OBSTRUCTION IN INDIAN ASSEMBLY.
More lies behind to-day’s remarkable volte-face by the Swarajists in the Assembly than appears on the surface. Only three days ago a full meeting of the Nationalist party, under “sealed orders” from Mr. Das, decided by a large majority to throw out the Budget in its entirety, regardless of consequences. The rejection of the first four Budget demands yesterday was the initial step in a settled policy of out-and-out obstruction. The change of front was decided on only late last night, as the result largely of the firmness with which Sir Malcolm Hailey and Sir Basil Blackett intimated that “under no circumstances would the Government surrender to the Assembly’s folly.”
Largely bluff from its inception, Mr. Das’s cleverly-engineered programme has suffered a succession of damaging blows, for which a few spectacular successes have failed to give compensation. The confident promises made by Mr. Das to the wavering section of his followers that the Labour Government in London would quickly surrender rather than face an administrative deadlock has failed to materialise. The Hindu-moslem animosity within the party has daily increased, and jealousy on the part of other prominent Nationalists of Mr. Das’s dictatorial methods has been a further factor in the carefully-hidden disintegration. The opinion here is that to-day’s dramatic development indicates a desperate effort to prevent a break away of a large independent section from Mr. Das’s camp.
How far Mr. Gandhi’s known aversion to the pursuit of a policy which would inevitably lead in the end to widespread disturbances is influencing events it is impossible at the moment to say, but it is apparent that a realisation of the utter impossibility of the obstructionist programme achieving any solid result is rapidly spreading among the “moderate extremists,” who form 50 per cent. of the Nationalist army. It is no secret that had the extremist wing been allowed to maintain its ascendancy it was intended to follow the rejection of the Budget by the dangerous experiment of “mass civil disobedience” in the form of an India-wide campaign in favour of the non-payment of the taxes rejected by the Assembly. The moderates’ fear of the consequences which any such move would entail stimulated the unofficial members, but the quite reliable intimation that the Government is prepared, with the sanction of the Home Cabinet, to use all its powers to nip a dangerous conspiracy in the bud was probably the deciding factor in a development which Mr. Das will find it difficult to explain.