SITUATIONS INDIA

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23741, 12 September 1942, Page 5

SITUATIONS INDIA

COURSE OF EVENTS IMPROVING POLICY OUTLINED BY MR CHURCHILL (8.0. W.) RUGBY, Sept. 10, The course of events in India has been 'improving and is on the whole re» assuring. This information was given by Mr Churchill when be made a statement in the House of Commons on the present situation in India. Mr Churchill said the broad prim ciple of the declaration made by the British Government which formed the basis of Sir Stafford Cripps’s mission to India must be taken as presenting the settled policy of the British Crown and Parliament. These principles stood in their full scope and integrity, No one could add anything to them and no one could take anything away, The fact that the Congress Party had rejected Sir Stafford Cripps’s good offices did not end the matter. The Indian Congress Party did not repre* sent all India nor even a majority of the people of India pnd not even the Hindu masses, It was a political organisation built round a party machine and sustained by ' certain manufacturers. Opposed to the Congress Party were 90,000,000 Moslems in British India. 51.000.000 of the depressed classes and 95,000,000 subjects of the Indian Princes to whom Britain was bound by treaty. In all there were 235,000,000 in these three large groups alone, out of all the Indian population of 390,000,000, Mr Churchill said the Congress Party had come into the open as a revolutionary movement opt to paralyse communications apd generally promote disorder. The looting of shops and sporadic attacks on the Indian police had been accompanied from time to time by revolting atrocities, the whole having the intention or any rate the effect of hampering the defence pf India against the Japanese. It might well be that this activity by the Congress Party had been aided by Japanese fifth column work on a widely extended scale with special direction to strategic points. It was noteworthy that the defences of the Indian forces defending Bengal had been specially attacked, In these circumstances the Viceroy and the Government of India with the unanimous support q! the Viceroy’s Council felt that it was necessary to suppress this association which had become committed to hostile and criminal actions. Gandhi and other principal leaders had been interned under conditions of the highest comfort and consideration, but they would be kept out of harm’s way until the trouble subsided. Mr Churchill said that upwards of 1,000,000 Indians had volunteered to serve the cause of the United Nations in this world struggle and had served with distinction in many theatres. In the last two months when the Congress Party was measuring its strength against the Government of India there had been 140.000 new volunteers. Events up to the present had revealed the importance of the Congress Party either to seduce' or even sway the Indian Army, to draw from their duty the enormous body of Indian officials, or still less to stir the vast Indian masses. The Congress Party’s conspiracy against the breaking down of communications, and acts of pillage and arson had been suppressed with incredibly little loss of life. Fewer than 500 persons had been killed. The British Government intended to give all necessary support to the Viceroy in the firm but temperate measures that had been taken. Mr Churchill said large reinforcements of British troops had now reached India. The number of white soldiers no-.v there was larger than at any time in the British connexion. It therefore could be said that the situation in India at this moment gave no occasion fqr undue despondency or alarm.