Agatha Harrison was a Quaker, welfare activist and pacifist who worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian League towards Indian independence. She acted as an intermediary for Gandhi while he was on hunger strike, and was the first academic tutor in Industrial Welfare at the London School of Economics. When she died suddenly in 1954, Krishna Menon – India’s first post-independence High Commissioner to London – said: “She had no office or title, and no flags were lowered for her, but all over India people honour her name.”
13 March 1937
The Situation in India
SIR, I have just returned from India, where I had the opportunity of being on the spot while the elections were taking place. The editorial comment in your issue of March 6th—that “the meaning of the Indian provincial elections has not yet begun to dawn on public opinion” here—is all too true.
You rightly say that the recent elections in which Congress has secured such striking results are a “plebiscite” on the new Constitution. With a majority in six out of the eleven provinces, and forming the largest single party in another three, Congress must be reckoned with seriously. When Mr Gandhi came to the second Round Table Conference in 1931 he was ridiculed, and ever since the range of this party has been belittled, and attention focused on its diversity rather than on its unity. So, in this country, we face the present situation ill-prepared; knowing little of the history of the growth and scope of the movement; almost nothing of its leaders, save Mr Gandhi and Mr Nehru.
In the third week of March Mr Nehru, the President, has summoned a meeting in Delhi of the All India Congress Committee to consider the question of office acceptance. In preparation for this, “reasoned recommendations” have been called for from local, district and provincial Congress committees “outlining the course of action to be taken up by Congress members of the legislatures to further our policy of rejection of the Act as a whole and to impede further development of the federal scheme.” Once again, attention here tends to be diverted from the main issue and concentrated instead in forecasting possible spilts “that may occur when the meeting takes place. Surely this time would be better spent in studying the basis on which these men and women have been returned to power.
On April 1st the Government of India will inaugurate the India Act. On the same day Congress has called a nationwide hartal, or general strike, “in order to demonstrate effectively the will of the Indian people to resist the imposition of the unwanted constitution…” The Government of India and the Congress are faced with a grave position; one that calls for great qualities of statesmanship on both sides; and for men and women in this country to be watchful and informed.
Agatha Harrison.
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