IN THE TRACK OF WAR:

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1942, Page 4

IN THE TRACK OF WAR:

INDIA

Before the present war . broke, people used to think in terms of a Britain protecting India. But there is now on the horizon a picture of an India protecting Britain. Manpower, Sir Stafford Cripps states, is available in India for Indian defence; and Indian defence is also the defence of Australia, New Zealand, the Mother Country, and, in a lesser degree, the Empire generally. If man-power were the only consideration, India would be a bastion; but two other questions arise—the material question of equipment for Indian armies, and the political question. On the latter Sir Stafford Cripps is silent. He is believed to be personally in favour of selfgoverning concessions to India in advance of the ideas of pre-war Governments; but he has recently stated that on this matter England has not yet made up her mind; and his presence, in the Churchill Government as Leader of the House of Commons seems to imply some subordination of his own personal views on Indian self-government to the views of collaborators who agree with him on war-winning if not on other issues. Therefore it is not remarkable that Sir Stafford Cripps emphasises the material question of

equipment without probing the other, (political) issue. As soon as equipment can be supplied, states Sir Stafford Cripps, the number of troops in India can be increased. There are martial breeds in India who can be enlisted even though the domestic political divisions of opinion continue. The fact that these are Indian divisions of opinion, and that a politically homogeneous Indian population does not exist, is a barrier to the immediate, attainment of the ultimate goal—a self-contained India with sufficient industrial power to manufacture her own equipment, to equip her own man-power, and to raise and manage her own armies. But if that goal be unattainable within the period of the present war, it is important to aim at the next best thing—a burial of domestic political hatchets for the purpose of unitedly organising the best collective war effort that India in her present state can make. This means united action on the working front as well as on the fighting front. What a great Eastern race can do, eyen with limited industrial powers, is shown by China's record over five years. Chiang Kai-shek came to India as an object-lesson and an inspiration. Sir Stafford Cripps has entered the British Government as an inspiration for Indian unity and as a hope for the Indian political goal. New Zealand and Australia must be blind if they do not see three great Oriental pillars casting shadows on the future—Japan, China, India.