“If I were Emperor of India”

IT is no inappropriate comment upon the article contributed by Mahatma Gandhi to Young India under the heading “Colour Bar vs Swadeshi” that it is characteristic of the Mahatma both in its strength and its weakness. There is something in it after reading which the average man in India will probably heave a sigh of relief that, after all, things in this country are what they are. To this category belongs the part of the article in which the Mahatma says that if he were Emperor of India, he would practically disband the whole of the army in India and retain only such police as may be necessary for the protection of the citizens against thieves and robbers. This complete ignoring of the necessity of protecting the country as a whole from international thieves and robbers who in the present world conditions are far more dangerous than the thieves and robbers within the country conclusively shows that the Mahatma, with all his protestations to the contrary, is a visionary in certain respects, while he is so highly practical in others. “I would not bribe the frontier tribes as they are being bribed today,” he says in the same connection, “but I would cultivate the friendliest relations with them and to that end send out reformers amongst them in order to find out the ways and means of providing useful occupations for them.” No sensible and patriotic Indian likes the present policy of the government, and the policy chalked out by the Mahatma is essentially the one with which most Indians who have given any thought to the subject are in sympathy, and which some of them have again and again suggested.