aid of barbers). Then, what is to be planned ? In the first place, agricultural produce. The problem of the Indian farmer to-day is not to grow more wheat or rice but to grow less and sell it. Any fool (relatively speaking) can produce wheat or rice or even barley; but without expert advice about planned marketing, no one can be made to eat it. Eminent economists are (more or less) agreed that, under existing conditions, we cannot possibly eat all the wheat and rice produced. The task ·70 PERVERSITIES of the ryot under the Raj is, therefore, to grow one bushel of wheat or one pound (avoirdupois) of rice where he grew two before, unless he is to sell it below cost of production. Scare-crop now frightens cultivators where scare-crows kept away birds. Locusts and pests, droughts and famines are welcomed by all farseeing (and well-to-do) economists as Nature's Planning to cure economic ills hred by men's follies. But you might contend (if you are still awake) that the recent Crop-Planning Conference has come to the conclusion (bless them !) that there is, in fact, no over-production of any agricultural commodity (except, perhaps, grass) in any province of India. International economic conferences (held at Geneva for the benefit of Swiss hotel-keepers) have arrived at identical conclusions about every country in the world. Consequently, the Crop-Planning Conference has asked the farmers (provided they read the resolutions) not to grow less wheat or rice but to think internationally and hear in mind the out-put and price of wheat and rice crops in the whole world. But if, even despite these Conferences at Simla, Committees in the Provinces and marketing officers all over the place (except in the market-place) and in spite of constant thought of worldproduction while sowing, reaping, borrowing, etc., the farmers are unable to sell wheat or rice, they should try to grow what are called "alternative" crops (e.g. jute or groundnuts) which also may or may not be sold, but whose production will prove an interesting experiment (for everyone except the farmers). The same difficulty confronts you-economists always point the finger of scorn at you—in the indus- ·ON ECONOMIC PLANNING 71 trial sphere. Anybody (again, relatively speaking) can manufacture piecegoods or soap or even steel; but the problem of Planned Economy is to make people buy them. Expert writers (or the majority of them) have proved that we couldn't possibly wear all the clothes inade in the country, even if we over-dressed ourselves or wash with all the soaps even if we bathe the whole day. That's why the Bombay. Lancashire Pact provides with great forethought that Indian piecegoods, which cannot all be consumed in India, because India has to import them for maintaining her balance of trade, should be exported to the Colonies jointly and severally with Lancashire goods. For it is a fundamental of modern civilised economy that men should not be able to use all the articles and consume all the commodities produced. Economic Planning must, therefore, facilitate a process of constructive destruction. It must aim at planned curtailment of industrial goods, planned closing of factories and workshops, planned throwing of men on the street, planned reduction of wages and planned burning of crops. This is an age of restriction par excellence : everything has to be restricted from births to goods. Nothing, in fact, is so bad now-a-days as men and goods. What are the reasons of this glut and surplus or under-consumption and lack of purchasing power? The question is not simple as it raises deeper issues such as what came first-money or goods ? Which is as difficult to answer as the eternal query that puzzled us in our childhood : which came first-the hen or the eggs? Indeed, production under modern conditions ·72 PERVERSITIES bears no relation to consumption because nobody knows whether prices follow wages or wages follow prices since economists were not born when the race between the two first began. But as it is at least clear that the whole trouble is due to what is technically called mal-adjustment between production and consumption, the main objective of Economic Planning should be to improve Demand. Now demand in economic terminology is not the same thing as want : it means want armed with money to purchase. However urgently a poor mother of a starving child may need milk, the need for milk cannot rise to the level of demand, until the mother has the money to buy it with. And as she is not likely to have the money, the want of the child, however vital, cannot, from the view-point of the economist, the industrialist and the Government, be called a demand at all. Consequently, even if a person or a nation might ask for something and even if there is over-abundant supply of the thing asked for, they cannot, in the economic sense, be said to demand it, unless they can afford it. Demand is the result of felt wants; but if wants are already felt (by others), any sane economist will tell you (if you spend 12/6 for his book) that these demands shouldn't be too loud and couldn't be satisfied without money, of which there is not enough supply. Perhaps it is for the sake of virtue that people are made to go short of what they want but cannot have. Economic Planning must take account of Ethical Values. This accumulation of virtue is assisted by Government, whose public finance assists a planned withdrawal of purchasing power by means of taxation and ·ON ECONOMIC PLANNING 73 loans and a planned increase of it by expenditure on the military and the C.I.D. and high salaries of the Services. They are drawing out the reserves for increasing the purchasing power of the nation for foreign and particularly imperial) goods. Gold exports are designed to draw out the hoardings of the masses and the income-tax, the hoardings of the classes. Trade is also improving. It has long been the opinion of financial authorities that trade is round some corner or other, although we turn a corner only to find another corner round the corner. Pessimists, communists and other “ists" say that this corner is only a blind-alley; but the probability is that the actual and final corner is not yet discovered. The industrial future of our country is also assured by the large number of persons who are prepared to grind their own axes while agricultural revival is promised by the fact that plenty of people, in the rural and urban areas are anxious to make hay while the sun shines. The future of Economic Planning in India is, therefore, taken allin-all, bright like a full-moon night. 16. 6. 1934.

·ECONOMIC FORECAST A SURVEY OF WORLD BUSINESS CONDITIONS Recently I have discovered with a shock that even I am looked upon as a prophet of business conditions --so urgent and popular is economic forecasting now-adays and so desperate have the people become to know whether in future they will make any money and if so, how much. Persons suddenly ask me, “How's business?" or "Is trade improving ?” Of course, my answer mainly depends on the time when the question is asked. If it's seven o'clock in the morning, when one is fresh and at peace with the world, I reply, “Well, not bad. There are signs of the beginning of an improvement." But if it's six o'clock in the evening when one is tired after office-work, I refuse to sound an optimistic note. “Bad as ever, I state curtly, “Things are going to get much worse.' And the inquirer retires defeated and disspirited. But I admit this sort of thing is unsatisfactory. One must study world-conditions of business, exchange fluctuations, international debt complications, movement of trade, stability of tariffs and gather statistics, figures and facts and prepare a careful survey from which might be deduced the trend of business conditions which, in turn, might be induced to yield a fortune. I have, therefore, attempted this week to present such a comprehensive, co-ordinated and scientific survey and some bold but cautious conclusions on the basis of this data. By reading, marking and inwardly ·ECONOMIC FORECAST 75 digesting it (with the aid of Kruschen Salt), the reader will be able to know the precise effects of the failure of Argentine linseed crop on the hosiery industry and also find out whether the burning of Brazilian coffee (on stoves) will depress the price of timber in Burma and of electricity shares in Lahore or even Cuttack. In short, you will be able to know whether far flung markets which are intimately related will go up or down or sideways. We shall begin with gold prices. It is absolutely essential that all economic survey should begin with a discussion of gold and sterling. It appears that the dollar-sterling rate opened last week at 5:017 (dollars or perhaps pounds, I couldn't say which) but felt cross at something or other and fell sharply to 4:9876, then crossed over to 5:0056, came across the Atlantic at 5:017, then again re-crossed to England at 5:01). Why it rose and fell and reacted and moved up in this manner is more than I–or, in fact, anyone else—can say. As Indian Finance emphasised in its issue of 8th September, it took the view on 25th August that there was no handy explanation in the case of fall of sterling and it was difficult to diagnose its exact And why this cross rate insists on maintaining a fraction—which I can only characterise as vulgar fraction—I don't pretend or profess to know. As regards rice which is the staple food of India and has not only nutritive value but is also capable of producing beri-beri if necessary, we find from the proceedings of the recent Crop-Planning Conference that there is no over-production and we conclude, therefore, that the price of rice will not go down. On the concause, ·76 PERVERSITIES a trary, if marketing officers recently appointed can make people eat more rice by an "Eat More Rice" campaign like the "Drink More Milk," "Breathe More Air," "Swallow More Bread," "Take More Tea," "Sip More Water," "Give More Glaxo" campaigns already inaugurated in this country, there is every probability (though, of course, no certainty) that consumption (of rice) would increase and the price might slightly go up. But since there are experts who are of opinion that there is dumping of rice in India due to imports at abnormally low rates, it is quite likely that if this continues unchecked, the price of rice might also go down. This presumption derives further support from the fact that not only have Burma and Siam total exportable surplus of about 2,500,00298 tons but various other countries like Ceylon, Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Portuguese West Indies, French Chinese Indies, etc., as well as Spain and Mussolini are growing rice and England is importing "paddy the next best thing" from Hollywood despite Ottawa agreement. Hitler has ordered all true Nazis to grow pure Aryan rice in their kinder-gartens and bear gardens or drink poison with foreign husk. It is, therefore, quite' possible that the price of rice which is likely to go up owing to over-consumption due to increased marketing facilities might also go down owing to lack of foreign markets. You can never say. As regards jute, the prospects are both rosy and thorny. The whole thing depends on restriction at home coupled with expansion abroad. Expert opinion now holds that either jute markets must expand or ·ECONOMIC FORECAST 77 jute must contract. One of the two things must happen. The main difficulty about jute, of course, is that one cannot forecast these Forecasts of the Government and the future of Futures is not yet decided. Some people are, however, of opinion that one should buy jute now but I think it should be sold just at present. In fact, I feel positive that unless jute prices go up, they would definitely come down. I shall be told that I have forgotten the security market. I have not. I have not. But the fact is that the prospects of gilt-edged securities depend entirely on whether the Finance Member follows the advice freely given once a week and sometimes twice a week by our financial journals, authorities, etc. But only the Devil can fathom the hearts of men and as we are not on particularly good terms with the Devil, we can't discover for the moment what view Sir James Grigg entertains or will take of the views offered to him. In any case, securities might go up if the Finance Member backs them up by means of Debt Redemption and Special Sinking Funds but if he backs out like his predecessor, they might go down. “God alone knows" as the banker told Indian Finance representative regarding the difference in money rates in Calcutta and Bombay : although one cannot help feeling that this is rather an unnecessary burden on an over-worked God apart from implying up-to-date knowledge of money market on the part of the Almighty. But then, I believe, bankers and Providence are, on the whole, on good terms. God, who, according to some philosophers, used to be on the side of the big battalions, now beams on those with a fat bank balance.

·78 PERVERSITIES Business conditions in general show signs of imperceptible improvement. Last month there were about 1,800 business failures in the whole of India (excluding Cutch and Rajputana) but most of them probably deserved to fail; as for over-speculation, over-trading, over-capitalisation and other forms of over-reaching oneself which led to such failures, economists now agree with the non-economic principle of Oscar Wilde that nothing succeeds like excess. Public Deposits in the Imperial Bank increased from Rs. 5,22,48,000-15-11 to Rs. 5,22,48,001-15-11 which is a sure sign of the return of confidence, the decline of diffidence, the expectations of dividend etc. We understand reliably that it is proposed to change the Bank's Dead-stock into Livestock in consultation with Mr. Livingstone, the Marketing Expert of the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research. The general trend of business conditions will, however, depend on whether the drought in the U.S.A. will be retrieved and whether the second monsoon in India will be a failure: whether there will be another earthquake in Bihar, Korea or Cuba and floods in the Ganges, the Nile and the Mississipi : : whether the war between Bolivia and Paraguay will be revived (or if it's going on with a vacation, will be ended): whether there will be revolutions in Haiti, Peru and Manchuria and what are the relations between Japan and Russia, Czecho-Slovakia and Lithuania, Jugo-Slavia and Esthonia-not to mention the Saar plebiscite, the Danzig corridor and the Polish parlour. The improvement in trade conditions will also depend on whether there will be general or partial strikes and ·ECONOMIC FORECAST 79 lock-outs in all the countries of the world as also on whether tariffs are put up or down by the various governments of the world and on the future activities and plans of a number of individuals including Hitler, Goering, Boring, Mussolini, the Lama of Tibet and the Shah of Persia. Finally, prognostication of worldconditions depends on whether the Second Five Years Plan of Russia, the N. R. A. of U. S. A. and the First Five Years Plan in U. P. succeed or fail and, above all, on whether the Japanese can sell still cheaper and force prices below zero. The task, it will be evident, is Herculean and even Hercules never excercised his mind or even his muscles on problems of world finance and trade. On the whole, it is an easier task, I feel, to pay Rs. 5 to your astrologer to find out whether you have any chance to make (or lose) money or to have your horoscope made out to know your future prospects (if any). At any rate, they will be more consoling personally than these business forecasts. 22. 9. 1934.

