MR Bipin Chandra Pal is nothing if not original. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, he made two statements, each as serious as the other, which, as far as we are aware, had never before been made by any responsible Indian. One of these is that “Mr Gandhi rose to his unique position by exploiting the Khilafat wrong and the Punjab outrages”, and that “Mr CR Das secured his equally unique position in current Indian nationalist politics mainly by exploiting the deep and almost universal popular discontent and anti-British feeling in the country”. Now the dictionary meaning of the word “exploitation” is utilising for one’s own ends. The context shows that this is exactly the sense in which the word is used in the present case. The idea which Mr Pal wishes to convey is that the two great leaders deliberately used their country’s misfortune for the purpose of building up their own political power. It is impossible to think of a statement more completely at variance with known facts and with the accepted opinion of the country. There are things enough to be said about Gandhian non-cooperation and Mr Das’ Swarajism, and assuredly not all of them are complimentary. But to say that either of the two leaders placed personal considerations above what they believed to be the best interests of their country is to say what is recklessly and notoriously untrue. The truth, indeed, is just the other way about. It was the very completeness of their self-abnegation that enabled the two leaders to rise to their unique position. In the case of the Mahatma, this is now universally admitted, not only by the best of his own countrymen, but by distinguished and well-informed foreigners.
