Mr Zimand’s testimony

IF there was one man in India at the time of the Jaito incident whose testimony in regard to it was of the greatest possible value, that man was Mr Zimand, the American journalist who accompanied the Jatha to Jaito. The reason is obvious. Here was an absolutely independent and impartial man, who was singularly free from bias, who had accompanied the Jatha only for the purpose of finding out the truth, and who had absolutely no interest either in suppressing or perverting it. It was their consciousness of this fact that made so many newspaper representatives try to obtain from Zimand a statement on the subject on the very morrow of the occurrence, but all such attempts failed, because Zimand had definitely made up his mind not to take part in any newspaper controversy while he was in India. Even the Mahatma does not appear to have succeeded in eliciting a full statement from Zimand when the latter saw him at Juhu shortly before his departure. The secret which had been so well kept during Zimand’s stay in India was revealed to a public which had almost ceased to expect it on the eve of his departure. And it is just as well that Zimand thus parted with his secret. His statement is clearly of such a kind that without it, the knowledge of the public as to this most sensational incident would have remained incomplete and the serious divergence between the official and unofficial versions would have had absolutely no chance of being settled. It is just the weight that was needed to turn the scale definitely and decisively in favour of one side and against the other.

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