·LAISSEZ FAIRE Hats off to laissez faire ! Provided, of course, the hats are manufactured according to the approved principles of classical economics and the doctrines of the "Manchester School". One had thought that the old thing was dead, that its resurrection was more improbable than the return of the Messiah, that there was none so poor (or rich) as to do it reverence in these days of poverty amidst plenty. But Sir James Grigg, the sole surviving exponent of Cobdenism in India would, by some fiscal magic, bring it back to life. His touching faith is shared all the world over by one politician, one administrator and four professors of economics including the celebrated Prof. Brutzkus. Sir James approaches the closed doors of economic well-being with a flourish of the old key untroubled by any doubt as to whether it will fit the new lock. If the drive for "freedom of trade", which was the official ground for Ordinances against picketting and for emancipating the commercial community from the tyranny of the Congress three years ago, constituted the strongest defence of liberty undertaken since Abraham Lincoln made war on the Southern States of America to free the slaves, no greater evangelist than the Finance Member has arisen to proclaim the gospel of free trade and laissez aller, since Peel abolished the Corn Laws and competition became the nineteenth century substitute of honesty. When good Americans die, remarked Oscar Wilde, they go to Paris. When economists and states- ·LAISSEZ FAIRE 81 men of the "Manchester School" die, they are re-born as Civil Servants or Finance Members of India. The laws of Karma are not less unkind tu India than the doctrine of laissez faire. Laissez faire, as conceived by Sir James, is an integral part of the economic philosophy of "a nation of shop-keepers", which regards India less as a country than as a market, which views Indians as potential customers and consumers rather than as citizens, which interprets national wealth in terms of “balance of trade”, whose main criterion of national prosperity is the volume of foreign trade and whose one standard of financial acumen is the skill to balance the Budget. The path of India's economic history is strewn with the achievements of this doctrine. The benefits of an international division of labour have been secured to India along with the dependencies, colonies, protectorates and possessions of England, through the operation of "natural" economic laws which make a country not growing cotton peculiarly suitable for a large-scale textile industry. For Nature, fortunately, secures vast regions to enable powerful nations to obtain raw materials and closed or preferential markets with the adventitious aid of the Mercantile System. Economic laws consequently postulate “no State intervention in business", except to secure concessions and preserve trade routes, to safeguard capital investments and fence in markets abroad. It was laissez faire that ordained the imposition of cotton excise duty on Indian textiles and the control and regulation of salt and opium by the State. Ex- 6 ·82 PERVERSITIES ponents of laissez faire have applauded the virtues of a gold exchange standard managed and manipulated by Government. Home charges are, of course, a normal economic phenomenon which regulates the balance of payments between India and England. Sterling loans are raised in England not only to vindicate the sound credit of India in the world-market but also to prove the benificent existence of Adam Sinith's "invisible hand” which causes the enlightened self-interest of the City of London to promote the common good of India. More recently, this unseen hand of the "natural" law has decreed that the currents of India's foreign trade shall flow through imperial channels. The Ottawa Agreement and the Indo-British Trade Pact show how exports and imports of India are to be left unrestricted and untrammelled to take their “natural" course so the larger markets would be provided for British goods by their inherent superiority and cheapness. When England goes off the gold standard, the mystically guided spontaneity which underlies laissez faire, laissez aller somehow demands that the rupee should be linked to sterling and not find its "natural" level. The obvious merits of an unregulated economic system also require the provision of commercial safeguards to maintain the equilibrium of “natural rights” and ensure to others such artificial protection as is extended to Indian enterprises. Only a couple of years ago "Economic Harmonies” had had to be secured by means of Ordinances and emergency laws which sought to regulate trade while governmental interference was necessary to teach the people what is “honest” Swadeshi.

·LAISSEZ FAIRE 83 The vegetable seller in Midnapur, who was compelled to sell vegetables on a "hartal” day in order to ensure “freedom of trade", is the symbol of laissez faire in this land. Nothing should, in fact, be permitted to interfere with the salutary and ruthless working of natural economic law's so that the fittest might survive and the weakest go to the wall. We had known that Providence is prone to be pro British but we were not aware that Dame Nature is also in league with Lancashire and Lombard Street, It is good that this doctrine of the ancien regime is at last revived. Sir James would no longer be faced with the psychological conflicts, divided loyalties and hesitations which might have oppressed his predecessors. They had to discriminate at least in regard to protection, make safeguarding consistent with safeguards, introduce imperial preference by the back-door. Sir James, a profound believer in "natural" selection, which is the biological concomitant of laissez faire, will have no such compunctions. He is in the happy position of seeing the soul of goodness in things evil. Are Indian industries faced by acute competition from abroad? It is a process by which the fittest blessed word !-will come to the top. Are the losers in the struggle driven to bankruptcy and ruin? Bankruptcy is a spur to self-help, insolvency is the mother of invention and the sooner the losers die out, the better (at least for the winners). Do gold exports threaten to deplete the resources and reserves of the people? They maintain the “natural” exchange and increase the purchasing power ·84 PERVERSITIES of the Indian masses for foreign goods in a manner which even Bright could not have foreseen. Is there unemployment? The unemployed are an “Act of God” who, as Malthus said, come late at Nature's feast to find the table overcrowded, but anyhow, starvation is an essential economic incentive if some at least are to be comfortable and preserve "cheerfulness" in New Delhi. Is there poverty in the country? It is the fault of the industrialists who are burdening the consumers because India was growing richer when she was importing more of her requirements from abroad. Is military expenditure excessive? It is necessary to keep away the foreigners who might not practice laissez faire or even know that such a civilised principle exists. The one sinner against economic progress, in this conception, is the man who tries to save the lamb from the wolf. If we could but do away with this unscientific individual, who desires to interfere with the normal and natural course of trade and industry and impose monstrous regulation and control in the economic sphere, the prospects of the world would be unclouded. The one economic motto for the statesman should be "Each one for himself and the Devil take the hindmost”. Is Satan the one figure in orthodox mythology in whom Sir James has a profound belief? India needs this gospel at the present day. Unemployment need not henceforth worry Ministers. Committees and Commissions and Conferences will be disfavoured and reduced to the barest minimum.

·LAISSEZ FAIRE 85 Experts will be imported (and re-exported) only to advise about improving the machinery of tax-collection and reducing tariffs but not to plan planning. As economists usually disagree even about calling one another economists, the Civil Servants will be preferred, since they generally agree at least in regard to such fundamental and intricate economic issues as restoration of pay cuts, stabilisation of salary scales, security of pensions, compensation for exchange fluctuations, reservation of Governorship and promotion to Judgeships. And the results will be heartening. Cultivators of wheat and rice might be unable to sell them while hundreds starve for want of food Famine, draught and locusts will be welcomed by the farmer to whom the bounty of Nature is a curse. Production will be restricted simultaneously with demands for increase of productivity. Cotton-mills will work short-time to prevent over-production, while textile goods will be imported to encourage Lancashire's purchase of Indian cotton and maintain the balance of trade along with unbalanced reciprocity. On the one hand, economy and retrenchment and thrift will be preached as the sole means of salvation, while, on the other, advertisers and publicity campaigns devise ingenious ways to make people buy things. "Economic harmonies" will solve the problem of glut in the long run while underconsumption will finish men in the short run. 12. 4. 1936.

·BI-METALLISM OR THE SILVER LINING The currency problem has advanced one step further towards solution. Having resolved the riddle of gold, people are now busy discussing proposals as to what to do about silver. There have been suggestions to make silver along with gold the basis of our currency. Although I tremble to participate in this highly technical controversy, I presume this is to be done along with our return to the gold standard. Just now, I suppose, the addition of silver would not take us to the bi-metallic standard nor even to a tri-metallic standard, for sterling is not metal. It simply means Confidence in Mr. Montagu Norman converted into Paper. The change in the position of silver las filled our financial experts and economists with hope. Some see in it “a silver lining” in the dark clouds of depression. Just as Canning brought a New World into existence in order to redress the balance of the Old, so these biinetallists would bring into international exchange, a white metal in order to offset the waywardness of the yellow one. Two wrong cannot make a right; but two metals can, it appears, ensure stability. Now it cannot be denied that the duality inherent in bi-metallism has a metaphysical background, spiritual significance and biological justification. Even in pre-earthly period, there were gods and demons or God and Satan. At the dawn of creation, we are told (by those who could not be present at the time) that ·BI-METALLISM OR THE SILVER LINING 87 there were two entities, Man and Nature. There would have been no Fall and no exchange muddle, if Adam or even Eve had been alone. Religion tells us that there are Heaven and Hell in after-life while philosophy postulates the Ideal and the Real, Matter and Mind and Ethics speaks of Good and Evil. Man was defined by Plato as a featherless biped. But leaving aside philosophic speculation, even in nature we have life and death, day and night, land and water, North Pole and South Pole, Hot and Cold, (although in hotels only Cold tap works in winter and both are Hot in summer). Cosistently with this universal dualism, the Calcutta Corporation provides filtered and unfiltered water and also stops both of them. Bioligically, too, it takes two not only to make love but to quarrel. Wars require two nations, as marriage demands a couple. You cannot have duels any more than duets without two. The organisation of government again requires the governors and the governed, and of industry—capital and labour; or, as Marx would say, the exploiters and the exploited. Most of the races divide inankind into two categories. Ancient Hindus and modern Nazis divide men into Aryans and Non-Aryans (called Mlecchas and Jews), Mussalmans into Believers and Infidels, Christians into the Redeemed and the Heathens, the Westerners into Whites and Coloured. And rightly, therefore, Indians are divided into Hindus and Mussalmans. such is the fascination of this duality that the Mother of Parliament is divided into two Houses of Lords and Commons and functions through two Parties, the Government and the Opposition. The benefits of this Indeed, ·88 PERVERSITIES bi-cameral legislature are to be imposed, willynilly, upon the hapless Indian Provinces and even poor Assam has to suffer the dignity or indignity of two Chambers instead of one. We have only to see the success of the "dual” policy to realise the immense advantages of duality. In the scientific sphere, combined studies like socio-physics, astro-zoology, politico-mathematics, psycho-cinema and econo-mania are taking the place of partial and isolated studies. Everything from monocles to monologues and monopoly to monogamy seems obsolete or obnoxious to people now-a-days. Is a mono-metallic standard, then, less monotonous ? All this shows (if it shows anything at all) that bi-metallism has respectable antecedents and precedents in non-economic spheres. But, in truth, bi-metallism is not a new idea at all. When it was first suggested in England nearly sixty years ago, it was regarded as a dangerously advanced doctrine like communism, anarchism, eugenics, etc. I believe books dealing with bimetallism were proscribed and confiscated and their writers persecuted for heresy. Parents refused to give their daughters to young bi-metallists and old bimetallists could not be buried in the Church graveyard. Then in the 'ninetees, the International Monetary Conference which met at Brussels finally turned down the idea and the Government of India quick to respond to international opinion (where British interests are not involved) closed the mints to free coinage of silver in 1893. One thought that bi-metallism had died a rather painless death. The result was that when I studied economics, I understood it to mean a currency system ·BI-METALLISM OR THE SILVER LINING 89 in which the basic coin was composed of half gold and half silver instead of alloy or base metal. The theory is now old enough, respectable enough and forgotten enough to be revived. There are fervent advocates of the proposal to bi the metal though the difficulty of the poor is to get the metal to buy anything. Gold and silver would, we are assured, complement one another and implement international currency agreements. It cheers one to see such enthusiasm in these depressing days. I thought economists shifted their ground so much during the last few years and not only contradicted one another but even their own past theories, that nobody was now left who believed in his own economic axioms. But with a persistence which is only equalled by Sir Samuel Hoare's doggedness regarding the India Bill, bi-metallists continue to pin their faith to two metals. Not many followers of Dwandwa and Dwaita have shown such faith in Eternal Dualism. The advantages of a two-metal currency for this country may not, however, be immediately apparent. It might be said by some that, whatever the basis and form of currency, there will be no solution of the problem so long as exports have to be made to meet the Home Charges and that the sun never sets on our invisible imports. It might be contended by others that exports of metal-yellow or white or bronze or nickel -will be essential to make the “balance of trade" favourable and maintain exchange, while imports cannot be restricted for fear of losing the customs duties and antagonising Britain; and by still others, that there is never enough of currency in the hands of the ·90 PERVERSITIES people to purchase the goods they want to. But this is because people do not understand currency problems. When the rupee was linked to gold, the issue of currency had to be limited because there was shortage of gold in the world. But when the rupee was linked to sterling, Government had still to restrict currency issue because sterling could not be anchored in the uncharted sea of world-currency with the tide of trade at an ebb and an economic blizzard blowing all-round and the rupee, being sub-anchored to sterling, could not also be stable. But now things are brighter. There is the hope that America will push up the price of silver and another hope that the Government of India will throw open the mints to the free coinage of silver and gold and make rupees cease to be a mere token as also the hope that international co-operation will help both silver and gold—that is, three hopes in all. But, then, are, not Three Hopes better than One ? 8. 6. 1935.

