BIG MEETING IN CALCUTTA

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24745, 10 December 1945, Page 5

BIG MEETING IN CALCUTTA

INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY CALL FOR REMOVAL OF BRITISH POWER (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 9. “A crowd of 200,000, including 100 recently released but still uniformed members of the Indian National Army, attended the biggest public meeting ever held in Calcutta to launch ‘lndian National Army Week,’ ” says Reuter’s correspondent in Calcutta. “A giant portraftSpf Subhas Chandi'a Bose (leader of the war-time Japanesesponsored Indian ‘Government’), who is a native of Calcutta, surmounted a decorated rostrum. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Mr V. Patel addressed the crowd and took the salute when the National Army members marched past. Patel declared: ‘We cannot tolerate the continuance of British power in India 'any longer. Foreign domination must end.’ “Mr Patel told the National Army men: ‘Congress, has a place for you all because of your remarkable courage and self-sacrifice.’ ‘‘Pandit Nehru warned that sporadic, violence, would not pay. ‘lf we are forced to adopt way of violence, then it is for the nation to do so deliberately, not casually,’ he said.” The correspondent adds that Pandit Nehru, while visiting Burma and Malaya, will investigate the arrests of Indians there and arrange for their defence and other aid. A New Delhi message says that, in an effort to prove that Subhas’ Chandra Bose’s “Provisional Government of Free India” was not a puppet but a government, defence counsel in the Indian National Army trial called two Japanese Foreign Office officials to give evidence to-day. They declared that Japanese war aims for India were “to make India independent" and produced a copy of a speech by Tojo in which he offered to place the Andantan and Nicobar Islands under the jurisdiction of Bose’s government. Captain Seligal, one of the Indian officers accused of belonging to the Indian National Army, opening his defence, said he had joined the force because no one was sure of British ability to sto i the Japanese advance. He said the only solution was the formation of a strong armed body which, while fighting for the freedom of India. would fight anj> Japanese effort to take possession of India. Another of the accused, Captain Shah Nawaz Khan, said: “It was a case of King or country. I decided for country." He Jiad participated in the fighting under the independent “Government of Free India,” and therefore denied that the Court had a right to try him. A statement from Viceroy House in New Delhi says that Mr Gandhi’s forthcoming meeting with Lord Wavell is not the opening - of negotiations with the Congress Party and that there will be no negotiations with any party at present. It added: “The Viceroy is always ready to see the leaders of the principal parties and hear their views, but negotiations must wait until after, the elections." Repatriation of New Zealanders.— The liner Durban Castle is expectedto sail on December 20. She will call at Taranto to pick up members of the New Zealand Army for repatriation to New Zealand.—London, December 8.