Evening star., 1942-07-06
Sees American Stake
In Politics of India
Writer Explains How Conflict
Of Parties in Hindustun
Affects This Country
Bu Blair BoIleS.

By Blair Bolles.
The temper of India has changed
much since the leaders of that great
country turned down the proposals put
before them last April in the name of
the British government by Sir Stafford
Cripps How far along the political road
toward an understanding OF realism
since then many Indians have travelled
will probably be demonstrated today,
when the Working Committee of the ALL
India Congress party meets to weigh
the events Of the time. The Congress
party was the strong group which, with
united front, erased all the Crippsian
hopes. It has lost unity. It has lost the
absolute dominance in Indian decisions
which it held only three months ago.
The Congress party today wavers in
three directions. There are those who
fanatically follow Mohandas Gandhi,
who, since the departure of Cripps, has
called for the removal of the British
from India and then strangely modified
his view. There are those of mind
with the Nehru of today, who are dis
mayed by. the extreme position taken by
Gandhi. And there are those who think
in sympathy with the Madras leader,
Rajagopalachari. He favors real war
against Japan. He favors the territorial
division of India into Hindu India and
Muslin Parkistan proposed by Cripps
which the Congress party pronounced
impossible in April.
The key to the future of the Congress
party and, what is more vital, to the fu-
ture course Of British Indian relations,
may be exhibited to the world during
the Working Committee Conference by
Gandhi. Gandhi is to make proposal
to the conference. Will he propose that
India adopt his extreme views? Or will
he shelve his own historic attitudes and
cry for complete Indian cooperation
with the British and Americans in de-
feating the japanese? Or will he advo-
cate something new in the way of COM
promise? The last seems more likely.
For Indians now to debate whether
they ought to cooperate with the British
and Americans in the defense of their
county should the japanese arrive at
It's frontiers is akin to the debate over
how many angels can stand on pin. 1t
has nothing to do with the times. The
Congress party is dissatisfied because
the war plans for India are controlled
by the British, by non Indians. Perhaps
fundamentally this is as displeasing to
RaJagopalachari as it is to Gandhi. But
Rajagopalachari has only recently be-
come figure of some general eminence
IN India and the world because, appar-
emily, he has come to grips with things
as they are, not as he wishes they we're.
India Is, far from the United States.
but Indian politics are more important
today to the United States than they
ever have been in the past. We have an
Army in India. We have flying force
IN India. India potentially is a seat OF
operations from which we can eventually
move against the japanese. India is the
one avenue through which we can get to
China, whose cause wins a great public
sympathy in America.
There was time when America was
inclined to look at the Indian problem as
problem of undesirable domination by
the British of foreign people. The In
dians had the sort of cause which this
Nation likes. Gandhi's implacable and
novel resistance helped quicken the
American sympathy.
But the times have brought differ
ence. Practically. America likes first
things first. The lesson taught by the
japanese conquest in Asia is that the
japanese Cypress other Asiatics. This is
a lesson which ought to be apparent to
Gandhi and which renders his extreme
position fantastic, although at the same
time, his position is understandable in
the light of his long fight against the
British.
Can Gandhi survive as an influence in
Indian affairs and as an influence upon
the American attitude toward Indian
affairs, il, with the japanese at the gates,
he persists in his views that the Indians
can manage their own military affairs
and that the best military policy for In
dians is the policy of non violence?
What is Gandhi's opinion? In one
statement Gandhi called for the British
withdrawal, and then modified his view
by explaining he meant their withdrawal
as governors, not as individuals. He has
been raising his voice for an India gov
erned by Indians-the same issue which
was vainly threshed out by the Cripps
mission. Nehru, who is given credit in
some quarters for inspiring the Gandhi
modification, is also working hard on the
free India theme, as in press confer
ence June 18:
"The defense of India is primarily an
Indian concern. A free India would ally
herself with those who would help her in
such defense. Japan and the group of
powers with her are reactionary and
represent social philosophy that is ex-
ceedingly wrong and dangerous"
The modified position of Gandhi was
set forth June 2l:
Better the enemy I know than the
one don't. l have never attached the
slightest Importance or weight to friend
ly professions by the Axis powers. If
they come to India they come not as
deliverers but sharers OF spoil. = In
dia, finding herself in the possession of
complete freedom, will never want the