Flowers on a Gaunt Neck

Each day the Bombay Chronicle ran a picture of a lamp flame. Each day the flame was smaller. It was the only way that censorship could be circumvented on the most dramatic political story since Mohandas K. Gandhi's Congress party was suppressed last August. The flame symbolized the waning strength of bearded, mystical Professor J. P. Bhansali, Gandhi's close and devoted follower, during a 61-day hunger strike.

From Nov. 12 to Jan. 12, Professor Bhansali's remarkable vitality, long husbanded by yoga exercises, was maintained to some extent by baths and oil rubs (although for the first 17 days he took no water). Toward the end, as he began to lose consciousness, he received small quantities of glucose in his drinking water. Most of the 61 days he spent as a free man at Gandhi's retreat near Wardha, where he has been a children's teacher and has ground grain each night for the members' bread.

The British Raj, fully aware of the great power of a fast-to-the-death in influencing Hindu public opinion,* suppressed the story but the Congress underground spread bulletins of his condition and his messages. In protest against the continuing press ban, more than 100 Indian newspapers refused to print any news at all (TIME, Jan. 18). As agitation reached a climax the Raj compromised; and the Professor's friends persuaded him to accept. At stake was a moral issue, typical of the root evils in the tragic Indian political situation.

Honor and Msambi Juice. Shocked by the terror loosed when the Indian National Congress party was driven to open revolt, Bhansali became involved in investigations of an incident at the village of Chimur. There a mob killed three constables and a sub-inspector, then burned their bodies. British troops arrested 321 men, imposed a collective fine of 100,000 rupees on Chimur's Hindus, and sentenced 20 to be hanged, 26 to life imprisonment. Later the British modified their punishment (14 to die; 27 to receive life sentences), but ruled out Indian protests that the soldiers had looted homes and raped 13 women. Bhansali traveled to Delhi and asked the Viceroy's Council to investigate but was refused. Then his strike began.

Last week, lifting its censorship, the Raj said the Professor would be allowed to visit Chimur with an Indian member of the Viceroy's Council. The provincial government stressed the importance of "the maintenance of discipline among the military and police" and its concern for "the respect and honor of women."

For the harassed Raj, the action was belatedly graceful and politically wise. For the Congress it was a great moral victory. Bhansali drank a glass of msambi juice to break his fast. Crowds of Hindus garlanded his gaunt neck with flowers.

*Gandhi has used prolonged hunger strikes three times to force concessions from the British.

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