massacre has further estranged Indians and emphasised in their eyes the
brand of their subjection.


THE RISE OF GHANDI

To India, thus seething with bitterness over the Punjab disturbances,
there was added the Moslem resentment over the fate of Turkey. I was
myself in London and Paris in a humble capacity at the Peace Conference,
and I know that our leading statesmen were fully informed of the Moslem
attitude and the dangers of unsympathetic and dilatory action in this
matter. But an arrogant diplomacy swept all warnings aside and scorned
the Moslem menace as a bogey. What was the result? Troubles in Egypt, in
Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and the Khilifat movement in India.
Hindu agitators were not slow to exploit Moslem bitterness, and for the
first time there was a genuine, if very ephemeral, _entente_ between the
two great rival creeds.

It was in this electric atmosphere that Ghandi, emerging from his
ascetic retirement, found himself an unchallenged leader. Short of
stature, frail, with large ears, and a gap in his front teeth, he had
none of the outward appearance of dominance. His appeal lay in the
simplicity of his life and character, for asceticism is still revered in
the East. But his intellectual equipment was mediocre, his political
ideas nebulous and impracticable to a degree, his programme archaic and
visionary; and from the start he was doomed to fail. The _Hijrat_
movement which he advocated brought ruin to thousands of Moslem homes;
his attack on Government educational establishments brought disaster to
many youthful careers; non-co-operation fizzled out. Government servants
would not resign their appointments, lawyers would not cease to