CONGRESS DECISION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 146, 22 June 1945, Page 6

CONGRESS DECISION

WILL ATTEND SIMLA TALKS Rec. 1 p.m. BOMBAY, June 21. The Congress Party working committee has decided to participate in the Simla conference. The president, Mr. M. Azad, has sent urgent telegrams to provincial Premiers and other Congress supporters invited, instructing them to proceed to Simla, if possible, a day before the conference opens in order to engage, in preliminary discussions with him. ""• > The-committee meeting,- which lasted for 6£ hours, was the first to be held for three years. - Mr. Gandhi, although not a member of the Congress executive, guided the deliberations. Dr. Jinnah, the Moslem leader, has left for Simla, where he is privately meeting Lord Wavell before the. conference. '■■',' "I am completely unable to say. what will be the outcome of the Viceroy's , conference, and at present the question before us is whether the conference will be worth attending," said Pandit Nehru, in an interview. "If theproposed executive were anything in the nature of a semi-permanent one, it could not even be looked at, and the only reason it can be considered is that it is a proposal for a brief, interim arrangement which could lead rapidly to Indian democratic freedom. "Even so, Lord Wayell's proposals are so full of difficulties that certain suggested arrangements could create complications. The spirit of the Indian people has hardened in the past three .years, and it is quite impossible to find a stable solution except on.the basis -of complete freedom. "Conditions in India may be compared to the unstable, changing conditjons which have arisen in many European countries freed from Nazi rule, with the old resistance movements coming to the surface. Thousands of our colleagues are still imprisoned,' and false steps at this stage may lead to all manner of new' conflicts."