·INTERNATIONAL EXPLOITATION OR DISTRIBUTING WORLD ECONOMIC RESOURCES We all tend to become idealists when our economic interests happen to coincide with our ideals. And Sir Samuel Hoare, that good Samaritan, is no exception. Before he injured his nose and his country's reputation, Sir Samuel placed before Geneva and mankind a lofty ideal of internationalism. He declared last September that every nation, that is, every imperialist nation, has the right to free access to raw materials of other countries and the raw materials should, therefore, be distributed equitably. All such powerful nations must consequently pursue a concerted policy for acquiring raw materials. Or, to be more precise, there should not be a scramble, but a co-operative distribution of other people's products. The idea underlying this proposal is, you will see, quite sound. Wars at present are due to the rivalries of imperialist powers, each eager to secure its raw niaterials (including labour) on the cheapest terms and each keen to dispose of its goods on the most remunerative terms. The remedy, therefore, is not to abolish imperialism, since that seems impracticable to the imperialist, but to ration the supply of raw materials all-round. How to achieve this? By extending ·92 PERVERSITIES imperialism to such territories as are still unannexed and by sharing out possessions which do not rightly belong to any European Power. In a world of predatory imperialism, Italy feels the grievance of a brigand who has been deprived of what does not belong to him and Germany nourishes the same sour feeling. The solution, therefore, is not to prohibit exploitation but to see that everyone receives a "fair" share of the unfair pile. Since Britain and France appear on the Continent like poachers turned into game-keepers, other Powers must also be asked to participate in universal poaching. Because the imperialist Powers possess what they have no right to acquire, others, who lack what they ought not to have, should be given it. As every imperialist Power wants to possess colonies and obtain raw materials, they must all get together and discuss the problem of the distribution of world's raw materials. The idea that such raw materials might belong to the people of the country where they are produced must, of course, be ruled out. National selfsufficiency is no substitute for international efficiency. I am told that things have come to such a pass in the West that when a doctor is now-a-days called to attend a patient suffering from a new disease, say jhin-jhinia (or even beri-beri or dum-dum, or budgebudge) he is not able to diagnose the disease or prescribe a remedy until he has had time to consult the International Health Committee set up by the League of Nations. And having given the international diagnosis, he tells the patient to rely on international co-operation and good-will to cure the attack and await world-developments for the purpose.

·INTERNATIONAL EXPLOITATION 93 The principle followed here is the ancient one of "Unity is Strength.” It might be argued by some cynics that a conglomeration of nations, who are incapable of purchasing their raw materials without the moral support and the immoral strength of other nations, are not a unity of strength but an aggregate of weaknesses. In any event, some critics would even be impolite enough to ask whether such rationing of raw materials by political devices is exactly in consonance with the principle of international division of labour. Whether, that is, countries, which do not grow the raw materials essential for their manufactures and can only acquire them through the aid of imperial or international machinery, are best suited to manufacture the commodities economically. It is a strange vindication of laissez faire, say these critics, that economic laws operate freely only in a world whose sources of supply and markets are determined by political considerations and machinations. Such doubts, however, are futile and reactionary. No problem can henceforth be effectively or finally solved without international co-operation. Take, for instance, our own country. Here is a nation which those ignorant of econonric laws might imagine is capable of supporting itself. But this is a crude fallacy. Although it is true that India can theoretically be self-sufficient, no one knows what “theoretically" means; so that practically, India is dependent on foreign markets for disposal of her raw products and on foreign suppliers for the conversion of those materials into manufactured goods. India has enough of everything ; but she cannot buy anything unless other nations buy something from ·94 PERVERSITIES her. This seems awfully complicated but is, in fact, very simple, once you know how to look at the question. For we get down here to the fundamental principle that it is impossible for a country to the east and south of the Suez to utilise its own resources itself or sell its own products to itself. Consequently, in order to buy her own food-products, India has to sell them abroad as well as purchase goods from abroad. Thereby India is linked with the world through loans and investments, unilateral treaties and imperial preferences. Thus is the way to be paved for international concord, world-unity and the salvation of mankind. The League of Nations will now take upon itself the black man's burden and ensure benevolent exploitation. No doubt, the problem of making guardian angels of grabbing profiteers is not easy to solve and the heart of the exploiter would probably reveal itself even under the cloak of a “civilising mission.” Perhaps deep beneath some mandate, you can detect the tentacles grasping for oil. Yet such risks are inevitable if trusteeship is to be reconciled to international commerce. The first step to the abolition of national barriers of trade and tariffs is to divide up the world into economic hemispheres—the prosperous and powerful nations of Europe, America and Japan on the one side and the proletarian countries like China, India and tracts of Africa : the highly industrialised and imperialist countries on the one hand, and colonies, dependencies, “spheres of influence'', protectoiates and mandated territories on the other. And a supernational authority like the one in Geneva will ration ·INTERNATIONAL EXPLOITATION 95 raw materials from the backward countries and provide markets for the advanced ones. It is an ideal to which all good pacifists and capitalists as well as socialists. belonging to the West will gladly subscribe. Trade barriers based on narrow nationalism will disappear and the ideal of economic self-sufficiency will give place to the broad and human doctrine of international exploitation. Wars between powerful nations will not arise out of a scramble for raw materials but only out of search for markets. But if it is found that the internationalisation of materials will not solve the difficulty of finding markets and that the lack of purchasing power of the bottom dog" nations of the world prevents consumption of goods made by the powerful nations, financiers and economists will have to look for other outlets. For instance, all the goods manufactured from rationed raw materials might be thrown into the Atlantic or even the Mediterranean or in the desert of Sahara. Or, perhaps, this tiny earth of ours will have to search for inarkets in other planets like Mars and Saturn. Statesmen will, no doubt, tell us then that we cannot hope to make this small world of ours self-supporting : a thesis which will be supported by astronomers and economists and Mr. H. G. Wells. And conferences will have to be convened to solve the problem of trade between planets. Our only hope is that in order to attend this Inter-Planetary Economic Conference, some of the world-statesmen and world-financiers and world-economists will try to fly beyond the stratosphere. 1. 2. 1936.

·IF LANCASHIRE WERE IN INDIA "In Competition with India”, observed Sir Padamji Ginwalla recently "Lancashire suffered all the disadvantages which, if it was an Indian industry, would disqualify it from getting protection under the Indian system”. This is, indeed, a suggestive theme. Suppose for a moment that England is India and that a Tariff Board consisting of Indians and Britishers investigated the problem of protection to the British textile industry. The representatives of the Indian cotton mill industry would, of course, be invited to give evidence in pursuance of the policy of reciprocity and imperial partnership embodied in the Government of India Act. Again, Lancashire would not be able to get the duties raised without prior consultation with the Indian textile interests owing to sheer imperial goodwill. We take it for granted also that the representatives of the Bombay and Ahmedabad Millowners, who will visit England, will have something to say about the hapless British consumers who are being sacrificed for the sake of maintaining a costly textile industry in England. Elaborate discussions will take place on questions ranging from "fair selling price" to "unfair competition”. In such a background, it is not difficult to visualise the results. FORECAST OF TARIFF BOARD REPORT It is expected that the Tariff Board Report on the cotton textile industry will be published shortly.

·IF LANCASHIRE WERE IN INDIA 97 It will be remembered that the Tariff Board consisted of Sir H. P. Mody (President), Sir William Clare-Less and H. H. The Aga Khan (who was recently weighed in the balance but not found wanting). The Board had the advantage of hearing the evidence of representatives of the Indian textile industry and of having confidential confabulations with them. It is said that the Board have derived very useful information and invaluable advice from them and it is now almost certain that consultation of Indian industrial interests will form a regular feature of every Tariff Board inquiry in England. It is pointed out in authoritative circles that any apprehensions regarding the infringement of Britain's fiscal autonomy by any such procedure are groundless since the whole matter is one of reciprocity and goodwill. MEANINGLESS The Board in their report carefully examine the claims of Lancashire and other cotton-manufacturing districts for adequate protection and apply the tests laid down in the majority report of the British Fiscal Commission. They hold that judged by these tests, the British textile industry is not justified in its demand for protection, adequate or otherwise, and is not entitled to it under any scheme of discriminating protection. The Board incidentally remark that the phrase discriminating protection is meaningless as protection in its very essence, must be discriminating. There is no such thing as indiscriminate protection any more than unresponsive co-operation or static progress. 7 ·98 PERVERSITIES The Board recapitulate the three well-known conditions laid down by the British Fiscal Commission which must be satisfied by any industry claiming protection, namely (i) that the industry must possess natural advantages, (ii) that without the help of protection, it is not likely to develop at all or not so rapidly as desirable and (iii) that it will eventually be able to face world-competition. STIPULATIONS FIRST As regards the first stipulation, the Board state that England has no natural facilities for cotton manufacture. It has to import the most important raw material, namely cotton, while the distance between the producing centres and the markets tends seriously to handicap the industry. The Board go at length into the growth and development of cotton textile industry in Britain and conclude that its establishment is the result of a series of historic accidents and its subsequent development is mainly, if not entirely, due to political causes such as England's control over sources of raw materials as well as over markets. The Board refer in this connection to the artificial aid of the cotton excise duty in India which checked the progress of a competing industry and enable the marketing of Lancashire goods in India. The Board condemn such political expedients and devices for assisting and promoting industries and refer in strong terms to the undesirable political influence of Lancashire M. P.'s ·IF LANCASHIRE WERE IN INDIA 99 in purely economic matters. The Board express a hope that suitable steps would be taken by Government to prevent political interference in business matters and merition the case of the Ottawa Pact, the indo-British Trade Agreement and Commercial Safeguards in the new Indian Constitution as illustrations of such undue political intervention in economic spheres and relationships. “Lancashire must stand or fall by its own worth and efficiency and not by back-stairs influence in Colonial and India Offices nor by exploiting imperial sentiment and organisation nor by taking advantage of the mandatory system.” This is one of the striking sentences in the Tariff Board report. SECOND As regards the second stipulation, the report states that, in whatever manner the cotton textile industry might have grown up in England, it is preposterous to say that it needs spoon-feeding after a century and a half of its inception. A caustic reference is made by describing it as “an abnormal infant of 150 years, which refuses to grow up after a certain point and at the same time claims the privileges of one of the oldest inhabitants of this island." The Board is definitely of opinion that neither safeguarding in England nor safeguards abroad will save it. In this connection, the report refers to the high cost of labour in England and the superior efficiency and skill of Japanese labour, the obsolete and out-of-date machinery of Lancashire mills, the failure of the mill industry to evolve any scheme of rationalisation or amalgamation ·100 PERVERSITIES and the excellence of Japanese organisations for purchase of cotton and study of changes in demands. THIRD Referring to the third stipulation, the Tariff Board mordantly inquire as to when an industry can face world competition if it cannot do so after nearly two hundred years. The report goes minutely into the meaning of the word “eventually” and concludes that unless the term is to mean the Doomsday or the last day of Eternity, the British textile industry has "eventualised” since long and must not seek shelter at the expense of the British tax-payer and the British consumer. The report states that Lancashire has definitely lost its place in the world-markets, which it would never regain and consequently its pace of expansion in Britain itself would be de-accelerated, or in other words, slowed down since the British textile industry was built on, and for, overseas, rather than home, markets. It is expected that the Board of Trade will accept the conclusions of the Tariff Board and will take immediate action upon its report by issuing a communique making it clear that no action will be taken.

