Evening star., 1942-08-16
India Demands Attention Now
United Nations Policy to Date Is Not One to
Encourage Other Subject Peoples
By Felix NJ oriey.

quarter of the globe we are now out cru
sading for better world Yet we have
been found wanting in the first real test
of our ability to provide New Deal for
the underprivileged, even within the
limited and receptive area of the United
Nations.
Disturbing Question Arises.
If we can make no helpful contribu
ton to solution of the Indian crisis are
We likely to be more effective in the
whole complex of even more intricate
issues for which we are assuming tacit
responsibility in the postwar world?
This disturbing question is not answered
by asserting that we propose eventually
to establish, for everybody, everywhere,
both freedom from want and freedom
from fear. modest start in unravel-
ing the Indian tangle would be more to
the point.
There is ample room for criticism of
both British and Indian recalcitrance,
which in combination have now come
near producing virtual revolution in that
to us perplexing country. But, in view
of our habitual Righteousness, it
seems in order to concentrate attention
on our own signal failure to assist in
solving this particular problem. Such
self criticism is not less timely because
the Indian revolt has such grim bearing
on the military aspects OF what Is now
so decidedly our war.
India is the most important barrier
standing between an eventual junction
of japanese and German influence. That
barrier is threatened with disintegra-
ton by the bitterness and hatred with
which the country is now seething. Yet
few of the leaders in the cause of In
dian independence have ever wished to
line up with the Axis, against Anglo
American democracy. And with a little
more tolerance, and actual practice of
our preaching, these patient people might
we'll have become. like the Chinese,
bulwark of the democratic cause.
Instead, the failure of craftsmanship
in India is daily making the military
task ahead more difficult.
A Difference in Civilizations.
In his Illuminating Study of History"
so helpful to all who seek perspective
Toynbee makes significant differentia-
ton between the vital forces in India and
Western civilization. The former, he
points out, are 'predominantly rei
gious," while the outstanding character
istic of our group is its love of mech
anism.
This Western worship of machinery,
Prof. Toynbee explains, is all-embracing
1t applies not merely to the creation of
intricate material engines, such as ra-
dios or bombing planes but also to the
development of such social mechanisms
as constitutions. trade unions and base
ball leagues. Thus it is that the average
American expresses himself most happily
in forms of highly organized activity
which to the contemplative Indian mind
are meaningless and definitely distaste-
full.
This contrast in underlying character
istics is not harmonized for a common
end-on the contrary it is intensified and
perhaps made irreconcilable-whe a
ItNtlcu lcdQCl llhC NAHUM 10 dS ElAlcb
as an Axis tool, role into which he
might be jockeyed but would assuredly
never voluntarily accept.
If the United States is successfully to
achieve the role of world leadership to
which our policies point it would seem
fundamental to develop more sympa-
thetic understanding of the character
stics OF peoples who differ markedly
from ourselves. We are justified in de-
nouncing the Nazis for wholly lacking
this understanding.