The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1955. Communist Aims In I India

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27614, 22 March 1955, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1955. Communist Aims In I India

The heavy defeat of the Communist. Party of India in elections in the southern State of Andhra, where it ■ had hoped to win a victory the repercussions of which would have 1 teen felt all over India, will mean j no relaxation in the party’s ■ determined drive to increase its power and influence throughout the country. Defeat in Andhra will indeed almost certainly give fresh impetus to India’s well-organised! Communists to move to the north, to the strategically-important Hima-' layan frontier area. For its own obvious reasons the party has for; some time classed the Kingdom of Nepal and the State of Kashmir as within its territorial definition of India (although both regions are! cutside the present State system):! and it is likely that .attempts to exploit unrest and so gain control’ in both will be among the immediate Communist aims. Strong efforts are I also likely to be made to increase! the party’s influence in the three* north-eastern States of Tripura,! Manipur and Assa, where the Com-1 munists, adapting their policy' ’emporarily to suit the traditional, racial pride of the hill people, are advocating a system of “ parallel ” governments in each State. Though the original doctrine had been to work for a Communist-controlled bloc, this was received with such indifference by the independentminded hillmen that there has been a switch in tactics. The reasons for ! a switch to the north by India's Communists are not far to seek. The electoral defeat in Andhra in the south is only one of them. For some ‘ the party’s power has been wenirg in the south. The former strongholds of Madras, Hyderabad and Travancore-Cochin sin the south have been weakening 'in their allegiance to communism : for some years; and, indeed, the ! party deliberately sacrificed some of i its support in Madras by supporting the new State of Andhra, where now it has been roundly beaten at the polls. By moving north to the Himalayas the Communist Party might be able to achieve a firm base for future infiltration by setting up

headquarters closer to Communist-, occupied Tibet, now completely under Chinese domination. In pars ticular, the Kingdom of Nepal offers i special advantages for any Com- ; munist drive. Its people are a racial bridge between China and Tibet; it is full of unrest, partly because the : .'(dependent Nepalese are not happy at the closeness of the country’s present ties with New Delhi; and the country itself, by its situation and in its terrain, offers ideal quarters for the sort of guerrilla activities the party may yet be forced to adopt. The leader of the ' Ne palese Communist Party, Mr K L Singh, has been for some months on a special mission to Peking: and tt is not hard to envisage a strengthening of the ties between Nepal’s Communists and their neighbours in next-door Tibet, under much stronger Communist domination. So that although Mr Nehru’s Congress Party can take some encouragement from the defeat of the Communists in Andhra, the stage appears set for a drive to the north that may be even more of a threat to India than would have been an electoral victory in the south. The extent to which communism l can be held down in India is of vital importance to the w hole of Southeast Asia; and none knows this better than India’s own Communists.