Labour Monthly, September 1942.
Source: Labour Monthly, September 1942, p.259-268, signed R.P.D., (Ranjani Palme Dutt);
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
The following is the editorial of L.M. at a most sensitive time when the Quit India movement – in which the Communist Party did not participate but actively opposed – was at its most critical. There was prolonged disorder after the call by Gandhi on August 8th. This must have been written shortly afterwards and so can be taken to be the official C.P. line. As can be seen it was considered sufficiently important for a pamphlet to be issues on these lines. Note by transcriber ERC.
Indian Crisis – India and the Second Front – A Victory for the Axis – A Needless Conflict – India is Anti-Fascist – National Congress Demand – India as a Free Ally – Bankruptcy of Statesmanship – Door Open for Settlement – Chinese and Australian Support – The Root of the Evil – Cripps Mission Fiasco – Political Deterioration – Fatal Non-Co-operation Policy – Indian Communist Policy – Congress for Negotiations – Provocative Arrests – What Must Be Done – A Coalition National Government – National Unity – World Opinion and India – British Labour Policy – Pressure for Negotiations – Our Duty to India and Britain
It is from the standpoint of this urgent world situation that we need to judge the present grave crisis in India. At the moment of the supreme Axis attack throughout the world, when the fortunes of the United Nations are swaying in the balance, a nation of four hundred millions, one fifth of humanity, has been treated as an enemy for the crime of demanding to be an ally. This is the fantastic but unfortunately true epitome of the Indian situation. When all the charges and criticisms in the world have been laid against the Congress leadership and tactics, the fact remains that the Congress was asking for the recognition of a free India as an ally of the United Nations; and this demand, because it was accompanied with the threat of civil disobedience in the event of refusal, has been met with police cells, lathi charges, whipping ordinances and firing squads. To have reached such a position represents a bankruptcy of statesmanship on the part of the ruling Power which parallels the worst military fiascos of the war. We cannot be satisfied with such a position. The situation in India is serious, but not irreparable. But we need to act quickly if we are to remedy it in time.
The war is indivisible, and the front in India cannot be separated from the front in Europe – or the absence of the front in Europe. While no Second Front has yet been established in Europe, a new type of front has been established by our rulers – not in Europe, but in India. Not against Fascism, but against the enemies of Fascism. The arms that have not been used against the Fascist enemy have been used against unarmed popular crowds in India who were demanding the right of their nation to be recognised as an equal ally of the United Nations for the war against Fascism. The same authorities who have been so lax and lenient with pro-Fascist agitators in Britain have been swift to incarcerate anti-Fascist agitators in India. With one hand they are releasing daily more Fascists and Mosleyites from the prisons in Britain; with the other they are throwing anti-Fascists, tried and sincere leaders of the international anti-Fascist fight like Nehru, into prison in India. This is an intolerable situation, too closely recalling the policies of a Daladier, which led to evil consequences in France.
Once again reactionary policy plays straight into the hand of Fascism. The two halves of reactionary policy, in respect of Europe and in respect of India, fit one another like the two hands of a pair of gloves. It is precisely the reactionary opponents of the Second Front and their press organs who are the most vocal to applaud and gloat over the “strong hand” in India; and they will no doubt be delighted to use the argument of the conflict in India as a further demonstration of the impossibility of the Second Front in Europe. It cannot fail to be observed that the very sudden precipitation of the conflict in India (taking completely by surprise the Congress, which had no plans ready and was preparing to negotiate) coincided with the Moscow Conference, in a way which might be expected to have an unfavourable bearing on these crucial negotiations. With the later months of the year the threat of Japan will reach its sharpest point. In this critical situation, with the resources of the United Nations strained in every sphere, with the need of every ally, to thrust away the offer of co-operation of the great popular national forces of India and turn them to hostility, is not strategy, but madness. Or, rather, if it is strategy, it is the strategy of the war of reaction against the popular movement, and not of the war of the peoples against Fascism.
The opening of crisis and conflict in India is equivalent to a major military defeat for the United Nation and a victory for the Axis. With Fascist at the gates of India, threatening directly to conquer India and to utilise India for its aims of world domination, we are face with a situation in which there is internal crisis and conflict in India, division between rulers and ruled, arrests of the principal and best known popular leaders sporadic disorder and police firing – a conflict that must be watched with grim satisfaction by the Japanese generals of the frontiers or the Axis propagandists in Berlin. It is to-day universally admitted by all observers that the loss of Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Java, Borneo and the speedy advance of the Japanese in these regions was above all due to the lack of co-operation between the Governments and the peoples. Must this experience be repeated on a yet vaster canvas in India, with deadly consequences for the whole world fight against Fascism? This is what we must strain every nerve to prevent. We cannot afford to thrust aside four hundred million potential allies and turn them into enemies. We cannot afford to provoke a needless conflict in India for the benefit of Fascism.
