VICEROY’S ENVOY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22320, 3 May 1947, Page 5

VICEROY’S ENVOY

VISIT TO_LONDON REPORT FOR CABINET TALKS WITH INDIANS (11.30 a.m.) NEW DELHI, May 2. General Sir Hastings Ismay, the senior member of the staff of the Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, left for London to give the British Cabinet a first-hand account of Lord Louis Mountbatten's views on the Indian situation as a result of his recent talks with Indian leaders. The Times’ correspondent in New Delhi says it may be taken for granted that Lord Louis Mountbatten has formed definite opinions, on how best to implement the British decision to hand over power by June, 1948.

The Viceroy’s plan would be elastic enough to allow several approaches. The Cabinet will have to make up its mind. which approach it prefers, bearing in mind the paramount need to end the present uncertainties which are intensifying conflicts, particularly in Punjab, North-West Frontier and Bengal. Evolving Clcar-Cup Policy The Times correspondent in New Delhi says that the Congress Party’s working committee, which met twice yesterday, is believed to be engaged in evolving a clear-cut policy on the proposed partition of India, which even its most inveterate opponents are now coming to regard as inevitable, but a wide gulf still separates the Moslem and Congress viewpoints on this vexed issue. The president of the Moslem League, Mr. Jinriah, maintains that Pakistan means a separate Moslem State for all areas, included in Groups B and C of the British Cabinet mission plan, namely for Sind, Punjab, and North-West Frontier Provinces, Baluchistan in the north-west and Bengal and Assam in the north-east. “Moth-Eaten ” Pakistan Opposed Anything less, involving the partition of Punjab and Bengal into predominately Moslem and non-Moslem areas, he regards as nothing better than a ‘‘truncated or mutilated moth-eaten Pakistan,” which he emphatically rejects. He also demands as the logical corollary of Pakistan the division of India’s defence forces between Pakistan and Hindustan before June, 1948. The Congress Party’s rejoinder is that Mr. Jinnah cannot have it both ways. Either he wants the division of India or he does not. If he insists on a division, as evidently he does, then it can only be on a basis which suits both parties and not Mr. Jinnah alone. In face of these and other differences, it Is difficult to see how the British Government can preserve the ideal of a united India for which Britain has laboured all these years. The Constituent Assembly adjourned indefinitely, apparently to allow the present political impasse to be clarified before resuming the preparation of the new constitution.