Has Britain Treed India?
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fostered by the Communist Party, the Trade Union Congress and the Kisan Sabhas (Peasant Unions), together Has Britain with the progressive rank-and-file movement within the Congress Party and the Moslem League, presented the gravest threat to British rule. At the same time, however, the role Treed India? played by Congress and League lead ers became evident when they declared their opposition to the naval uprising A discussion of whaf liappens when fhe Crown and the subsequent general strike. Jewel of Empire is split info many segments. These leaders did not show any of that unity which their followers had proved to be the most essential weapon By CHARLES WISLEY in the fight against the British. 'T'HE British Cabinet 'Mission sent H'i> 1I M^H E choice is division or Bal entire country for the release of the "^ by Prime Minister Attlee to see kanization. We had to captured Indian National Army sol what could be salvaged from the In choose the former," said Sar- diers, whom they had put into concen dian' Ernpire was quick to take ad dar iVallabhbha; i Patel, "boss" of the tration camps on treason charges. The vantage of this situation. Its task plainly Indian National Congress, recently, huge demonstrations that took place was to halt the movement of the as he urged his followers to accept the in Calcutta under the leadership of masses with the aid of the bourgeois British proposals for the partition of Communist students and workers, leaders and to undermine the unity of India. This epitomizes the change in joined by Congress and Moslem the Hindu and Moslerh fighters. It the course steered by India's bourgeois League followers, finally forced the did so in a series of back-stairs in nationalist leadership. They have re British commander-in-chief to accede trigues, setting leader against leader, sorted to semantic tricks to avoid fac to the popular demand. party against party. The fact that it ing the only real and valid alternatives: The discontent did not stop, how Was a Labor Party cabinet mission freedom or colonial slavery. ' ever, but spread to the Royal Indian helped to mask its work. The Indian The nature of this change is even Navy and Air Force. Demanding leaders played into its hands by failing' better illustrated by the strange ac equality of treatment with their Brit to formulate joint demands. Each ne ceptance and hearty endorsement of ish counterparts, the men Undertook a gotiated separately with the British in Prime Minister Attlee's statement on series of work stoppages and hunger an effort to curry favor for his par India (June 3, 1947) by such dissim strikes. The most famous oi these, the ticular point of view. ilar characters as Winston Churchill, Royal Indian Navy mutiny, began on The conduct of the Congress and an outright imperialist, and Pandit Feb. 18, 1946, and lasted for five days, League high commands paved the way Jawaharlal Nehru, until now consid involving 20,000 men in Bombay and for the announcement of the award by ered a militant opponent of imperial Karachi. The working class of these the three leaders of the mission: they ism. and other cities fully supported the were going to solve the Hindu-Moslem What has been happening indicates sailors and engaged in the largest sym problem, they said, since the Indian that the present situation in India is pathy strike and hartal (general shut leaders were apparently unable to solve due to a crisis of British imperialism down of factories, transport, commu it themselves. It was not surprising as well as of that Section of the Indian nications, stores, etc.) India had ever that, with the best iriterests of the national movement led by the bour seen. It was a united movement of British imperialists in mind, they geoisie. India's big-business and land Hindus and^ Moslems in the face of thought that the division of India could owning classes, fearing that their posi British brutality, which, at the height do the trick. tion is threatened by popular forces, of the uprising, caused 250 deaths. Knowing that an immediate parti have readily acquiesced in a scheme The joint Hindd'-Moslem freedom tion would meet with a violent re whereby Britain hopes to retain a large front which was being fashioned by action, the British proceeded in easy measure of control and delay the day these events and which was further stages. The Cabinet Mission's plan of of .independeace. The Anglo-Indian May 16, 1946, laid the foundations by agreement is thus based not on free projecting an All-India Union com dom and on a genuine solution of the posed of one Hindu-rnajority region, THE EVOLUTION OF Hindu-Moslem problem; it is a class two Moslem-majority regions and 562 MR. ATTLEE