For this conflict in India is needless, unjustifiable, indefensible. It is a conflict between opponents of Fascism, between two nations who are equally oppose to Fascism. This is the heart of the problem of the present Indian situation. The Manchester Guardian justly commented in its leader on the morrow of the arrests of August 10:-
If both sides have the same sincere intention with regard to India’s freedom and to her due place as an active combatant against the aggressor, it is ridiculous that we should be facing a conflict in which the common aims of India and the Allies will be more and more forgotten.
Significant also was the comment of The Times editorial on August 12: –
The political situation will not remain static and present Indian support for the Government policy is combined with the demand for more active Indian participation in the conduct of affairs. This is a reasonable, constructive and welcome demand. .... The needs of war, no less than the interests of unity, demand a closing of the ranks among all who are prepared to work actively in partnership for the defence of India, for the cause of the United Nations, and for the full attainment of national self-government, while standing resolute against a policy of disorder and irruption.
But to implement such a policy, political realism will require negotiations with the National Congress, no less than with other political sections and leaders.
The Indian people are no allies of Fascism. They passionately desire national freedom, and have struggled for it for decades with signal self-sacrifice, heroism and solidarity, in the course of which they have built up through their National Congress a popular movement of millions without parallel in the world – the greatest national movement in the world next to the Chinese, and our natural ally in the fight against Fascism. Precisely because they stand for freedom, they are opposed to Fascism. With the exception of an insignificant minority represented by Bose in Berlin, they no less passionately hate Fascism; their sympathies are with the Soviet people, with the Chinese people, and therefore with the cause of the United Nations. Their leaders have understood and proclaimed, and have consistently taught their followers, with a breadth of international outlook rare in a purely national movement, that the cause of Indian freedom is bound up with world freedom and with world victory over Fascism. For the past ten years they have played their part in the vanguard of the international anti-Fascist front, for China, for Abyssinia, for Spain, at a time when many of those who to-day in the places of power in Britain dare to denounce them for failing to join up in the fight against Fascism were themselves praising and helping Fascism and betraying China, Abyssinia and Spain. India is far more deeply and sincerely anti-Fascist than many National Government Ministers in Britain.
Nor is the demand of the Indian National Congress to-day an impossibilist or extremist demand, striving to take advantage of the dilemmas of British imperialism for a sectional national gain without regard to world issues or consequences. Theirs is no “Sinn Fein” (“Ourselves Alone”) policy. They know very well that such exclusive national blindness would be equivalent to national suicide in the present world situation, when the fate of every nation is thrown on to the anvil of the world battle. On the contrary, it is precisely because they wish to play their full part in the world battle against Fascism, with the unleashed strength of a confident and rising nation, that they strain against the outworn bureaucratic shackles of a system which is not only anti-national and anti-democratic, but also singularly antiquated and incompetent (the days of the Mesopotamia Commission are not over, but rather intensified, only there are today no Commissions), and under which they feel no possibility of the nation playing a worthy part in the struggle.
Therefore they demand a National Government now, not in opposition to the interests of the struggle of the United Nations, but in order to fulfil their part in that struggle by mobilising the full strength of the Indian nation, its man-power and resources, on a scale far exceeding anything at present attempted, and as only a popular Government enjoying the confidence of the nation can do. Therefore they find infuriating the tepid Crippsian discussions and bland patronising “offers” of hypothetical post-war constitutions, when their heart and soul is in the present struggle which they know will determine the fate of India and the world, and when the only demand which matters to-day, the demand for a National Government to mobilise India’s participation in the present struggle, is steadfastly refused. Not to understand that this profoundly international and anti-Fascist outlook, indissolubly linked with Indian national patriotism, is the burning impulse which drives such leaders as Nehru (however much we may disagree with the desperate expedient of civil disobedience as a weapon to attain these ends) is not to understand the beginning of the Indian problem. The demand of the Indian National Congress to-day is for the recognition of a free India as an ally of the United Nations, to mobilise the armed resistance of their people against Fascist aggression under a popular Government of their own leaders in whom they have confidence, but fully accepting the supreme military leadership and command of the United Nations. What sincere democrat or supporter of victory over Fascism could oppose such a demand?
