On 14 December, Gandhi and his party boarded the S.S. Pilsna at Brindisi, bound for Bombay. In a letter to Rolland, he wrote down his impressions of the Italy he so briefly saw. ‘Mussolini is a riddle to me. Many of his reforms attract me. He seems to have done much for the peasant class. I admit an iron hand is there. But as violence is the basis of Western society, Mussolini’s reforms deserve an impartial study. His care of the poor, his opposition to super-urbanization, his efforts to bring about co-ordination between capital and labour, seem to me to demand special attention. I would like
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