(EDITORIAL) Last fortnight’s widespread disturbances, which were much more serious than any since the Congress-sponsored “rebellion” of 1942, have been brought under control, although Madras seems anxious to keep the bonfires burning, in a belated bid for glory. India hit world press headlines and international opinion was almost unanimous in reading, in these manifestations of violence, the death warrant of imperialism in Asia. That reading may be correct, but there are other lessons to be derived from these incidents, which do no credit to some of the elements professedly ranged against imperialism… .

Try how they would, Congress leaders cannot get away from the fact that Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, Madras and other cities which [have] had blood baths during recent months, merely reaped the whirlwind which they themselves had sown. Now Mr. Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Pundit Nehru vie with one another in condemning what they consider “misguided action”, both on the part of the RIN ratings whose “mutiny” was the signal for the most recent orgies of violence, as well as on the part of others who carried on the fray, and they preach sermons on the need for patience and discipline. They even throw the responsibility on others — presumably the Communists….

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2021