Mr. Gandhi and the Punjab.

ON another page will be found the text of a letter which Mr. Gandhi has issued to the Press with reference to the cancellation of the Punjab Government’s order against him. Mr. Gandhi is perfectly right in saying that the Punjab Government’s original order was no discredit to him. To his own people, who had always adored him beyond almost any other living Indian, the order, of course, made no difference. What is noteworthy is that it made no difference even to the highest officials. Sir William Vincent had only a little while before the issue of the order spoken of Mr. Gandhi and his motives in highly eulogistic terms. Mr. Montagu spoke of him in even more eulogistic terms and described him as “my friend, Mr. Gandhi”, weeks after the order forbidding his entry into the Punjab was passed and even after he had been described in official documents as a conspirator. Clearly neither could have taken the Punjab Government’s order as involving any reflection upon Mr. Gandhi’s public character or private virtues.