The Press FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1942. The Situation in India

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23716, 14 August 1942, Page 4

The Press FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1942. The Situation in India

The India Office’s review of the situation in India after four days of Congress’s civil disobedience campaign gives some cause for satisfaction. Though they have been serious, the disorders have been confined mainly to Bombay Province and the United Provinces, and even there to the cities. The countryside remains comparatively tranquil and there has been no interference with the war effort. The Indian labour movement, it seems, has not supported Congress, with the result that Mr Gandhi’s threat of a general strike has turned out to be an empty threat. The most disturbing feature of the situation is the fairly heavy loss of life in clashes between mobs and the police. Even this, however, may not be entirely unfavourable in its effects, since the early demonstration of the impossibility of avoiding violence may help to recall the Congress leaders to a sense of realities. With the reservations that it is too early for definite judgments and that the situation can change in a matter of hours, there seems a fair chance that the campaign will slowly peter out—as previous civil disobedience campaigns have done. The sporadic and disorderly manner in which the campaign has been waged so far suggests that the Government of India’s swift action against the Congress leaders prevented thorough organisation. But it is important that the collapse of the civil disobedience campaign should not be regarded as a “success” for British policy in India or as proof that the Indian problem can be solved by the use of force. The war between Japan and the democracies is a war to decide the future of Asia; and the plain lesson of the campaigns in Malaya, Burma, and the Netherlands Indies is that an army defending a country in which the native population is at best indifferent and at worst willing to aid the enemy fights at a serious disadvantage. Appreciation of that lesson brought Sir Stafford Cripps to India in an endeavour to persuade Indian leaders to mobilise the Indian masses for a war of national resistance. The British Government and the Government of India cannot afford to accept this failure as final; for however successful they may be in tranquillising India by imprisoning her leaders and preventing riotous assemblies they are powerless to mobilise Indian nationalism on the side of the United Nations. Moreover, the issue between Congress and the British rulers of India is not an issue which concerns India alone. It concerns Asia as a whole and the i elations between Asia and the democracies. Next autumn, if the war has gone well on other fronts, ,?.n Imperial army can be expected to attempt to drive the Japanese out of Burma. Its success will depend in a large measure on the extent to which the Burmese rally to its support; and that in turn will depend on Britain’s ability to persuade the Burmese that the struggle is not simply a struggle between rival imperialisms. The task of persuasion will not be easy if in India British forces are still being used to put down an organisation , which embodies the nationalist aspirations of a large section of the Indian people. Much has been made of the fact that forceful action Against Congress has been wholeheartedly approved by the American people, who previously were acutely uneasy over British policy in India. But it is of far greater immediate importance that, after a period of hesitation, official opinion in China Is supporting Congress in the present crista. In spite of what has been said in Chungking to the contrary, active support by China of Congress leaders and their policy would inevitably affect the relations between China and the democracies.