‘Uncompromising’ open letter

IF there is one word which could correctly describe the purport and tendency of the open letter which Mahatma Gandhi has just addressed to the members of the All India Congress Committee, that word is ‘uncompromising’. There is much in the letter that is characteristically fine. There is nothing in it, except perhaps a solitary word of reference to the Swarajists which is calculated to give offence, and even this solitary word is plainly conceived in sorrow and not in anger. Dignity, of course, is the very essence of the letter. But there is not a word in it which encourages or even permits the hope that a way will yet be found for the issue raised by Mahatmaji being amicably settled, for the two parties being able to work together not in the superficial and comparatively unimportant sense of remaining within the Congress and attending its annual or special sessions, but in the sense of participating actively in the carrying out of a common programme. On this vital point, the Mahatma appears to have burnt his boats. Let it be said frankly that there is no question here of the “imposition of autocracy in the ordinary sense”. If it were not for the Mahatma’s profound and unconcealed faith in his own programme, we might easily say after going through the open letter that he does not care which party wins, and whether he himself is on the winning or the losing side. All that he wants is that there should be no compromise, that the Executive of the Congress should either consist of men who believe in the five boycotts, or of men who do not believe in them. “If you believe in the five boycotts,” he says to his colleagues in effect, “then vote with me, and turn the Swarajists and other non-believers out of the Executive.”