BRITISH HELP SOUGHT

Press, Volume LXXXIIi, Issue 25302, 30 September 1947, Page 7

BRITISH HELP SOUGHT

Step By Pakistan COMMONWEALTH IN CONSULTATION

LONDON, September 28. After receiving a request for help from Pakistan, Britain passed on to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India, Pakistan’s appreciation of the situation. Britain later received and circulated the considered views of the Government of India and an exchange of views between the several Governments is new proceeding. Pakistan has asked the Commonwealth Governments to consider ways and means of resolving its present serious difficulties.

“The British Cabinet may call a Dominion conference on India’s community riots now that the situation is beyond control,” says the political correspondent of the “Daily Express.” “The talks will probably begin within a month, when the Dominions have studied Pakistan’s appeal.” The Karachi correspondent of the “Daily Express” says: “It is understood that the Pakistan Government will wait a felw days before submitting suggestions on the military aspects of its problems to the Dominions. The earnest desire is that the Sikhs should give way under diplomatic pressure, and that the Indian Government should co-operate in the cause of communal peace.

“The authorities in Karachi are acutely conscious that their appeal has set an embarrassing precedent in Commonwealth relations, and they have no desire to pursue their exceptional course any further than is necessary.” India’s pro-Congress newspapers generally are critical of the Pakistan appeal to Britain and the Dominions for help in solving the communal problem. Their headlines include: “Pakistan Shock Tactics Against India,” “Pakistan Trick to Hide GuiltSource of Mischief Obvious.”

The “Hindustan Times” says: “Apparently the Pakistan authorities are trying to pose as the injured party, making it appear that they find themselves helpless in dealing with India. The Indian Government would be willing to let any impartial person judge for himself where the source of mischief lies. The cycle of revenge and retaliation will be broken only when Pakistan mends its ways. The situation has obviously got out of the hands of the Moslem League leaders.’’ Mr Kripalani, the Congress president, told the New Delhi correspondent of the Associated Press that he considered Pakistan’s appeal to the Commonwealth unusual, surprising, and probably not intended seriously. He said that the real solution lay in Pakistan itself. Pakistan had created itself as a homeland for Moslems and resentment against the Sikh and Hindu minorities of Pakistan had been the immediate result.

The only one way to retrieve the situation was to base citizenship on territorial areas and "forget the twonation theory, which began the whole vicious circle of communal discord and bloody rioting.”

India had been helping as best she could, said Mr Kripalani. Reuters correspondent in New Delhi quotes Dr. Zahib Hussain. Pakistan High Commissioner in India, as saying that Pakistan had completely ruled out the possibility of war. Pakistan subscribed to the principles of the United Nations Charter. It felt that if communal trouble persisted it would menace the world. He imagined that Pakistan had made the appeal so that if ever the matter took international shape or went before the United Nations. Pakistan would have the Dominions’ support.