Propogandhi

"I still believe it is possible for India to remain within the British Empire." This conservative phrase was uttered not by Lord Reading, Viceroy of India, nor by Ramsay MacDonald. The words are those of the "wonderworker" Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, now recuperating at the Poona mountain-rosort from the effects of confinement in Yeravda Prison for sedition.

According to Gandhi's son Devadas, the Mahatma lost eight of his 98 pounds in prison. This is attributed to his rule to eat only twice a day, at sunrise and sunset, and never more than five articles of diet. (He counts soup seasoned with salt and pepper as three articles.)

His Poona abode became a shrine after his release on Feb. 4 (TIME, Feb. 11). Hindus nocked to receive their marching orders from the father of noncooperation. These were the orders :

"I still put implicit faith in nonviolence, which, if strictly followed by India, will invoke the best in the British people. My hope for the attainment of Swaraj [Home Rule] by non-violence is based upon an immutable belief in the goodness which exists deep down in all human nature. . . . We need not hate Englishmen, though we hate the system they have established. They have given India a system based on force, by which they can feel secure only in the shadow of their forts and guns. We Indians, in turn, hope by our conduct to demonstrate to every Englishman that he is as safe in the remotest corner of India as he professes to feel behind the machine gun."

"What do you mean by Swaraj ?" he was asked.

"A full partnership for India with the other parts of the Empire. Just the same as Canada, South Africa and Australia enjoy. Nor shall we be satisfied until we obtain full citizens' rights throughout the British Dominions for all the King's subjects, irrespective of caste, color or creed."

Closer questioning showed that he still favored boycotting the Indian Legislative Councils set up by the Montagu Reform Laws, as he still believed that Indians "should not participate in the councils until Britain suffered a change of heart."

Gandhi was arrested in 1922, after his failure to prevent his noncooperating followers from committing acts of violence against the British Raj. He declared that his views on politics and religion had undergone no change in prison. He objected to the tendency to make a saint of him.

"I think that word 'saint' should be ruled out of present life," he said. "It is too sacred a word to be lightly applied to anybody, much less to one like myself, who claims only to be a humble searcher after truth."