BRITISH FEAR INDIAN ARMY MAY BE SPLIT

Grey River Argus, 19 May 1947, Page 5

BRITISH FEAR INDIAN ARMY MAY BE SPLIT

(Rec. 10.10). LONDON, May 18. The proposed partition of the Indian Army into predominantly Moslem and "Hindu sections as an inevitable corollary of the partition of India, is now being openly canvassed by the protagonists of Pakistan and Hindustan, both of whom profess to regard it as reasonable. “It is a proposition which, frankly, appals every well-wisher of India”, says the Times Delhi correspondent. “Regular soldiers from the Command-er-in-Chief, Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, down to junior officers as yet untainted by the communal virus, realise what a tragedy it would be if this, the finest army in Asia, were disrupted and very probably driven into internecine warfare. To partition the Indian Army would be as difficult as the unscrambling of ah egg, and it is certain every British officer who has served in it would decline to be a party to such a wanton destruction of a splendid fighting force”. The correspondent adds 1 : “It is natural to assume that the British Cabinet supports expert opinion in India in holding that the Indian Army is at present the strongest bulwark against potential civil strife on a country-wide scale, and would be most reluctant to see that bulwark broken into communal components” “The military authorities in India are being warned to have their plans for leaving India ready well before June, 1948”, says the Yorkshire Post’s military correspondent. “It is understood that the transfer of authority from British hands will begin next month to United India, or the Partition Governments, with the latter the more likely alternative.

“The evacuation of eighty thousand troops is not likely to take place until early in 1948, to allow for their absorption at home, where the accommodation is limited. A transition staff will remain in India to train the Indian Army for its- new responsibility as a defence force for the.whole country. There is the possibility that the native army may be reconstituted into Hindu and Moslem sections”.