·PART III GENERAL

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·THE OTHER FELLOW I have recently found that there is a more mysterious and ubiquitous person thau even my old friend, the man-in-the-street. The mau-in-the-street, you can hardly meet in the street; but this person, you cannot meet at all. All my efforts to find himn have failed: I would like to meet him at least once. Who is he? It's the other fellow. My earliest recollection of this other fellow is the class-room in my school in Bombay. The teacher was annoyed at some impromptu, but improper, prompting in recitation and asked all the five boys on the bench behind to stand up. Each of them denied knowledge, protested innocence and swore that some other fellow did it. When asked to point out the other fellow, however, they all surprisingly enough failed to do so; they could not trace him. Nor could the teacher. So in order to salve his conscience and like Dyer, to set an example, he punished all the five of them. But this was no genuine solution of the difficulty. It's like bombing a whole village from the air on the off-chance that you will thereby hit the guilty or imposing collective fines because you can't trace the offender. The fact was that the other fellow could not be found. Even the all-knowing teacher failed to find him. As one grows old, one finds this other fellow everywhere and all the time. He is responsible for so much mischief, misery and trouble that, if only found and properly dealt with, this old world would ·104 PERVERSITIES in one. be somewhat worth living in (or on). If you are lucky enough to have more than one servant, this other fellow (disguised as a servant) keeps your house untidy, breaks your crockery, steals your small change, and generally upsets your domestic peace and order. On the other hand, if you are unlucky enough to have several children, the other fellow becomes positively childish and spoils your books, takes away your stationery, turns upside down your sitting room, and yet you cannot trace the culprit because it's always the other child that causes all the trouble. The same difficulty confronts you in your office—if you happen to be If anything is misplaced, or a file manages to disappear, or a letter is not properly delivered, the durwans and the clerks will assure you that it's the other fellow that was responsible. You fret and fumeand if you care to or dare to—even swear; but your careful investigation for twenty-four hours will not enable you to find the other fellow. Whole factories have been known to close down, whole cities plunged into darkness and whole railway trains come to a deadstop, because this sinister other fellow was there working havoc for which no one was eventually found responsible. Everybody concerned blamed the other fellow, but despite thorough and painstaking enquiries and all efforts, the other fellow simply could not be found out. He might as well have been living in Mars or even the Moon. Nor are social and political affairs free from the baneful influence of this other fellow. Everyone knows (even without reading any of the numerous histories of the causes of the origins of the outbreak ·THE OTHER FELLOW 105 of the Great War) that the other nation—that is, a collection of other fellows not only provoked the war but committed all the atrocities, broke internationat rules of warfare and all canons (not cannons) of humanity. The other fellows were responsible for airbombing, poison gas, torpedoing passenger vessels, blockade etc. Not even Peace has put an end to the activities of this other fellow. He is always at Geneva or worldconferences on Pacts and Disarmament obstructing international understanding and preventing any progress towards peace or security or recovery. It is obvious that an aggressor cannot be defined because it's always the other fellow that is the aggressor (we being on the defensive) and as this slur hurts the other fellow, he cannot permit an international agreement for defining the aggressor. As the other nations (that is, other fellows on the other side) are arming and rearming, every nation is afraid to disarm. The statesinen of all the nations repeatedly declare that they want peace and long to abolish war for ever. Yet none of them can venture to disarm because all of them are mightily afraid of the other feltows. The hidden hand of this other fellow is also visible in the economic sphere. He hampers international trade and prevents the removal of trade barriers. For while all nations are against tariffs, quotas, subsidies, etc., which tend to restrict trade, all of them are compelled to resort to such measures because the other fellows are doing so. There is no other alternative, since otherwise the other fellows ·106 PERVERSITIES may take advantage of the situation. Similarly, all the nations of the world are in debt to the other fellows. Even America, which was regarded as the supreme creditor country was in so much debt that the City of New York was declared bankrupt. It is clear that the whole world is in debt to some one and it's none but the other fellows who are the creditors. The other fellow is such a shrewd devil that he derives advantage even out of the present slump and depression. I have often wondered who gains if everybody loses during a period of trade depression, because I believe it is a law of economic seesaw that when some one loses, others gain. But if all the people—including even the Indian Civil Service-lose (even 5 per cent.) who gains ? I have no doubt some other fellows must be quietly reaping a rich harvest even at present. The baffling figure of this other fellow strides this ancient country of ours like a Colossus. We are all quite certain that, if only the other fellows did their duty, we would not only achieve Swaraj (promised by the Duke of Connaught) but even Dominion Status (minus the Statute of Westminster). The Liberals are sure that if only the other fellows (namely, the Congressmen) made enough representations after representations and passed strongly worded but moderate resolutions, responsible government (with safeguards for transitory period) would come within an undefined short time. Constitutionalists are convinced that some other fellows should have gone to the R. T. C.'s and J. P. C., while non-co-operators hold that the other fellows should not have gone. Many persons reluctantly accept ministerships, executive councilorships, ·THE OTHER FELLOW 107 memberships of committees, etc., and want to enter the legislatures because they sincerely feel that otherwise other fellows far less patriotic than themselves would go in and do harm to the country. On the other hand, plenty of "patriotic” men who read daily newspapers feel strongly that, if only the other fellows (including the Liberals) went enough to jail and bore lathi charges and wore swadeshi clothes, independence (or the substance of it) could be won. I have been assured by numerous persons that if only a lakh of people were prepared simply to lay down their lives for the motherland, freedom would dawn on the land. The only proviso, of course, is that it must be one lakh other fellows who must be prepared to lay down their lives and the man making the remark would be excluded and left to enjoy the fruits of freedom. But unfortunately, one lakh of other fellows cannot be found. Inter-communal unity is also hampered and communal relations poisoned by this other fellow. Even men who can claim to be real leaders by issuing on an average three statements per week can only find fault with other fellows (or leaders). Both Hindu and Mussalman leaders are united aboạt the need of unity but the unity cannot be achieved. Why? Who is causing all this trouble? Of course, the other fellows. As a rule, therefore, leaders make earnest appeals to other leaders (or fellows) to try and achieve unity. But the other fellow disrupts unity conferences and is always dissatisfied with every single pact and understanding as conceding too much to one side or the other. It is difficult to discover whether the other fellows are Hindus or Muslims. Some leaders allege that these ·108 PERVERSITIES other fellows are Britishers disguised at times as Dr. Moonje or Sir Mahmud Iqbal. Gandhiji is one of the few persons who refuses to recognise this other fellow and even goes to the length of fasting for the sins of other fellows. We are up against this wicked chap in our social, educational and commercial and labour institutions. Go to any association and you will be told that its affairs are in a mess, that it is in a moribund condition, that there are squabbles and dissensions followed by motions of censure and resignations-all because the other fellows do not behave properly. The other fellows form cliques and carry on intrigues and cause quarrels. But you cannot find them. Each side wants to purge the institution of these other fellows but to no avail. Immediately one set of other fellows goes, some other other fellows take their place. In the recent Calcutta Mayoral election, for instance, there is no doubt at all that the other fellows were entirely responsible for the unseemly fight and the disgraceful scenes which both the parties and their newspapers were unanimous in condemning. But the other fellow could not be traced. He is like the Invisible Man of H. G. Wells. I must make it clear, however, that the word "fellow" has not been used in a disrespectful sense throughout this thesis. There are Fellows of the Senate and the Syndicate and for aught I know (or care), the other fellow might be equally well-off, if not respectable. The trouble only is that he holds up our national progress, disorganises social life and causes economic strangulation and yet he cannot be

·THE OTHER FELLOW
109
found. Not all the genius of Sherlock Holmes nor
all the skill of Elysium Row can enable one to discover
him, nor all the divine inspiration of the mystic help
one to solve this mystery of his inscrutable and
universal presence.
But could the truth be simpler
than this ? Could this other fellow who is nowhere
and everywhere be in you and in me and in all the
others ?
30. 6. 1934.

·NEW DISEASES FOR OLD A STUDY IN PSYCHOPATHY per cent. It is common knowledge that India is a land of epidemics. Plague, cholera, communal canker, kalaazar, meningitis, enlarged spleens (of "coolies''), beriberi, egoitis, apoplexy (due to overwork with 5 cut) and anaemia (owing to lack of work even with 95 per cent cut) break out from time to time in virulent forms and take a heavy toll of life. If the new Finance Member can take courage in both his hands (not only one, mind you) and levy an Excise Duty on Deaths taking place within the country (according to the correct fiscal principles of inland revenue), the entire deficit in the Central Budget can be wiped out; and a truly Indian equivalent of the British Death Duties could be discovered by one who prides himself as being a "Servant of India," without formally joining Mr. Sastri's Society. But apart from these well-known and quite respectable diseases, there are numerous other maladies prevailing in this hapless country which occupies the first place in all statistical tables relating to deaths, illiteracy and poverty and is most up-to-date and civilised in its ailments. These maladies might be described psychological; but that is why they are more, and not less, catching and dangerous. They are real, widely prevalent, contagious as well as infectious. Although not a medical man myself, nor one entitled to put the appellation "Dr.” before my name in any way what- ·NEW DISEASES FOR OLD 111 soever, I am rushing in where doctors fear to tread. For the present, I am quoting a few examples of new diseases which are rapidly developing into epidemics. No doubt, you will be able to supplement these and other incidental and consequential complaints instanced below and, if necessary, invent other varieties as a result of your own experience, observation, errors etc. The first disease I would refer to is technically called Leaderopsis or the Burning Desire to be a Leader in some sphere or other. This affects the young and the old alike; persons of all ages and in all stations of life become victims to the fell disease. Even women are not free from it. Symptoms: The patient, in the initial stages, takes to reading newspapers and attending public meetings. After having been “among those present, " he begins to write letters to the editor and even articles and develops a tendency to undeliver himself by delivering speeches or unburden himself by being a burden on his audience. Gradually, he has an irresistible desire to join institutions and become president or secretary or office-bearer of some sort or other. If he cannot succeed in one association, he manages to start another, and denounces his previous colleagues as clique, autocrats etc. If elected to the legislature, the person suffering from this malady tries to get into all the possible standing committees and sit on all the impossible commissions and go abroad to all inevitable conferences. Supplementary Complaints: When the disease becomes more pronounced, the patient usually develops ·112 PERVERSITIES another serious complaint called Statitis or the itch to issue statements through the press and the news agencies on every conceivable and “critical” occasion. Almost all politicians and public men in India catch this infection at some time or the other and even some business men cannot escape its contagion. This disease makes a person issue statements at the slightest provocation or even without any provocation at all. In the second stage of this disease, the patient is often attacked by Partysthenia, when there is a tendency on the part of the patient to start new parties, groups and sections and to become their "leader." This complaint is easily recognisable by its regularity and frequency. The result is that there are more "leaders” than followers in this country. In fact, it's hard to find a follower now-a-days. In the last stages, the patient frequently develops Osteoporosis or swelling condition of the head when Leaderopsis becomes really incurable. After this stage the case is hopeless. It is during this stage that, in certain cases, the public has to suffer all the minutest details of the ill-health of these "leaders.” The people are compelled to know precisely the blood pressure, intensity of heart throbs, quantity of albumin, sugar and acid and a grateful (if rather bored) nation has to read day after day what is the present state of the nose, ears, lungs, throat, eyes and teeth of our different "leaders." Fortunately, the tongues and hands are so affected by Statitis that nothing prevents the issue of successive statements, contradictions, explanations, manifestoes, appeals, messages, “clarion calls”-not to ·NEW DISEASES FOR OLD 113 mention interviews subsequently modified by supplementary interviews. Complementary Complications: When suffering from this disease, certain classes of patients also develop several complications such as Plutogastria (commonly known as Paisa-Paisa) or the Craving for Money and More Money which affects equally the rich and the poor. The first symptoms are that the patient gets discontented with his earnings. The colour of his face turns green (with envy at others getting richer than himself) and his cheeks get red (with anger at his employers or at the condition of service or business or profession). Once the germ of this disease gets into the system, the corpuscles transform the man into a living corpse. There is no cure for it. He develops speculation fever (or marketo-mania) which is dangerous and turfophobia or backing the wrong horse which is worse than hydrophobia or being bitten by the wrong dog. Some patients also suffer from Fastestria or the hysteria to fast at the slightest provocation. Persons take to fast to stop cow-slaughter, to compel a municipality to start bus service, to bring about compromise at elections to the Congress Committee, to collect funds, to prevent misuse of funds, to protest against increase in electricity and telephone charges etc. This malady usually results from Being Fed Up with the particular wrong at the time, so that the patient feels that by Unfeeding himself, he can undo the wrong. The best cure in such cases is for a number of opponents to sit opposite the patient and over-eat themselves. 8 ·114 PERVERSITIES Treatment: If a case of Leaderopsis is taken in hand early enough, there are chances of cure. The patient should be warned not to attend too many meetings or write too often to the press or deliver too many speeches. The patient must be asked not to be impatient at all in his pursuit of leadership. In order to fight the epidemic, municipalities and other local bodies should (if they can muster a quorum and a majority) request the All-India Journalists' Association and other press organisations not to publish in a month more than one statement of one leader or misleader. Government should also take strong preventive measures by postponing all committees, coinmissions and conferences for the next five years and abolish representation to Geneva shows in every shape and form. The epidemic might then gradually subside. It is difficult to suggest a satisfactory curative for partysthenia; but as a measure of public health, legislation might be passed laying down that no one can assume the title of a "leader") unless he can show at least one thousand (or 1,000) followers whose heads could be counted (and if necessary broken) and who would not try to be leaders" themselves during the course of twelve months from the time they are accounted as followers. If the patient develops osteoporosis (or a swollen head) there is no remedy. The head must be allowed to shrink to its original size by its own action. The path of this illness, along with the path of glory, leads but to the grave. 8. 9. 1934.

