INDIA'S WEAKNESS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 302, 22 December 1941, Page 5

INDIA'S WEAKNESS

BRITAIN CRITICISED

Far Eastern Situation Calls For Skilful Handling

United "Press Association.—Copyright.

Rec. noon.

LONDON, Dec. 21

Fearing air raids women and children are beginning to evacuate Calcutta, says The Times, which quotes from the leading Indian journal Amrita Bazar Patrika the following statement:—"The war has brought into striking relief the weakness of our Empire with India as a millstone hanging round its neck. British rule has left India industrially and educationally backward. We do not know whose punishment will be the heavier for this omission, India's or Britain's."

The Daily Herald says: "We are fighting a war for justice, but our shield is tarnished by our relationship with India. The inability of British statesmen to reach an agreement with India's political leaders is our skeleton in the cupboard."

A high naval officer in London, now on the retired list, commenting on the position in India, began by saying that the Japanese were potentially more dangerous than the Germans. He was of the opinion that they would raise an anti-white cry which might find a big response in India, the Netherlands East Indies, Malaya and .Burma. "We have no knowledge," he said, "of what has been going on in the Pacific islands, where Japan may have a chain of secret bases. Our mistakes in India are likely to come home to roost unless the situation is handled with more skill than we have shown so far."

Gandhi said: "I cannot welcome America's entry into the war. Tradition has singled her out as an arbitrator between nations. By the vastness of her territory, her amazing energy and unrivalled financial status and the composite character of her people, America is the one country which could have saved the world from the unthinkable butchery which is going on. It is tragic to contemplate that now there is no Great Power to mediate and bring about the peace for which the peoples of all lands are doubtless thirsting."