INDIA

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4557, 8 April 1942, Page 7

INDIA

WHAT THE HEADERS SEEK COMPLEX PROBLEM NEW DELHI, January 9. The latest development in the Indian political situation is that Mr Gandhi, leader of the Indian National Congress for the last twenty years, has relinquished his leadership. This was the direct result of his unbounded and uncompromising faith in the doctrine of non-violence, which is an article of faith to him. Recently, the executive body of the National Congress, consisting of about fifteen members, such as Pandit Nehru and Mrs Sarojini Naidu (India’s foremost woman nationalist leader), met at Bardoli, near Bombay, to review the Congress Party’s attitude towards India’s war effort and co-operation with the Government in relation to Japan’s declaration of war. The meeting was made possible by a general amnesty to all political prisoners granted by Lord Linlithgow’s Government last month, a statesmanlike act which aroused deep appreciation from all quarters. As a result of this amnesty about pOOQ Congress prisoners were set free from prison, which they courted by shouting anti-war slogans. , While the Japanese forces were capturing Penang and bombing Rangoon only a few hundred miles away from India proper, the Congress leaders deliberated for about seven days whether they should assist the Government in the conduct of the war effort. In 1940 the Congress, under Mr Gandhi’s leadership, decided that, as a party with non-violence as its creed, it was opposed to all wars and all forms of violence, and for the attainment of India’s freedom only this policy would be employed. Soon after, Mr Gandhi started his satyagraha (peaceful and non-violent fight), and thousands of Congressmen were imprisoned for shouting anti-war slogans in attempting to propagate their point of yiew on the Indian masses. DESIRE FOR NATIONAL GOVERNMENT Things went on well for some time, but with the rapid spread of the war to India’s very doorstep, those Congressman whp came out of gaol after serving the term of imprisonment felt that, in view of the grave situation endangering India’s safety, the Congress, as the biggest politically-or-ganised party in the country, should change its policy of non-violence. This view gained sufficient strength, and at the recent meeting of its executive body it was pointed out that non-co-operation with the Government on the war issue was not decided upon earlier on the basis of non-violence at all times and at any cost, but that it was decided upon on the issue of India’s freedom, which the British denied. It was, therefore, decided that if the British Government could make a definite declaration that India would be a free country soon after the termination of the present war, and during the interim a complete National Government with full charge of all portfolios in the hands of the various political parties was set up, the Congress would immediately declare its whole-hearted co-operation and fight for India. Mr Gandhi, however, could not compromise his non-violence principle, even if it meant the gaining of Indian independence, and so he was relived of sthe leadership of the Congres Party. The present position, thereore, is that the Congress Party has declared that its representatives would take charge of India’s war efforts if all powers were transferred to Indian hands. The next move has to come from the Government. Mr Gandhi’s resignation by no means means that he has totally cut away from an organisation hfe built up and led for twenty years. In fact, he is part and parcel of it, and his advice will always be sought when occasion arises. In this connection the background of the present conflict between the Government of India and the Indian Congress should be known. By virtue of India’s constitutional position soon after Britain declared war against Germany in September, 1939, India, being a dependency of Britain, automatically became a bellgerent, and the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, as the constitutional head of the Government, promulgated an order that India was at war with Germany. The Congress fejt that this was an autocratic step because representatives of the people in the legislatures or the important political parties in Hie country were not consulted by the Viceroy. Soon after, the executive of the Congress met and demanded of Britain to declare war aims, the implication being that if the war aims were for the restoration of those countries which had lost their freedom by Germany’s attack, then India’s freedom should first be granted before nationalist India could acquiesce in Britain’s war ecorts. < VICEROY’S DECLARATION The Congress could not get a satisfactory reply from the British Government, but the Viceroy made a declaration in August, 1940, that political status at the end of the war

would be that of a Dominion, and that in the interim Indian popular leaders would be appointed to his Cabinet. The Congress countered this proposal by demanding that all the portfolios, including Defence and Finance, of the Central Government should be transferred to representatives of the various political parties, thus discarding the practice of European official rule. The Congress also wanted the British Government to fix a definite time limit after the war in which India would attain Dominion status. The British Government could not agree to either of these demands of the Congress. The result was that all the Congressadministered governments in the provinces and Congress legislators resigned, and under Mr Gandhi’s leadership anti-war activities were started. The Congress is now demanding solely that a complete National Government should be set up in India. India has not yet begun to consider the present war as hers. Indians feel that while they are in bondage it would be impossible to fight for regaining the freedom of other nations. THE ALL-INDIA MOSLEM LEAGUE Next in importance to the Congress Party comes the All-India Moslem League led by an eminent Bombay lawyer, Mr M. A. Jinnah, a one-time Congress leader. According to the census of last year, Indian Moslems total 100;000,000, but not even a fraction of this number constitutes the total strength of membership of this organisation. In the Congress there are thousands of Moslems who refuse to owe allegiance to the Moslem League Party of Mr Jinnah. In fact, the 100,000,000 Moslems are considered just the biggest minority community within the Indian nation. Strong exception is being taken by Mr Jinnah and his followers to being classified as belonging to a minority community. The latest cry is that the Indian Moslems belong to an entirely separate nation, and should be considered such for all practical purposes. To strengthen this argument —for it is never a fact and no more than a mere politically convenient argument—Mr Jinnah has now put forward what is generally known as the “ Pakistan ” scheme, which seeks to divide India into Hindu India and Moslem India.

The Congress calls itself the only all-India political party with a membership comprising all communities, and the Congress asserts that it speaks for the whole pf India. This all-embracing conception of the Congress was not opposed by anybody in the earlier days of its growth, but for a decade a certain section of the Indian Moslems have been feeling that the Congress, whose membership is predominantly Hindu, cannot be entrusted with the well-being of 100,000,009 Moslems, whatever might be the sincerity and genuineness of the Congress leaders. This opposition by the Moslems came to an actual climax in 193'5 when Mr Jinnah, who was then a practising lawyer in England, returned to India and immediately initiated a nation-wide programme to improve and strengthen the All-India Moslem League. His leadership, political sagacity, and the fanatical outlook with which he is able tp win others to his side, all helped him admirably to capture the imagination of the Moslems, and in a very short time his position in the organisation was so stabilised as to enable him to dictate his terms both to the Government and the Congress.

When the war started in September, 1939, and the Congress declined to cooperate with the Government’s war efforts in India, Mr Jinnah and the Moslem League Party announced that it would whole-heartedly help the Government on condition that, because of fhe withdrawal of the Congress Party from war efforts, his party became the next important one, representatives of the Moslem League Party should be appointed to the Viceroy’s Cabinet and put in charge of important portfolios. The Government of India could not recognise and grant this demand, in spite of the Congress withdrawal.

The position to-day is that both the Congress and the Moslem League are prepared to help in the war effort if a National Government were set up in India, with the only difference that the Moslem League Party wants an equal representation on the Government with the Congress.

THE HINDU MAHASABHA PARTY

There is a third political party in India called the Hindu Mahasabha. This is purely a communal organisation, like the Moslem League, because membership is open only to Hindus, This party’s attitude towards the war is one of hearty co-operation. However, it also insists that in any National Government its representatives should have an equal voice as those of any other party.

To sum UP, th® attitude of the people of India and of the various important political parties towards the present war is that the Government at the Centre and in the provinces should be entirely in the hands of representative Indians, and that so long as- this claim is not recognised there could not be any large-scale war effort on a national basis.