Evening star., 1946-03-03
By Harold J. Laski,

Chairman OF the British Labor Party.
LONDON.-The mutiny which has
broken out in the Indian Navy and
Air Force. the grave street riots in
Calcutta, Bombay and Karachi, the
new intensity of the hostile feelings
toward Europeans and the dread of
approaching famine in India which
may be arrested and mitigated but is
tragically certain to cost many deaths
in the next few months, all these COM
bine to make swift action on the polit-
ical plane imperative.
The parliamentary delegations which
returned a few days ago were unitedly
convinced that delay would be fatal.
In their opinion, India is at that turn
ing point where there must be swift
agreement or a terrible catastrophe.
The government has taken decisive
action at the eleventh hour, it is send
ing out a cabinet committee to REIN
force the Viceroy in negotiating full
settlement with India.
1t Is a powerful cabinet team. It
includes Lord Pethwick- Sec
retary of State for India; A. v. Alexan-
der, First Lord of the Admiralty, and
Sir Stafford Cripps, president of the
Board of Trade, who so nearly sue
ceeded in his own mission three years
ago. For all practical purposes, what
ever the cabinet committee can get
agreed with the Indian leaders will be
acceptable to the cabinet in London.
Wavell Admirable vicfroy.
The committee will not be handi-
capped, as was Cripps, by having to
work under the most rigid instructions
and in the shadow of Lord Linlithgow,
the Viceroy, who was as pompous as he
admirable viceroy and is not hidebound
as was his predecessor by the conven-
tions and ceremonials of Office. Per-
sonally liked, it is generally understood
that he realizes the critical nature of
the position
The governments anxiety to solve the
problem was demonstrated by the care
full and conciliatory statement on the
mutiny made in the Commons by Prime
Minister Attlee., 1t was model of what
such things should be. He did not
condone the mutiny but there was no
word Of anger in what he said and an
instant promise of investigation.
I think the Labor government now re-
alizes what the Labor party affirmed in
its special conference in 1914. that peace
depends on an Indian settlement. Att
lee and his colleagues have made the
kind of start the Churchill government
should have made in 1910. If they sue
ceed, they will have earned the graft
tude not only of Britain but of the
world.
No one can afford to deny the mag
nitude of their task. They will be deal
ing with sullen and resentful people,
suspicious of their good faith, fully con-
vinced that almost any British proposal
is bad because it is British, and sharing
the tendency Of most frustrated people
to think more of past grievances than
of future hopes. Hostility was increased
between the Indian National Congress
and the Moslem League by the latter's
insistence on the subdivision of India by
the creation-I think it fantastic pro-
posal--of Moslem state, Pakistan.
There is the difficult issue of the de-
pressed classes and their social status
in an anachronism like the Hindu ortho-
doxy; there are special claims Of mi
norities like the Anglo Indians, the
Indicans, the Indian Christians and
the Sikhs. The Indian princes have
treaties with the British crown and will,
no doubt, exhaust themselves by their