·GOODWILL that yet I observe from the papers another Day has been celebrated this week in Bombay-the “Goodwill Day.” The meeting to observe it was presided over by Mr. N. M. Joshi who bears goodwill towards all except perhaps the capitalists and was addressed by Mr. Jamnadas Mehta who is worried about the illwill shown by British Labourites to Indian seamen. But, then, Mr. Joshi might well argue that capitalists are not interested in the sort of goodwill manifested on “Goodwill Days" but in more tangible forms of "goodwill” which are valued in terms of money and for which compensation is payable. Goodwill in both these forms has been the subject of public attention in India and England for some time and has prominently figured in parliamentary debates and divisions. The desire to be protected from loss of "goodwill” through discrimination and expropriation has received statutory recognition; and the need to reciprocate goodwill has led to the formulation of trade pacts and agreements and treaties. Goodwill is to be Goodwill is to be generated and proinoted through Mody-Lees Pact and Indo-British Trade Agreement but to be safeguarded by clauses in the Government of India Bill. In such an atmosphere when goodwill has spread all-round and when hardly a day passes without either the Commons or a Manchester manufacturer or Mr. Baldwin or Mr. Mody appealing to mutual goodwill, it is doubtful whether it was quite necessary to set apart a separate "Day" for ·116 PERVERSITIES the celebration of goodwill-especially so soon after the Jubilee when vast crowds came out to witness illuminations out of goodwill to the Empire. Indeed, it has always been a subject of controversy among psychologists, biologists and sociologists whether man has a larger stock of goodwill or ill-will in his nature. Is primitive man with his bows and arrows more full of goodwill than the civilised man with his bombs and poison-gas? Is a child before he imitates grown-ups and undergoes the dreadful process of education moved by goodwill or ill-will ? Has the man from Santhal Parganas or Khasi Hills and other“backward tracts" more or less goodwill than Mr. Churchill who visibly overflows with it towards all subject peoples in the Empire ? Hobbes (not the British cricketer but the philosopher) had no doubts about the matter. He thought that the state of nature was one of savagery where every man was either trying to kill or in fear of being killed by his neighbour. "Man's life," he observed, “was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and mean." On the other hand, Locke and Rousseau were protagonists of individual and social goodwill as the basis of society. Darwin traced evolution to the competitive struggle which bred ill-will; but Kropotkin thought mutual aid based on goodwill led to progress. Karl Marx held that ill-will is inherent in social relationship so long as classdifferences continue. Imperialists, of course, regret illwill between different sections of inferior races and backward peoples and want to spread their own rule in order to prevent ill-will between warring peoples and establish instead goodwill with all of them as their own ·GOODWILL 117 subjects. The field of operation for both goodwill and ill-will has been immensely widened owing to science with the result that we are now able to dislike not only. our neighbours but our competitors in Japan and the Die-Hards and the Governor of the Bank of England. Aeroplanes and cinemas and the press can spread the cult of ill-will far more efficiently than hitherto even as they can become the instrument of beneficent purposes. Nothing, said Kant, is good except goodwill. But it seems as though men and women) on the whole have more or less the same fund of goodwill and ill-will. The differences are differences of degree, not of kind. We all have goodwill towards humanity, especially when we are young and idealistic; but even then, I suppose, we do have ill-will towards teachers and professors, football teams of other colleges, cricket teams of opponents, our competitors for prizes and even towards some of our relations. As we grow up, however, our stock of goodwill begins to depreciate rapidly. We, of course, retain, and even increase, our goodwill towards our own selves. As for others, most of us have goodwill towards their families but only exceptional individuals have an active goodwill towards all. The rest of us do as little good as we can and as much harm as we dare. Those who are defeated in the hard and unprincipled battle of life bear general ill-will not only towards the system but also towards the successful. Even those who are successful and rich are jealous of the still more successful and the richer and freely give expression to their ill-will. More than half the personal differences between men are, I imagine, ·118 PERVERSITIES or as due to such unconscious ill-will. Politicians and businessmen and public men do not rise above this common weakness; on the contrary, their ill-will is worse because their ambitions are higher. Only they disguise this ill-will under party labels “differences of principles. principles.” Public men have to profess to love mankind or the nation or their community in the abstract but continue all the same to dislike and hate and intrigue against particular men. That is why, all of us are moved by goodwill towards “the masses,” but few of us can combine to improve their lot. We reserve our ill-will for business or professional competitors and rival candidates and those who appear to "get on" better than ourselves. If we were all moved by goodwill, despite our poverty and frustrations and failures, the world would be a different place to live in. The public prosecutor would have few persons to prosecute and the magistrates still fewer to convict; so many of the solicitors and barristers would, in other countries, go “on the dole" and in our own, add to the swelling tide of the educated unemployed; drastic curtailment in the police and the military would at last be possible; and, perhaps, there would be balanced budgets. We could even have corporators and councillors and ministers moved by goodwill towards their constituents and their electors. But the question before the social reformer, the benevolent scientist and the humane philosopher is, how to increase the fund of goodwill of men and diminish their ill-will? Some scientists have foreseen ·GOODWILL 119 the possibility of resolving the mental character into its physico-chemical components and have suggested that human kindliness could be increased by a scientific readjustment of the chemical basis of character. Mr. Bertrand Russell in his "Icarus" discussed a similar idea. If the strength of kindly impulses depends upon discoverable physiological causes such as glands, he observed, "an international secret society of physiologists could bring about the inillenium by kidnapping, on a given date, all the rulers of the world and injecting into their blood some substance which would fill them with benevolence towards their fellow-creatures. Suddenly, then, Hitler would wish well to the Jews, Mussolini to the inhabitants the inhabitants of Abyssinia, the American Whites to the Negroes, South African Whites to the Natives and Indians, Sir Samuel Hoare to the Congressmen. But even this happy consummation assumes the goodwill of the physiologists themselves who would more probably prefer to win fortunes and worldly honour by injecting ill-will and military ferocity into recruits. Which means, in other words, that although goodwill alone can save the world, even if we knew how to produce goodwill, we might not do so unless we were already full of goodwill. But I trust that at least at the meeting to observe the “Goodwill Day”, goodwill was observed as between the Chairman and the speakers and between the speakers and the audience, and that it was not divided against itself like our unity conferences. 25. 5. 1935.

·HONOURS FOR THE WORTHY I have felt since long that the current Honours List is becoming rather stale. Should we not now have a new and different kind of Honours List altogether which represents correctly and accurately the 'position and activities of the individuals who receive them? Far be it for me to suggest that the present recipients do not deserve the titles and honours bestowed upon them : indeed, they often deserve them as much as they desire, them. But sometimes the reasons for bestowal are rather obscure while other merits and qualifications go unrewarded and unhonoured-and consequently unsung and unwept. I have therefore worked out a tentative scheme of ranks and orders and submit it hereunder for the careful but favourable consideration of the authorities and the public. MARKS OF RANK (1) DISAPPEARAGE To be given to the best absconder of the year who is not traceable. As Hindus and Mussalmans are not strictly entitled to get a peerage, they can get at least a disappearage. Nominations from the judges and magistrates to be invited. (2) MISCOUNT To be given to one who has committed the most daring falsification of accounts or embezzlement during the year.

·HONOURS FOR THE WORTHY 121 (3) BARREN To be given to one who has not been able to liquidify his assets and becomes the greatest insolvent. of the year. HONOURS (1) KNUT OF THE ROUND TABLE To be given to the most regular and assiduous Round Tabler of the three Conferences. (2) HURRAJA (PERSONAL) Reserved for the Raja or Maharaja who is the best sportsman of the year. TITLES C.B.--Companion of Bath: For the manufacturer of the best soap during the year. Recommendation of the All-India Soap- Manufacturers' Association to be given due weight. G.C.0.1.-Grand Cross of the Order of Imperialists: Reserved for the satrap or high official who delivers the most offensive speech against Indian nationalists in or out of the legislature. G.O.V.-Grand Order of Visitors: Reserved for the Indian Prince who visits England most frequently and regularly and resides there the longest.

·122 PERVERSITIES K.C.V.0.--Knight Canvasser of the Votes of the Opposition: For the official member who secures the largest number of votes for Government measures and helps to defeat non-official motions and measures. K.C.B.0.-Knight Commander of the Biggest Overdraft: To be given on the recommendation of the Managing Governor of the Imperial Bank. G.B.E.P.-Grand Breaker of Election pledges: To be awarded after general plebiscite. C.S.I.-Constant Statement Issuer: To be given to the public man who issues the largest number of statements in the year. The All-India Journalists' Association to have the right to make recommendations. C.I.E.-Crusher of Indian Enterprises: To be awarded to one who has given the greatest setback to Indian industries and commerce during the year. The Committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers to have the right to recommend a panel. K.B.E.-Knight of British Exports: To be given to one who is most helpful to imports from Britain. The Associated Chambers to recommend a panel.

·HONOURS FOR THE WORTHY 123 ORDERS O.B.C.-Order of Bogus Companies. O.B.W.M.-Order of Basking in the Warmth of the Mighty. ().F.B.-Order of Facing Bothways. DECORATIONS V.C.-Voting Correctly-Gold Medal: For the non-official who has never voted on a single occasion against the Government in the legislatures. E.I.R.-Evader of Income-tax Regulations-Silver Medal: To be awarded to the person who is most successful in evading income-tax regulations and rules. B.C.-Baffler of Customs-Bronze Medal: To be awarded to one who is most skilful in avoiding and evading Customs duties and takes advantage of loopholes in tariff regulations. S.P.C.A.-Seeker of Perpetual Committee (or Commission) Appointments—Diploma: Awarded to one who has served the largest number of Committees and Commissions. B.T.N.-Better Than Nothing-Certificate: For disappointed title-holders. All medals to be made at recipient's own expense.

·124
PERVERSITIES
OTHER DISTINCTIONS
Jungle Bahadur:
To be awarded to one who shoots the largest
number of pigeons and rabbits during the year.
The Red Riband of the Road:
To be awarded to one who is convicted for the most
reckless driving during the year.
D.D.L.-Doctor of Damned Lies :
An academic distinction to be awarded to one who
has plagiarised his thesis most successfully during
the year.
F.S.A.S.-Fellow of the Society of Adept Speculotors:
To be elected by the votes of members of the Fatka
market and satta gamblers.
M.A.F.S.-Master of Adulterated Food Stuff:
To be chosen by a referendum of consumers and
customers at large.
R.A.F.-Regular Associate of Functions:
To be awarded to the non-official who attends the
largest number of Government House functions in
every province.
20. 1. 1936.

·NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS Even the road to Hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. On New Year's Day, for instance, it is (or perhaps was) a custom to make resolutions about good behaviour during the year. Could we imagine what would be the New Year's Resolutions of some well-known men and women and even humbler souls ? Let us, Comrades (in a non-communistic sense), try. The New Viceroy :-In no public speech during the year shall I mention the word “goodwill” towards India. Sir Henry Craik :--To keep my temper even when there is a temporary victory of the Opposition. Sir N. N. Sircar :-Not to attempt to crack a joke in the Assembly. Sir James Grigg :-To remember that although the days of chivalry are gone, the days of courtesy to political opponents are coming. Opposition Heckler :-To ask only one supplementary question a day. The Official Back-Bencher :-To try and keep awake during Assembly debates. Dr. Ambedkar :-I shall not convert lest it pervert. Sjt. Rajagopalachariar :-I revert in order to subvert. The British Die Hard :-To live and let live.

