INDIA: Force & Soul Force

Indians who believe in achieving their ends without resorting to violence put a great deal of faith in satyagraha, or reliance on soul force. Sometimes this takes the form of marching demonstrators who may provoke attack but won't respond to it. As a method of persuading Portugal to give up Goa, the Rhode Island-sized colony on India's west coast, satyagraha was a failure last year. So was diplomacy.

Portuguese Dictator Salazar stubbornly held on to Goa, warned that there would be no transfer to sovereignty "by peaceful means," as Prime Minister Nehru suggested. The challenge was an embarrassment to Nehru, who constantly advises other countries to settle their differences by nonviolent means, and is reported to have boasted to Red China's Chou Enlai: "Watch how we get Goa without using force." This month, as India's Independence Day approached, in the absence of any better policy towards Goa, Nehru permitted his followers to try satyagraha again.

Through the Mud. On the Goa border near the town of Banda last week while the sullen monsoon rains fell, some 60 satyagrahis, watched by a small group of foreign newsmen, unfurled India's tricolors and squashed through the mud towards Goa, shouting "Goa India ek hail" (Goa and India are one). In a stone customs post at the border were ten Portuguese and Goan policemen armed with rifles and Sten guns. Half concealed in thick bush behind them were white Portuguese and Negro soldiers from Mozambique. The satyagrahis had advanced 30 feet inside the Goa border when the Portuguese fired a burst over their heads. At once the satyagrahis, as previously instructed by their leaders, crouched down on the muddy ground. Then one woman satyagrahis jumped up and, holding the Indian flag overhead, ran forward. A second burst from the customs house brought her down. Two men satyagrahis tried to reach her, but the police shot them down and continued firing into the rest of the crouching satyagrahis.

At this point CBS Cameraman Arthur Bonner signalled the Portuguese to cease firing and walked slowly towards the customs house, his arms over his head. Bonner, in tears, brought the wounded woman back to the Indian side of the border and then, with U.P. Correspondent John Hlavacek, went out for the two men who had rushed after the woman. Indian onlookers began shouting "Please withdraw, satyagrahis, please withdraw." The satyagrahis crawled backward inch by inch until they reached Indian soil.

What happened near Banda was repeated with variations at five other points around Goa's 184-mile border with India. From the Indian town of Castle Rock, 185 satyagrahis began marching into a railroad tunnel, intending to come out within a few yards of the border, but soldiers awaiting them fired down the tunnel, killing six. At the day's end 22 satyagrahis had been killed, and scores wounded.