THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a newspaper. SATURDAY JULY 30, 1949. Communist Pressure On India

Northern Advocate, 30 July 1949, Page 4

THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a newspaper. SATURDAY JULY 30, 1949. Communist Pressure On India

A cable message printed on Tuesday stated that complete agreement in connection with the “cease-fire” line in Kashmir was reached between India and Pakistan at joint militai-y talks in Karachi. It was further stated that the truce sub-committee of the United Nations Committee for India and Pakistan attended the talks.

These reports have more than passing interest in view of the recognised necessity for solidarity of northern and north-western India as a bulwark against Communist encroachment in Asia. The lack of unity between Pakistan and India as a result of Pakistan’s refusal to recognise the accession of Kashmir to India has created keen anxiety in the sub-continent, and there has been expressed a sincere wish that a plebiscite on the question arranged by the United Nations will provide a satisfactory solution.

The outcome of the talks between Pakistan and India, and the presence of the United Nations sub-com-mittee at the conference, are therefore to be regarded as an encouraging development.

This may be conceded in view of forecasts a few months ago that the frustration of Russian plans in Western Europe as a result of the gradual post-war rehabilitation of the countries concerned would have its reflex in increased Communist activity in Asia. Only the wilfully blind can fail to see these forecasts in process of fulfilment.

In an article contributed to a recent issue of the Spectator, Sir Mirza Ismail, a former Prime Minister of Jaipur and afterwards President of the Executive Council of the Nizam of Hyderabad, warned Pakistan and India of the imperative need for a prompt settlement of the Kashmir dispute in order that they might jointly devote all their attention to the effects of the Communist victories in China, which, he said, “will open a new chapter in the politics of all Asia,” and in this connection he drew attention to the unrest in Afghanistan.

Since Sir Mirza’s warning and appeal, the Communists’ southern sweep through China has assumed major dimensions, for, as our cable news this week has disclosed, Canton is now not far distant from Mao

Tse-tung’s armies. In another direction Communist activity was reported in Tibet, its degree varying from “unrest in the country” to “threats of a Communistled civil war.”

The proximity of western Tibet to Kashmir indicates plainly the reason

why the dispute between Pakistan and India should not be allowed to create weakness at a point where maximum strength should be developed to meet Communist aggression from the north and east. Sir Mirza Ismail emphasised this when he wrote: “The victories of the Chinese Communist armies, which now stand almost on the

Burmese border, make it practically certain that the Red tide banking up in South-East Asia will soon threaten East Bengal and Assam. Only by the resolute and concerted efforts of India and Pakistan can the dapger from the East be met.” Another reason why Pakistan and India should be in closest alliance, Sir Mirza urged, is the gathering cloud over the North-West Frontier. For several months, it was pointed out, the attitude of the Afghanistan authorities to Pakistan has been most unfriendly, almost to the point of bringing about a rupture of diplomatic relations.

The Kabul Government’s attitude seems to suggest that it seeks to profit from the Kashmir controversy to extort concessions from Pakistan. Moreover, there are suspicions that Russia is behind the activities

of the Afghan authorities and that her object is to create widespread disturbances on the frontier in the expectation that reactions in the Kashmir dispute will lead to war between India and Pakistan. For all these reasons the reported agreement reached at Karachi this week is to be welcomed as an indication that the parties concerned

are alive to the danger which divi-

sion over Kashmir would present to India as a whole, and, of course, to the Commonwealth of which both Pakistan and India are units. The open hostility which the Kashmir dispute engenders is but one of the causes of anxiety experienced by Mr Nehru, who, as is to be gathered from his advocacy of India’s continuance within the Commonwealth, realises that in face of world conditions today his country could not hope to stand alone. Apart from the Kashmir dispute, Mr Nehru has been greatly troubled by the problem of housing and feed-

ing great numbers of refugees resulting from the partition of the country. Above all, a food shortage is seen by Mr Nehru to be the greatest challenge to his Government.

The civil war in Burma having deprived India of normal imports of that country’s rice, the Government of India has placed the growing of food on a war footing, knowing that famine conditions would be an ideal

ally of Communists in an attempt to overthrow the existing regime.