Page:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf/46



“It was necessary,” Gandhi affirmed. “I wanted to shock. I think many Americans have a soft corner in their hearts for me, and I wished to tell them that if they continue to worship Mammon they will not make a better world. There is a danger that the democracies will defeat the Axis and become just as bad as Japan and Germany.”

“Of course there is a danger,” I broke in. “But many people said that England would go fascist if it went to war. Yet in fact England is more democratic now than she was before the war.”

“No,” he disagreed. “We see in India that this is not so.”

“At least in England,” I suggested.

“It cannot be true in England,” Gandhi insisted, “and not in the Empire. I cannot depend on your future goodness. I have labored for many decades for Indian national freedom. We cannot wait any longer. But I believe that there is good will for us.”

He paused, and I thought he looked very disconsolate. “England,” he said with deliberation, “is sitting on an unexploded mine in India and it may explode any day. The hatred and resentment against Britain are so strong here that Britain can get no help for her war effort. Indians enlist in the British Army because they want to eat, but they have no feeling in their hearts which would make them wish to help England.”