Another Famine Facing India: Appeal To America

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 September 1947, Page 7

Another Famine Facing India: Appeal To America

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24.

“India faces a famine worse than that of 1943, when 3,000,000 people starved to death,” said Mr B. R. Sen, acting envoy in Washington for the Dominion of India.

He appealed to the United States Government not to reduce its grain exports. (The United States Department of Agriculture has announced that because of the partial failure of the American corn crop, overseas grain shipments in November will be 33 per cent, less than those in October.)

Mr Sen said that India’s famine would be worst in Calcutta, Bombay, Cochin, and Travancore, where the harvests had failed, and in the Punjab, where religious warfare has left the crops rotting. A message from Delhi says that agriculture, which employs nine out of every 10 Punjabis, is at a standstill. Millions of acres of the Punjab’s richest land have not been touched in six weeks since “Independence Day.”

Delicate Situation

“A delicate situation adversely affecting relations between the Dominions of India and Pakistan has arisen from last week’s announcement of the accession to Pakistan of Junakadh, premier State in the Kathiawar peninsula of Western India,” says the Delhi correspondent of The Times. Pakistan has accepted the accession, but India declines to recognise it, and is taking steps to induce the Nawab of Junagadh to change his mind. ‘The Nawab is a Moslem, but 80 per cent, of the State’s 80,000 people are Hindus and its territory is inextricably mixed with the adjacent States of Baroda, Porbandar, Navanagar, and other Hindu States, which have already acceded to the Dominion of India. Economic Sanctions

“The Indian Government has started imposing economic sanctions against Junagadh, banning exports of coal and petrol to it. The Pakistan Government is reported to be sending coal by sea and is also alleged to be sending arms and ammunition.

“The Indian Government’s attitude,” the correspondent adds, “is believed to be that if a referendum of Junagadh’s people were held it would definitely opt for joining India rather than Pakistan, but it is not known whether- the Nawab is willing to hold a referendum.”