·126 PERVERSITIES The Indian Civil Servant :-To be civil even when refusing to be a servant. The Indian Leader :-To try and be a follower for twelve months. The Indian Public Man :-To benefit the public by devoting all my time to private affairs. The Peripetatic Politician :-Not to tour all over the country for rousing the masses. Habitual letter-writer to the press :-To cease to be a man-of-letters. Pro Bono Publico :--To sign henceforth as “One Who is Interested." Chronic Newspaper-Reader :-To ignore "the realities of the situation' and to be deaf towards “clarion-calls.'' The Economist :-To refuse to mention the phrase "world causes” in any article or speech. The Doctor :-I shall not give false hopes to the patient nor tell him exactly his condition. The Patient :-I shall not be impatient. The Unemployed :—To have the patience of Job. The Man-in-the-Street :-To remember the motorin-the-street and not to look around too much in the street. Clive Street Boss. :-To realise that, ever after, authority resides not in Royal Exchange but in Government House. All of Us :--Not to say "I told you so" during the whole year. 28. 3. 1936.

·ONE, TWO, THREE Or a Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr, the South African politician, who visited India two years ago, defined Englishmen, Scotsmen and other peoples in a “nut-shell". For instance, he summarised an Englishman somewhat thus : “One Englishman-a fool, two Englishmen—a club, three Englishmen—British Empire". Scotsman thus : "One Scotsman-a game of golf, two Scotsmen--a bank, three Scotsmen-Government of England." This method of pithily and pungently summing up national characteristics needs to be more widely known and adopted in our own country. With profound apologies to all concerned (including, dear reader, yourself and myself) let us try. Needless to add, this is illustrative, not exhaustive : tentative, not final. One Indian Two Indians Three Indians A philosopher. Squabble. Foreign Rule. One Public Leader Two Public Leaders Three Public Leaders "Clarion Call." Divergent Statements. Three Groups. One Liberal ... Two Liberals Three Liberals A Leader. Conference. A Party.

·128 PERVERSITIES One Labour Leader Two Labour Leaders ... Three Labour Leaders ... Day-to-Day Grievances. Conflicting Ideologies. Trade Dis-union. . Promises and Pledges. One Municipal Corporator Two Municipal Corporators “Further Foolishness" (Stephen Leacock). Three Munnicipal Corporators “A Garden of Folly" (Stephen Leacock). One Bureaucrat Two Bureaucrats Three Bureaucrats “Great Expectations" (Charles Dickens). Mutual Aid (Kropotkin). Open Conspiracy (H. G. Wells). One Doctor Two Doctors ... Three Doctors Prescription. Disagreement. Obituary. One Lawyer Two Lawyers Three Lawyers Bill. Indebtedness. Bankruptcy. .. One Newspaper Two Newspapers Three Newspapers Public Opinion. Public Agitation. Public Recrimination,

·ONE, TWO, THREE
129
One Business man
Two Business men
Three Business men
Monopoly.
Competition.
Complication.
.
One Teacher ...
Two Teachers
Three Teachers
Authority.
Rivalry.
Pandemonium.
One Drunkard
Two Drunkards
Three Drunkards
Lack of Inhibition.
Sordid Exhibition.
Time for Prohibition.
13. 1. 1938.
9

·A REVISED GRAMMAR FOR MODERN
CHILDREN.
VERBS
PRESENT TENSE
I want peace
Thou opposest
He protests
It is a crisis
Past TENSE
We accepted office
You interfered
They issued statements
There was a deadlock
FUTURE TENSE
We shall resign
You will wire Simla
They will go to Wardha
The gulf will be bridged
FUTURE IN PAST
I should have colonies
Thou shouldst give up the Empire
He would non-intervene
There would be neither Jews nor Gentiles

·A REVISED GRAMMAR FOR MODERN CHILDREN
131
PRESÈNT CONTINUOUS
We are strengthening the Axis
You are shunning ideological divisions
They are leaving Geneva
All are nearing the ultimate Peace
PRESENT PERFECT
I have become a Leader
Thou hast been expelled
He has walked out
It has become a world-problem
PERFECT CONTINUOUS
We have been policing the world
You have been bombing civilian populations
They have been fearing the Dictators
There has been Peace with victories
PASSIVE
I am hit by Bears
Thou art saved by Bulls.
He is upset by Exchange
It is decided by Roosevelt (or Fate)
SUBJUNCTIVE
If we enter war
If you make air-raids
If they remain neutral
If anyone survives

·132
PERVERSITIES
INFINITIVE
We are ready to negotiate
You desire to have another Pact
They seek to establish mass contacts
That's but to achieve unity
PURPOSIVE SUBJUNCTIVE
We
may
raise
wages
You may go on strike
They may have arbitration
Industries may develop
IMPERATIVE
Fear not, for civilisation provides gas-masks
and "dug-outs" even for children!
16. 3. 1939.

·LAST WORDS The last words of great men are memorable. At least they are committed to memory by us in our school-days and misquoted in our college days. It is sometimes doubtful whether the last words are appropriately reproduced in memoirs or biographies because subsequent research tends to discredit the earlier versions. For example, I remember having read in a biography of Pitt that his last words were not what we were taught in books of history—“Roll up that map of Europe.”—but simply “Francis, get me some whisky quickly!” Admirers, however, are prone to invent legends and invest their heroes with a grand plırase when finally leaving the world. Indeed, every student of Shakespeare knows that Julius Caesar on being murdered said in correct Latin even in a play wholly in English "Et tu, Brute.” But modern historical research has cast doubt even on this incident and according to a later theory all that Caesar said was “Who hit me this time" (And then he fell—but not so swiftly as to injure the actor). Similarly, a cinema-loving schoolboy on being asked whose last words were "Kiss me, Hardy" replied instantaneously “Laurel" and not “Nelson" as one of an older generation might have done. It is, however, a useful though not a pleasant exercise to set down what might be the last words of the eminent persons now alive. Not that we want them to die; but then if there is one thing certain in ·134 PERVERSITIES I life, it is death. And the greatest of men and women will die. So let us imagine their last words, provided, of course, they have their wits about them at the time to say anything. Let me repeat that this does not imply the slightest desire to shorten their lives. Hitler : I shall now purify Heaven itself and purge it of all non-Aryans. Mussolini : I die dangerously. For who will now pacify Europe ? Stalin : Comrades, don't shoot the doctors ! am dying owing to natural plan, not a counterrevolutionary plot. Roosevelt : Mr. Secretary-of-State, is Paradise a Democracy or Dictatorship? Neville Chamberlain : And now for the final appeasement—although without the umbrella. Dr. Goebbels: Doctor, quick, I can lie no longer. General Goering : Heil, but I find it hard to inhale. Dr. Benes : Masaryk was happier. He knew when to die. I didn't. Haile Sellasie : I hope I shall obtain justice at least in the other world. Schuschnigg: Thank God, nothing worse can befall me now ! Lord Halifax : Destroy that map of the world! There's no country now left whose independence we can still guarantee or sacrifice. M. Bonnet : Thou too, Il Duce ! Einstein : Death at any rate is absolute.

·LAST WORDS
135
Freud: The next life is simply a controversion
of our fear-complex of self-annihilation.
Bernard Shaw: I had always told you that this
would happen to me one day.
H. G. Wells : I have written my obituary being
wiser than most other literary mnen.
Charlie Chaplin : This is my last exit from the
world's screen.
Greta Garbo : This has happened to me before
but only in the studio.
Paul Muni : Shall I be a star there also ?
An Indian Politician: But, Doctor, shall I be
able to issue statements from the other side ?
An Indian Journalist : Now I cannot have the
final word.
An Indian Business man: Is there no Protection
also against this?
The Thakore Saheb of Rajkot: I cannot die.
Durbar Veerawalla will see to that.
1. 6. 1939.

·THE RED PLANET
Astronomers, it is reported, tried once again to
establish radio communication with the planet Mars,
but once again failed. This may disappoint the
scientists themselves as well as some sensation-hunters.
But is there, in all conscience, any reason to be sore
about it?
It is not stated in the press reports what message
the American astronomer conveyed to the hypothetical
listener in Mars, nor in what language. If it was (with
a twang) "Hullo guy, are you O.K. ?", the Martian
might not have understood it, even if he knew English.
For, as Oscar Wilde remarked, the English and the
Americans are exactly alike except, of course, in
language. Moreover, how do we know whether, even
if there is life in Mars, the creatures are like human
beings? Physicists themselves have taught us that
there are forms of light not visible to the human eye and
only a fraction of sounds is audible to the human ear.
It is a favourite argument of the theist that he cannot
define God because the human mind is incapable of
conceiving Him. Assuming therefore that life exists
in Mars, it is possible that it might be in forms utterly
inconceivable to us and with either no speech, or
a mode of articulation and communication which it is
psychologically impossible for us to contemplate.
Indeed, why does the American astronomer not try
his mode of transmission in this old globe itself where

·THE RED PLANET 137 he will not get any response or even apprehension from the tribes in Africa and in Asia ? It is a common conceit of the Westerner to mistake his own way of living and killing as "civilisation". But our sense of proportion is outraged by his belief that "life" is equivalent to "listening-in” and that existence is coterminous with broadcasting! To go no further, mankind itself existed for millions of years without this invention. Perhaps the Martian is too uncivilised yet to have had radio-sets or too civilised to "listen-in" to propaganda and cheap art. In any event, scientifically and logically, I suppose, the lack of any responsive co-operation from the red planet proves nothing either way. We are not wiser as to whether there is life there or not. Nor, indeed, sadder. Why should the prospect of life on another planet cheer us up or console us? Is it because in this vast and mysterious universe, in those unfathomable and dark spaces which we see in the sky every night, the existence of life somewhere beyond our tiny globe, gives us a kind of a "home-feeling”, a refuge from loneliness? I wonder. Unless we are assured that the dead from our earth migrate there and live more happily over again, what earthly good it is to us even if there is life on Mars ? On the contrary, intercommunication with it has positive risks and dangers. Once it is known that there are creatures like human beings on that planet, the cupidity of the rulers of our unhappy world will inevitably be aroused. Because the planet is traditionally described as "red", Britain would claim it not as a colony, because that would be out-of-date and savour ·138 PERVERSITIES too much of Fascist imperialism, but as a mandated territory under the League of Nations. For the map of the world is painted red, as Maulana Mohamed Ali once remarked, with the blood of the conquered people. And if Britain once sent her aeroplanes to Mars and occupied it as a benevolent trustee, she would decry any attempts on the part of others to participate in the spoils, on the ground that it would be a threat to dominate a new planet which all peace-loving nations prizing their own liberty (except when deprived by Britain) were bound to resist. On the other hand, the Soviet would contend, not unjustifiably, that since it is the sole Red country in the whole world, it has not only a moral but a Marxian right to have the new planet as a sphere of Stalinite influence for its complete emancipation from the. Martian bourgeoisie. On this issue, it is plain, Stalin would receive not only the backing of the Red Army but also of all right-thinking Leftists all over the world. If the intercommunication had, in fact, succeeded and the rival claims urged, the consequent rift between Britain and Russia for the possession of the red planet might even have jeopardised the interesting Anglo- Soviet negotiations which promise to be concluded by the end of 1949 A.D. or the outbreak of another war, whichever is earlier. Incidentally, this rivalry would have strengthened Hitler who would have instantly freed the Free City of Danzig and directed his attention to the new planet. There is no doubt he would have discovered it to be either an ex-German colony or a land containing a large and oppressed German minority to whose succour ·THE RED PLANET 139 he was bound to go. No sooner said than done. Dr. Goebbels would have utilised the new means of intra-planetary communication to tell the Martians what boobies they were not to recognise the greatness of the Fuehrer and the beneficence of the Nazi rule. The war of nerves would have spread over the universe instead of being confined to our unfortunate globe. It would become a war for worlds as also a war of worlds. After all, is not Mars the God of War? And it is not improbable that the Martians, if they understood German as they are presumed to understand American- English, would have been deeply impressed by their own primitive state and unhappy condition without being emancipated by the Nazis even as did the people of Saar and Austria and Czechie and Memel. Japan in the meanwhile would invent telescopes, cheap of course, which would show the planet as having a yellowish tinge and would lay claim on certain of its territories. And, just imagine, how enormously difficult would be Mr. Chamberlain's task because he has not yet done with slowly surrendering everything to everybody even in this old world! And then, our leaders who are perpetually worried about the "international situation" would have all the time to be continuously anxious about the "interuniversal situation” thereby precluding their intensive preparation for the "coming struggle”. No. The prospect is awful. It is good that no communication was established with this planet. We have not made such a wonderful success of our own lives and our society in our own world that we need be

·140
PERVERSITIES
in any desperate hurry to extend the blessings of our
knowledge and power to creatures of another planet.
Sufficient unto this earth is the evil thereof.
4. 8. 1939.

