“There may be violence, but then again the landlords may cooperate.”
“You are an optimist,” I said.
“They might cooperate by fleeing,” Gandhi said.
Nehru, who had been sitting by my side, said, “They might vote for confiscation with their legs just as you say in your Men and Politics that, as Lenin put it, the Russian soldier voted for peace with his legs in 1917—he ran away from the trenches. So also the Indian landowners might vote for the confiscation of their land by running away from the village.”
“Or,” I said, “they might organize violent resistance.”
“There may be fifteen days of chaos,” Gandhi speculated, “but I think we could soon bring that under control.”
“You feel then that it must be confiscation with out compensation?” I asked.
“Of course,” Gandhi agreed. “It would be financially impossible for anybody to compensate the landlords.”
“That accounts for the villages,” I said. “But that is not all of India.”
“No,” Gandhi stated. “Workingmen in the cities would leave their factories. The railroads would stop running.”
“General strike,” I said to myself. “I know,” I