alliance in preparation for a class war. «Princely States. The subsequent Brit The necessity for such an alliance Not even Darwin's fertile brain ish statements of Dec. 6, 1946, Feb. arose at the end of World War II, Would now successfully explain 20, 1947, and the recent declaration when the imperialist overlords in In How a Fabian soul and scholar of June 3, 1947, were supplementary dia, as elsewhere in Asia, were chal Became a slave to the Yankee dollar, wedges to widen, the split. The design lenged by the vast revolutionary up And dipped the scripture of a has been completed successfully; India surge of the people. The British felt Fabian fs today divided into Hindustan, the their hold slipping in 1945 as they In Jewish blood, and oil Arabian. 'northwestern and northeastern sections grappled with the campaign of the SADIE KLEIN. into Pakistan, and a yet undetermined nm August 12, 1947 15 PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED number of "independent" and "semi- stitute military bulwarks for the de surrounded and intersected by terri independent" Princely States and Fed fense of British interests. It: is signifi tories reinaining under British hegem erations. cant that Hyderabad has not demobi ony. Should its leaders cut any capers There are just two criteria which lized its wartime army of 100,000 displeasing to imperialist eyes, suitable need be applied to this scheme to test men trained by British officers. Tra pressure can easily be ajjplied from a its value: Does it give promise of inde vancore has appointed its owif Trade dozen quarters. pendence, and does it offer a solution Commissioner in London and has sold ToMisguise the impotence conferred of the Hindu-Moslem problem? The to the British all rights to the develop on India by this plan, the British call answer in both cases is no. ment of its rich thorium deposits. it "dominion status." What this means A glance at the position of the vari These are just two items from the may be seen by examining the case of ous sections into which India has been accumulating evidence regarding mili Ceylon, which is also to receive the dismembered shows that the British tary and economic preparations by the honor. In the vyords of the New York plan, if adhered to, would effectively Princely States. Times of June 18, "th.e new British prevent the attainment of true inde 2. Two other splinters of India, the dominion will differ from other com pendence. Moslem-majority areas known as monwealth countries in not being al 1. The Princely States, scattered Pakistan, have been whittled down in lowed to secede from the Empire or over two-fifth of India's territory, have area by the partition of_ Bengal and be independent of Britain in defense for the last-one hundred years, been the Punjab so that they will be un matters." It should be remembered recognized as "royal instruments" able to exist without close economic that Trincomah, the huge British and "breakwaters" against possible in ties to British financial and industrial naval base on Ceylon, covers the ap surrection. The British Crown will interests. In the event of any internal proaches to both the east and the west relinquish its paramountcy over the disturbance, the government of Pakis coast of India. States on Aug. 15, 1947, according tan has been placed in a position where to Prime Minister Attlee's declara it will have to request British military "r\OES the division of India, then, tions, but it will not pass its superior assistance as well. There is also the ^^^ offer a solution to the Hindu- powers on to any government in In likelihood that such a government, Moslem" problem.? On the contrary. dia. This means that the rulers of composed predominantly of large land Hardly had P. C. Joshi, general, secre these feudal anachronisms are free to owners, would agree to the retention tary of the Indian Comrhunist Party, do whatever they like. Already two of British bases in the strategic north declared that "the British partition of the largest and most powerful states western section nearest to the borders plan will not mean peace but an im —^Hyderabad and Travancore—^have of the Soviet Union. mediate increase in communal war declared their "independence." Others 3. Hindustan, the largest single fare" when it became known that in are likely to follow. They will con component in the new India, will be the period from March 3 to June 23 over three thousand persons had been killed in the Punjab alone and that one-sixth of Lahore, its capital, had ports! dC PdttCr By BILL RICHARDS been destroyed. Partition and reparti tion will add fuel to the fires. It is reported that Americans are who means "yea" when it comes out The acceptance of the British plan drinking less but smoking more.