·A TEST PAPER
For Those deeply interested but not too well versed
in International Affairs.
1. How many
(a) British ships have been sunk by Franco
since the commencement of this year?
(b) British sentries and soldiers slapped in
Shanghai between January and July ?
2. State briefly but firmly the number of protests
lodged by the British Government against
(1) Franco.
(ii) Japan.
Mention which of these protests were strong
and which asked for compensation.
3. Can you guess the size of the Waste Paper
Basket of
(a) the Japanese Foreign Minister and
(b) General Franco ?
4. What is
(a) a tense situation ?
(b) a delicate situation ?
(c) an anschluss ?
(d) a “triangular” axis ?
5. (a) Define carefully "non-intervention" and
show how, in a broad sense of the
term, it includes intervention by Italy,
Germany and Russia in Spain,

·142 PERVERSITIES (b) Is Japan "non-intervening" in China or merely defending itself? (c) Which do you think has been more helpful-the policy of "non-intervention" to Spain or that of "sanctions" to Abyssinia ? (d) How does “non-intervention" by Powers in Spain differ from non-intervention by the Paramount Power in the affairs of Indian States ? 6. Do you think the Spanish War is (i) a “civil” war or an uncivil war; (ii) a class war or an international war? Will it ever end ? If so, when and how ? 7. If you were a Dictator to-day of any State, would you prefer to wage a war without declaring it or practise the maxim "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than War" by grabbing whatever you can ? State your reasons with illustrations from contemporary history. 8. “Germany is the only country in the world that has practical socialism," observed the Aga Khan after his recent meeting with Herr Hitler who wanted to purchase his horses. Would everyone win the Derby under socialism or could everyone be weighed his worth in gold? 9. "Stalin has become a Fascist”, remarked Mussolini after the last Russian trials. If so, why is he opposed to Russian Fascism when he favours German Fascism?

·A TEST PAPER 143 10. Can you really distinguish between (a) Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo-Slavia ? (6) Lithuania and Esthonia ? (c) Latvia and Batavia ? How many Czechs are there in Czecho- Slovakia and Jugs in Jugo-Slavia ? 11. Do you know the difference between Memel and Mammal? Which does the Fuehrer want? 12. Draw a map of Europe (if you can) putting in the two Dictators plus Goering and Goebbels but omitting Geneva and show the number of countries and places on which they have an eye. 13. Are you sure that you can always distinguish between the names of the Chinese Generals and of the Chinese rivers ? 14. Discriminate impartially between a fraudulent plebiscite under Schuschnigg and a free plebiscite under the Fuehrer. 15. Show. that Germany's interest in Czecho- Slovakia is not interference in internal affairs of another country but that the world-interest in the fate of Jews in Germany or Austria is "intolerable interference". 16. Draw a distinction, if you must, between air-bombing on civil population in Spain and China on the one hand and in the North-West Frontier on the other. 17. Who do you think is nearer to Divinity ? (i) Hitler after the conquest of Austria. (ii) Mussolini after the conquest of Abyssinia.

·144 PERVERSITIES (iii) Japanese Foreign Minister during the conquest of China. Or, (iv) Neville Chamberlain after the conclusion of the Anglo-Italian agreement ? 18. (a) Is the League of Nations still functioning? If so where and how ? (b) The consideration of how many subjects has been postponed in how many meetings during the last how many years by the League of Nations ? 19. Have Abyssinians been completely civilised through the aid of air-bombing and poison-gas? 20. If you had a choice, would (i) a Jew in the Greater Reich ? (ii) a Bourgeois in Soviet Russia ? (iii) a Spaniard in Spain? Or, (iv) a Chinaman in China ? 21. Which is the greater Yellow Peril—threat of Japanese invasion or corruption and conquest by gold ? you rather be 7. 9. 1938.

·PART IV
POEMS
10

·No text on this page.

·OMAR KHAYYAM ON J. P. C. REPORT Poets, as those claiming to be poets never fail to emphasise, are prophets. It is not perhaps realised that even the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam contains significant comments on the recent report of the Joint (Select) Committee (of Parliament) on what are euphemistically but conventionally called Indian Constitutional Reforms. When the press is now over-flooded with criticisms, interviews, statements and articles on the Report, a recapitulation of Omar (with slight alterations wherever necessary) will be pertinent : even if to some it seems, in Omar's own words, "the Memory of this Impertinence!” * * Speaking of the 22nd November when the stone of a Report was to be given and the star of Liberty to fade, Omar truly said : “Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night...... "Has flung the Stone that puts the Star to Flight "And Lo! the Exploiter of the East has caught "A Nation's Destiny in a Noose that's Tight. Of the disillusioned, disappointed and embittered Round Tablers whose hearts had grown sick by hopes deferred and responsible government receding, he sang : "The stately Hope they set their Hearts upon “Turns Ashes or it prospers, and anon "Like snow upon the Desert's dusty Face “Lighting a little Hour or two is gone!

·148 PERVERSITIES And further, "Myself when Delegate did eagerly frequent "Conference and Committee, and heard great Argument “About it and about, but evermore "Came out by the same Door as in I went. The hope-less (in more senses than one) Moderate cries piteously : "There was a Door to which I found no Key “There was a Veil past which I could not see. And so Omar comes to his rescue : "But leave the Wise to wrangle and with me “The Quarrel of the Constitution let be. Not forgetting the financial safeguards especially regarding currency, Omar said : "Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest ! Not that Omar did not foresee the results of the Assembly elections : "And look-a thousand voters with the Day “Woke and candidates scattered into Clay “And this first winter month that brings on cold “Shall take Chetty and Mudaliyar away! “But come with old Bhulabhai and leave the Lot “Of Mudaliyar and Krishnamachariar forgot “Let Gour lay about him as he will “Or Ankelesaria lose deposit-heed them not ! Nevertheless, Omar saw the firm and unbending attitude of the average British Commoner and Lord about J. P. C. being the last word in political wisdom

·OMAR KHAYYAM ON J. P. C. REPORT
149
and its Report the final framework of the constitutional
future of India :
“The Moving Finger writes : and having writ
"Moves on : nor all India's Piety nor Wit
"Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line
"Nor all her tears wash out a Word of it.
Yet Omar foresaw the determination and efforts
of the Congress with a rare perspicacity :
"Oh Brother! could thou and I non-violently
conspire
“To grasp this sorry Scheme of Reforms entire
“Would not we shatter it to bits and then
"Re-mould it nearer to our Hearts' Desire !
24. 11. 1934.

·THE LIBERAL HAMLET. THE FAMOUS SOLILOQUY MODERNISED AND MODERATISED. To reject, or not to reject that is the question :- Whether it's wiser in the end to suffer The checks and balances of an outrageous scheme Or to take arms against a sea of safeguards And by opposing end them? To refuse-to repel- No more; and by refusal to say we end The heart-burning and the thousand natural shocks That a Liberal is heir to—'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To refuse-to repel;- To repel! perchance to repent:-ay, there's the rub; For in that struggle of refusal what difficulties тау соте, When we have shuffled off this constitutional coil Must give us pause; there's the timidity That makes calamity of so devoted life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of bureaucrats, The oppressor's wrong, the Die-Hard's contumely, The pangs of despis'd loyalty, Federation's delay, The insolence of India Office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes When he himself might independence seek With a bare body? Who would burdens bear To build and work a wretched constitution But that the dread of something after swaraj

·THE LIBERAL HAMLET
151
That undiscover'd country, from whose bourne
No civilian returnsm-puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus moderation does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native habit of passing resolutions
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of indecision;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
22. 12. 1934.

·WHO KILLED POOR SANCTIONS ?
(Note: Rhyme and metre are to be suspended
along with sanctions).
1.
Who killed Poor Sanctions ?
I, said Signor Mussolini,
With my planes and gas and bribes,
I killed the Sanctions.
2.
I, said Samuel Hoare,
With
my
dual policy
At Geneva and Paris
I killed the Sanctions.
3.
I, said M. Laval,
For, when Hitler is in the case
Everything else gives place
So I killed the Sanctions.
4.
I, said Herr Hitler,
With
my
Rhineland coup
Which put Europe in the soup
I killed the Sanctions.

·WHO KILLED POOR SANCTIONS?
153
5.
I, said the Oil King,
For, I cannot sacrifice my profits
To win international plaudits
And I killed the Sanctions.
6.
I, said Anthony Eden,
Although Hoare was got ridden
I had to do as I was bidden
So I killed poor Sanctions.
7.
I, said Neville Chamberlain,
With my calculated indiscretion
Which rallied the Tory section
I killed the Sanctions.
8.
I, said Stanley Baldwin,
Though my views lack precision
And I suffer from indecision
I suspect I must have killed the Sanctions.
20. 6. 1936.

·AN ALPHABET OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION
(The following is a cautionary alphabet for the
young about the Government of India Act, 1935. On
concluding it, well might the student exclaim with Sam
Weller, “So much for so little—as the Charity Boy
said when he came to the end of the alphabet !”')
A is for Assembly both Provincial and Federal
Elected from constituencies rigidly communal.
B is for Burma whose separation is final.
As also for Borrowing not privatě but governmental.
C is for Civil Services who will run the show
As also for Counsellors whose advice we shall
never know !
D is for Defence, as well as Discrimination
Subjects for Governor-General's sole Discretion.
E is for the Executive which will be a hybrid body
And for Excluded Areas distilling illicit toddy!
F is for Federation to which we shall ascend
As also for Finance which will hasten its end !
G is for Governors saddled with high salaries
And for Governor-General with his special
responsibilities.
H is for High Courts to which civilians will be
eligible
I is for the Instruments which will not be negligible
J is for Judgment (individual) that Governors will
make
K is for King's Cadetship which officials' sons will
take

·AN ALPHABET OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION
155
L is for the Legislature which will no doubt be
curious
And M for its Members both sad and hilarious!
N is for Necessity for special powers, really a fable
O is for Ordinances which will issue from
Governors' stable.
P is for Provisions which abound in the Act
For Procedure and Proceedings-apart, of course,
from tact.
Q is for Questions and their great popularity
R is for Railway with its Federal Authority
S is for S of S. and fifteen Schedules in number
T is for Transitional Provisions until Federation
is in the lumber!
U is for Use of English in the speeches
V is for Vote to attain Legislative reaches.
W is for Women compulsorily segregated
X is for Exit which will be very much needed.
Y is for You who will make electoral pact
And Z is for Zero which will be the benefit of
the Act!
19. 9. 1936.

·RULE BRITTANIA (NEW VERSION) Being carried away by imperial emotion and ecstasy at the sight of the British Premier's flights to Germany where he has nobly and generously offered somebody else's lands to propitiate Hitler-even as Hoare-Laval offered Abyssinia, which belonged to neither of them, to Mussolini-the following verses have been spontaneously composed. If they are faulty in metre and rhyme, my only excuse is my utter enthusiasm which is less only than that of their Highnesses who have placed their troops and their taxpayers at the disposal of the British Government long before the British people themselves have come forward to enrol or fight. This modest outburst of poetic fervour will, it is hoped, not also go unrewarded : particularly when Mr. Chamberlain's first flight inspired the Poet Laureate of England to occupy the front page of the London Times. 1. When Neville unnerved by Nazi command Flew swiftly in the azure sky This was the charter of the land And Imperial angels sung on high Rule Brittania ! Brittania waives the rules! Britons shall be the Fuehrer's tools. 2. The nations not so blest as thee Must in their turn to Dictators fall Whilst thou do flourish pledging to the weak But 'always siding with the tall.

·RULE BRITTANIA
157
3. Shalt thou still more lowly stoop
More frightened by each Fascist stroke
As the Triple Axis in its swoop
Turns smiling countries into smoke?
4. Thou haughty tyrants ever to placate
Though they attempt to bend thee down
Can but make thee equivocate
And earn in return their sterner frown*.
5. To thee belongs Geneva's shame
Thy allies do with despair see
As lesser breeds the Fascists tame
And everywhere subdue the free.
6. The weaker peoples by oppression hound
Can to no happy coast repair
Is this Peace which thou hast found
Or the Grave of Righteousness fair?
7. Heil Brittania ! Chamberlain heils the High!
As Britain's prestige also goes to fly!
1. 10. 1938.
* Hitler's xpression was set and stern despite the fervent cheers
which greeted him"-Reuter's cable on the Godesberg meeting.

