THE NABHA AFFAIR

THE arrest of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Principal Gidwani and S Santanam of Madras at Jaiton, however much one may condemn it on broad grounds of public policy, may yet prove a blessing in disguise. It has already thrown a flood of light upon certain aspects of the present Nabha administration which the Shiromani Gurdwara Committee, with all its resources of organisation and propaganda, would have found it hard within so short a time to effectively expose. Of the three gentlemen, on whom the Nabha Police and the administration have thus laid their hand, two are men of all-India reputation. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, besides being the Chairman of one of the most important local bodies in the country, the premier municipality in the United Provinces, happens also to be the son of a more distinguished father. These are facts of no value in the eye of the law, it is true, but they naturally are a guarantee of the widest publicity being given to proceedings that may be undertaken in the name of the law and of the most searching scrutiny being instituted into them, both by the friends and relatives of those immediately concerned, and by the general public. So have things actually turned out. Pandit Motilal Nehru lost no time in taking up the matter, so far as his own son was concerned, and began his operations by addressing a telegram to the Viceroy and other high officials, informing them of his intention of proceeding to Nabha immediately with a view to interviewing his son and rendering him such legal assistance as the latter might need.