India and Britain

Hutt News, Volume 19, Issue 10, 8 August 1945, Page 3

India and Britain

Speaking to members of the Hutt: Rotary Club last week, the Rev. R. W. Edmeades, a missionary of 34 year's standing in India, said Lord Wavell's plan for ending the stalemate that has arisen in the relations between Britain and India since the British Government made its; offkr of Independence to India through Sir Cripps in March, 1942, has unsuccessful as have other attempts to reach an agreement on India's political problems. 1 Here in New Zealand, with our .Jack of knowledge of the issues involved; "we are" inclined to be impatient of these continued failures— of 1919, when Dyarchy was introduced and proved unworkable; of 19 35, when Congress, the Indian National Party, rejected the Federation scheme, and of this 1945 plan, which has been turned down by the Mosleiin League. It seems to many to be sheer ingratitude on the part of India..Many say, let us wash our hands of India and leave her to her late! Others would ignore her demands for selfgovernment and favour our continuance of imperialistic rule for the benefit of the Empire Mr. Ghondhi has called India "the milch cow of Britain"—let her pontinue so. • But, Britain cannot do either. She is faced with a problem that is in the nature of a dilemma. To give

freedom may mean a complete break away from the British Empire, as with South Ireland. Not to give India freedom would run counter to the principles. of the Atlantic Charter, and the definite pledge given in the Cripp's offer, which so far as Britain is concerned, still stands.

Why then have alj our efforts at reconciliation failed? It is due to deep distrust on India's side of our motives India believes that she is too rich a prize for us to relinquish willingly. Indian Nationalists say that we British went to India originally tb "shake the pagoda tree" and we have continued there in order to protect British industry and bring ' wealth to the British Empire. There is a growing resentment, too, at being ruled by a white nation, pilose policy is controlled from 50.00 miles away. This resentment, at white imperialistic domination, is felt all over the East. China, through its leader, Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek, who visited India in 1941, has expressed lier sympathy with India's aspirations for political liberty. Until 1914 the National Movement affected only a few of the intelligensia of India. The ignorant masses were unaffected. Now the movement lias become widespread throughout the land. Britaip has been so slow ii} making her concessions to India that it has seemed to the Indian people that each has been forced from her. Like a chess player she has been one move | behind all the time. When India would have been content with Dominion Status we held back, and now that she demands completo independence, or "Puispa Swaraj" we offer Dominion Status, which Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru says "makes him feel- slightly seasick" Under the Federation Scheme . of 1935 when the first elected legislatures were introduced in the Provinces of British India. The Congress or National . Party gained majorities in 7 of the 11 Provinces. Hin|u ministries were formed from which the Moslem League was rigidly ex- ; eluded. These ministries remained in office from 1937 to 1939 and then i resigned because India was not con- ; suited when Britain pledged her to war. On their resignation, Jin- ]

nah, President of the Moslem League called all Mosletos to a day of thanksgiving, for deliverance from Hindu rule, and since then there has been a rapidly growing estrange ment between the Hindus and the Moslems, although Moslems are still td be found in the Congress Parly, in,suding the present President*, Maulana Kalan Azad. In 1940 the Moslem announced its policy of "Pakistan" declaring that the 90 odd million Moslems were not a minority, but a separate nation, .and demanding that those areas in the North West and North East of India, where the Moslems are in the majority, be formed into independent Moslem States, a proposal which, because it threatens the unity of India, is vehemently op posed by the Hindus. In spite of this communal bitterness and hostility, both - Hindus and Moslems are insistent on freedom from fpreign control. There "is, 1 believe, little personal hatred ol British people, but politically conscious India finds its position of inferiority in the modern world, intensely galling, a feeling which we in our free New Zealand should be able to appreciate. Britain has done much for India, British brains and British capital have given India immense irrigation schemes which have driven away th< spectre of famine —at least famirn due* to natural causes. The whol't land has been linked by 45,000 mUef of railway. 1 British control has givei: India 150 years of peace,, security o) life a codified system of justice but all this is'forgotten in her pas sionate desire for freedom, anc her resentment at not being, treatec as are the white peoples of the Em pire. She naturally asks whethei creedom is regarded as a privelegt Df the white races only. The attitud< 3f some of the Dominion is to b< in insult'to her dignity "as a membei of the same Commonwealth of Na tions, as for instance the South Afri can Peggng Act and the White Aus tralia policy. Our high standard of living com with her average income pe: head of sd. a day,, and her und l er nourished 61 per cent of the .popula tion, millions of whom never ge more than one full meal a day, leav her unhappy and dissatisfied, as i Dnly natural. -

Covetous eyes too are cost on wide open spaces of Australia/and New Zealand./ Those who think that, these Dominions can be kept as walled gardens for the priveleged few are living, in a fool's paradise. The alternative to a broad-based carefully planned scheme of immigration is an .overspill of ; population from the overcrowded Eastern lands. / It is time, said the speaker, that we in New Zealand woke up to the, fact that we and Imve, to live as neighbours in a post-war world, an. interdependent world, in which oiir overseas trade and our internal happiness, and prosperity are bound up with the future of that great land of India with its 400 million people. Sir Stanley Baldwin, 10 years a;go, when Prime Minister of Britain, said, "India, is the greatest problem in the British Empire, a problem which if not solved may mean the break up of the Empire within the lives of many of us now living." It is no't yet solved and it has no\v beis not yet solver rather it has come a problem of international concern, because a discontented, unhappy India will menace future world peace for which Britain and the Allies and so many Indians themselves Jiave fought and. still fighting.