·NEW NURSERY RHYMES
(Revised and Brought Up-to-Date for the very modern
child in the Post-Munich Era of Appeasement and
Peace).
1
1.
"Neville, Neville, old man, have
you any wool?”
“Yes sir, Yes sir, two bags full.
"One for the Fuehrer and one for the Duce
“And none for small nations with whom we
play fast and loose.'
2.
Hark! Hark! the dogs do bark,
Refugees are coming to town :
Some in rags and some without bags
All driven by shirts, black and brown!
3.
Dr. Goebbels was a good man,
He whipped his victims now and then;
When he whipped them, he made them dance
Out of Austria into France,
Out of Czechland into Spain,
And then he whipped them back to the
Greater Reich again.

·NEW NURSERY RHYMES 159 Ą. Little Adolf Hitler Was not at all a stickler When making “Democracies" 'eat the humble pie; He lifted up his right hand And swallowed land after land And said, “what a good boy am I!” 5. Give up when you are told, Do what you are bid, Shout “Heil" as you are called And never lift the ration's lid. 6. Please to remember The Ides of March European blunder And Nazi plunder There's plenty of reason Why this international treason Is disguised by a plot Which should never be forgot! 7. If wishes had axis Chamberlain would still try If aeroplanes were taxis He would once again fly!

·160 PERVERSITIES 8. Multiplication of lands be annexation Division of spoils is not bad Dominions' increase by progression doth please me Only obstruction doth drive me mad. 1 9. I'll tell you a story About the Crisis- And now my story's begun"; I'll tell you another About changes of Frontier And now my story's done! 10. Benito IL Duce could eat no fat His Fellow-Dictator could eat no lean And so, betwixt them both, you see, They licked the Continents clean. 11. Meine Bruder Chancellor and I fell out I'll tell you what it was all about I had colonies and he had none And that's the way the noise begun.

·NEW NURSERY RHYMES 161 12. Goering, Goering, the Aryan man Get me a country as fast as you can; Pick it and pocket it and mark it with D* And put it under Swastika for the Fuehrer and me. 13. Hey diddle, diddle British diplomat's riddle Dictators jump over maps. The little nations cry To see such sport While People's morale saps. 14. Simple Simon met a He-man Going to the City Fair Said simple Simon to the He-man "Do you want your imperial share ?" Says the He-man to simple Simon “Lend me first your money” Said simple Simon to the He-man "O Master, your words are like honey'', Simple Simon went a-salaaming For to placate the High Leaders All the return he has got till now Is known to our worthy readers. 23. 3. 1939. Deutschland. 11

·THE SHIRT PARADE
A NEW SONG OF SHIRTS
1
Stalin with his Red Shirt Tsaring over all
And Molotov with his S(h)ame Shirt bearing
Communism's pall;
Hitler with his Brown Shirt riding for a fall
And Goebbels with his Blue Shirt making his
claims tall;
Mussolini with his Black Shirt with his back to
the Brenner wall
But India has her Gandhiji with No Shirt at all!
4. 4. 1940

·PART V DICTIONARY

·No text on this page.

·AN UP-TO-DATE DICTIONARY FOR INDIA Specially compiled for Publicists, Journalists, Students of Public Affairs and Readers of Newspapers. ACID. Adjective applied to test of sincerity, usually Government's. ADEQUATE. Adjective used to describe the demand for high tariffs as in “we want adequate protection". AUTHORITY. Anyone who takes for granted the ignorance of another in the same branch of knowledge. AVENUES. Bye-ways explored by public men, e.g., avenues in New Delhi are for exploration by M.L.A.'s. Axe. Retrenchment of one durwan, one bearer and one sweeper by the head of a department. BANKRUPT. Term now applied only to British statesmanship. BEAUTIFUL. Adjective now applicable to dancers and chorus-girls in cinema films. BRIDGING (THE GULF). Trying for a settlement between the Congress and the Government. BOMBSHELL. Sudden announcement by a politician or unexpected communique by Government. BOURBONS. French rulers who learnt nothing and forgot nothing (for reasons which we have neither learnt nor forgotten).

·166 PERVERSITIES BRILLIANT. Slightly above the mediocre. BRITISH DEMOCRACY. The people of England who are sound at heart and who elect governments which are unsound in head. BRITISH DIPLOMACY. The capacity which enables a Britisher to know which way the wind blows. BRITISH MODESTY. The quality which enables a Britisher to proclaim his superiority over all other peoples without actually boasting about it. BUDGET. Central Government's Budget means taxation plus military expenditure. BUSINESSMAN-HARD-HEADED. One who faces six insolvencies and defies all his creditors suing him jointly and severally. BUSINESS-MAGNATE. One who attracts rupees magnet attracts needles. BUSINESSMAN-SHREWD. One who escapes insolvency and Police Court at the same time. CHARMING. Person wilo is utterly harmless without being too boring. CHEERS. Ovation given voluntarily to boring speakers at conclusion of their speeches or compulsorily to Collectors by school-children. Civics. Corporation affairs, disputes regarding mayoralty, intrigues about standing committee elections, lack of water supply, etc.

·AN UP-TO-DATE DICTIONARY FOR INDIA 167 CIVILISATION. Process being undergone by peoples of Africa and Asia (including inhabitants of excluded areas in India). It consists in the use of such things as fine cloth, kerosene, tea, cigarettes, etc., travelling by buses and trains, inspired by awe at aeroplanes and educated by broadcasting. CLARION CALL. A speech or a statement by a leader usually for unity or constructive work. CLEAR-CUT. Our own ideas or the policy of our party. COMPETITION—UNFAIR. Competition carried on by our competitors. CONDITIONS. What leaders study on their return from Europe before pronouncing a considered opinion on the political situation. CONSCIENCE. An obsolete word. Now means sublimation of prejudices inculcated in early childhood. CONSTRUCTIVE WORK. Speeches about constructive work. CONTROVERSY. When somebody contradicts what another says in a speech or writes in the press, a controversy ensues. CO-OPERATE. Say ditto to everything said by the other side. COTTON. Raw material purchased by Japan and Lancashire in exchange of piecegoods. CREED. First clause in the Congress Constitution.

·168
PERVERSITIES
CRITICAL. Present situation of our country is always
"critical” especially if some Conference or the
Congress is meeting.
CRYING. Urgent as in "crying need for water''.
CULTURED. Any rich man who can quote (or even
misquote) a verse or mention the name of a writer
is called "cultured".
DEAL. (1) Distribution of cards, (ii) Scheme of
Economic Planning as in “Roosevelt's New Deal”.
DENMARK. The State in which something is rotten,
probably an allusion to rotten eggs co-operatively
laid there.
DEVELOPMENTS. When the press reporter cannot write
anything particular about any incident he states
that developments are expected any moment.
DISARMAMENT. Negotiations about re-armament to
preserve parity and peace.
DISILLUSIONED. When a Liberal leader declares that
he has no faith in the India Office or Whitehall, he
is said to be “disillụsioned”.
DISTINGUISHED AUDIENCE. Those who happen to be
present at the function.
DRASTIC. Adjective used to describe retrenchment or
reduction in expenditure.
ECHO. Sequel to an incident as in “Echo of Murder
Case''.
ECONOMIC PLANNING. Articles about economic planning.

·AN UP-TO-DATE DICTIONARY FOR INDIA
169
EMPIRE. Name of a picture-house.
ENTERPRISING. One who can gain at the expense of
another.
Exodus.
Government's departure to the Hills in
summer.
FOLK DANCE. Dances organised by Mr. G. S. Dutt.
FREEDOM-ORDERED. Ministerial irresponsibility with
safeguards.
GENUINE. Adjective applied to Government's desire
to compromise with nationalists as opposed to
"false" desire. Also compare Genuine Insurance
Company.
GESTURE. Indication of a promise of a “Change of
Heart" (see below) by Government.
GIVE CAREFUL CONSIDERATION. Shelve consideration
of the matter.
GLOBE. Name of a cinema.
GLORIOUS. The latest cinema film.
Goods. Commodities which orfly leaders can deliver'
to Government.
GORGEOUS. Term applied to Durbars.
HARD-WORKING. One who can make others work hard
for himself.
HEART-CHANGE OF : Obsolete phrase. It meant
Government agreeing to meet Congress leaders.

·170 PERVERSITIES Compare also “Change in Angle of Vision” in 1918. HETERODOX. A term of abuse meaning 'your' advanced views. HOME. Institution for the aged, the infirm and sailors. HONEST. Archaic word. Used of a person who had not the capacity to be successful. HONOURS. (i) Certain Cards in Bridge, (ii) Titles. INDECENT. Used generally about the haste with which Government adopt reactionary measures. INDEPENDENCE. Substance of independence. INDIAN ARMY OFFICERS. British Officers of Indian Army wearing turbans. See illustrated newspapers. INDISPENSABLE. Your own notion about yourself. INQUIRING. When the police are at their wits' end after a murder or dacoity, it is said that the police are "inquiring”. ISSUE. Publish a statement or communique. JUTE. A monopoly product whose production requires restriction; an excellent raw material for speculation. LAW AND ORDER. Conception of law and order of the local bureaucrat. LAWS (OF MEDES AND PERSIANS). Laws which cannot be changed. Used for sarcastic effect.

·AN UP-TO-DATE DICTIONARY FOR INDIA 171 LOVE. (i) Strong emotion felt by film heroines for heroes and vaguely shared by audience. Also (ii) absence of score in tennis as in "Love all”, a. religious command devoutly followed by sportsmen. MELTING POT. See Transition. MODERATES (OR LIBERALS). Aunt Sally of Indian politics who can be attacked and ridiculed with impunity. MOLEHILL. What comes out of digging a mountain. Term usually applied to reports of Commissions, Committees and Conferences. MOMENT-PSYCHOLOGICAL. Has no literal meaning but should be used at all psychological moments. MOTHER OF PARLIAMENT. British Commons and Lords which give a step-motherly treatment to dependencies and colonies. OPEN-MINDER. Vacant-minded. ORTHODOX. A term of abuse meaning 'your' oldfashioned views (cf Heterodox). Pact. An agreement whose existence is denied by politicians and whose terms are not meant to be observed. PLEDGE. What is more observed in breach than in performance. Policy. (i) What the Secretary of State announces in the Commons. (ii) What Government and other politicians lack. (iii) What insurance companies take.

·172 PERVERSITIES POLITICAL INSTINCT. Capacity to know on which side of the fence to jump at the right moment. POTTAGE-MESS OF. Commodity for which birthrights are sold, usually by the Moderates. PUBLIC OPINION. Your own opinion on any question at the moment. 1 RABID. Adjective used to describe an extremist. REACTIONARY. Somebody else's conservatism. REALITIES OF THE SITUATION. One's own view of the situation. RETRENCHMENT. Reducing somebody else's salaries and/or wages. REVOLT. Noun used to describe the refusal of a minority party or an individual leader to obey the majority. SALE. Special reduction of price by some stores from rupees twenty to rupees fifteen of articles which are worth rupees ten. SCHOLARLY. Not positively ill-read. SECURITY. Shares which are sometimes insecure. SECURITY COLLECTIVE. System of competitive armaments, bi-lateral treaties and unilateral repudiation. SERVICE. (i) job; (ii) a tennis term. SHEET-ANCHOR. Non-violence: SHY. Adjective previously used about girls and now applicable to capital.

·AN UP-TO-DATE DICTIONARY FOR INDIA 173 STARS. (i) Cinema actors and actresses. (ii) Our fate. STATESMAN. Dead politician. TALK-HEART TO HEART. Conversation between leaders and Governors or Viceroys : or between communal leaders themselves. TRANSITION. Period through which we are always passing UNCTION. A flattering thing that is laid to one's soul. Where there is too much unction, there might result a junction. UNITY. An ideal condition wherein all the communities and leaders say and do the same things in the same way at the same time. UNPRECEDENTED. Crowds at all huge gatherings are "unprecedented”. VALUABLE. Adjective used to pay tribute to services rendered vy paid experts and committee members drawing allowances. VERSATILE. One who can get all his things done by other men. WARNING. Mild threat given by timid men. WITTY. Any well-to-do person who attempts to crack a stale joke. 8. 9. 1935.

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