INDIAN AFFAIRS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 199, 24 August 1942, Page 3

INDIAN AFFAIRS

MOSLEM DIFFICULTY Insistence On Pakistan a Stumbling Block U.P.A. and British Wireless Rec. 1.30 p.m. LONDON, Aug. 23. The difficulties facing settlement in India were emphasised anew by the insistence of the Moslem League that the Pakistan project be accepted in principle and guaranteed before the League will collaborate .with the other parties in the formation of a Government. Pakistan implies the formation of a Moslem State.

Arson and looting are still occurring in Benares where the police opened fire in several instances. Four rioters and four police have been killed at Dhanpur, and two rioters were killed at Cholapur. The latest development in nonviolence cannot be mentioned at present, says the Bombay correspondent of the Associated Press, but it can be said that it has been sufficient tQ stir the Government to take special action. There has been a steady spread of disturbances into the village areas as the industrial workers drift home from the cities preaching the gospel of Gandhi. Conditions in New Delhi are now virtually normal except in certain eastern areas, and there the authorities have the upper hand. Order is rapidly being restored. Gandhl-s Fapcr Banned Collective fines of £7750 were imposed on Chimur and Ashti and all the villages in a ten-mile radius from them. ( The Government has prohibited the further publication of Harijan, Gandhi's newspaper, and its provincial editions because of the objectionable articles about civil disobedience.

Sirdar Singh, president of the Indian League of America, said that Japan was now training Indian. Burmese and Siamese troops for the battle of India. This could be expected to begin soon after the monsoon season ended, which was about September 15.

He added that the United States should mediate to induce Britain to meet the demands of Gandhi. He also proposed that the defence of Indians should be entrusted to a war council composed of General Sir Archibald Wavell, General J. W. Siilwell, United States Army Chief of Staff to General Chiang Kai-shek, and a Chinese general. Gandhi Writes To Viceroy Mahatma Gandhi has written to the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow. The letter begins in Mr. Gandhi's customary style: "My dear Loi d Linlithgow," and "restates in detail the views on policy which the Mahatma has repeated frequerr.lv in Press articles, interviews and public speeches during the two months pre- : ceding his arrest. The Viceroy has replied brk-ly courteously, but definitely exp.-.* ' his disagreement with the views put forward by Mr. -Gandhi. He makes it clear that no useful p ;rp-»se can | be served by a long correspondence ' at this stage. The fact that Mr. Gar.d'ni has marie tins approach to the Viceroy is clear proof that there is no truth in the Axis radio story that he lias already begun his "fast unto death.''