Shoes, Flags

So revered and respected has Mohandas K. Gandhi been that he has never felt the need of a bodyguard as he travels about India. Recently however, demonstrators in a Calcutta suburb booed at the wizened little old man. One even dared to throw a shoe which barely missed the Mahatma, hit his private secretary. This is India's worst insult. Later, the Mahatma was greeted at a station by a group carrying black flags--another Indian symbol of rebuke.

All this took place while the Mahatma toured Bengal, home province of fiery Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian Leftist leader whom the Mahatma ousted last year as president of the Indian National Congress Party. The Leftists, who think that now is the ideal time to snatch Indian independence away from war-beset Great Britain, have accused the Mahatma of too much dickering and stalling with the British.

The heat thus turned on him, last week St. Gandhi turned it on the British. His Working Committee of Congress threatened nationwide civil disobedience if Britain did not grant home rule instanter.

Moderate Indian nationalist opinion and Mr. Gandhi were obviously on the run. In prospect, unless the British talked very fast and convincingly, were the bad times of 1930-34.

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