Yet, with all the cards stacked against Fascism in India and on the side of the United Nations, with ninety per cent. of articulate political opinion eager to fight on the side of the United Nations, the policy of the British Government in India has succeeded in performing the brilliant feat of turning the bulk of this popular movement and feeling into bitter hostility or even active resistance. What are we to think of a policy which produces such fruits? The most outstanding military fiascos of the war can hardly compare with such a political fiasco. What are we to think of a policy by which a Nehru, a symbol of international anti-Fascism, finds himself against his will thrust into a position in which he appears lined up in a front of struggle objectively hindering the war effort of the United Nations against Fascism and opposed to the front of the United Nations as represented by the British Government in India. How has this tragic situation come about?
The significance of the transformation of the war in June, 1941, was well understood by the India national movement. The release of the principal Congress leaders opened the possibility of a new orientation and the advance to a basis of co-operation. The Bardoli resolution of the National Congress in December, 1941, declared for the principle of armed resistance to the Axis as an ally of the United Nations, provide India could mobilise under a National Government. Gandhi passed out of the leadership because of his disagreement with this resolution and the abandonment of non-violence. The Times of India commented: “The resolution (of Congress) reopens the door to agreement with the British Government, thereby giving valuable lead which we hope will be reciprocated.” The way was open, given only a minimum of statesmanship and favourable response from the side of Britain.
This favourable opening was further assisted by the visit in February 1942, of Marshal Chiang Kai-shek to India, with his simultaneous public appeal to India and to Britain. To India he said: –
The present international situation divides the world into two camps – of aggression and anti-aggression. All those who oppose aggression and are striving for the freedom of their country and mankind should join the anti-aggression camp. There is no middle course.
To Britain he said: –
I sincerely hope and I confidently believe that our ally Great Britain, without waiting for any demands on the part of the people of India, will as speedily as possible give them real political power, so that they may be in a position further to develop their material and spiritual strength and thus realise that their participation in the war is not merely an aid to the anti-aggression nation for the securing of victory, but also a turning-point in their struggle for India’s freedom. From a objective point of view I am convinced that this would be the wisest policy, which will redound to the credit of the British Empire.
It will be noted that he urged “real political power” for the Indian people to enable them to strengthen their participation in the war, i.e., as a war measure, not as a post-war promise. This viewpoint corresponds to that of the Indian national movement, and is the crux of the present controversy.
Similarly, the Australian Minister for External Affairs expressed the same viewpoint in February, 1942, urging self-government for India now during the war in order to strengthen Indian participation in the war: –
We sympathise with the aspirations of the Indian people to become one of the self-governing nations, and as such to take part in the defence of the Allied cause in Asia.
(Dr. H.V. Evatt, Australian Commonwealth Minister for External Affairs, speech in the Australian Parliament, February 27,1942.
There is reason to believe that American official channels also made representations to the British Government, urging the application of the Atlantic Charter to India. It is important to recognise this role of American-Australian-Chinese pressure in order to understand the context of the Indian national demand and the relative isolation within the United Nations of the British official viewpoint which still refuses to consider a responsible National Government in India during the war. By the spring of 1942 a favourable situation had thus been created. The ball was at Britain’s feet. If there was still reluctance and resistance from British official quarters, the arrival of the Japanese at Rangoon in March helped to supply the necessary impetus.
The Cripps Mission in April unfortunately destroyed this favourable position. It is vital to understand this crucial turning-point in recent political development in India, since the congratulatory haze of self-deception with which official propaganda in this country has endeavoured to cover up the failure has fostered illusions here, both as to the supposed magnanimity of the offer, or the beneficial effects of the contact, which are not helpful. The brutal truth needs to be faced that in relation to Indian opinion the Cripps Mission did immeasurable harm; and all the worsening of the political situation and exacerbation of relations dates from it.
The Cripps Mission failed, not primarily because of the highly dubious character of the post-war plan which it offered, nor because of the political divisions in India which were only subsequently brought forward as a reason for failure. It failed because, under cover of the dubious post-war plan, it rejected out of hand and ruled out the one issue that mattered – the establishment of a responsible National Government now with effective powers for Indian participation in the war. This rejection, it was made clear, was independent of the agreement or disagreement of the various sections of Indian political opinion. The elaborate hypothetical post-war plan was only the window-dressing to cover the rejection of the one real present issue. This rejection ran counter to the entire range of Indian opinion, including the most moderate opinion. Not only the Congress, but every important Indian organisation turned down the Cripps proposals.
In these negotiations the Congress went to considerable lengths of concessions in the hope of reaching a positive settlement, offering to serve under a British Viceroy, provided they had real responsibility and powers, and to accept a British Commander-in-Chief, not only for the control of military operations, but as a member of the Cabinet. In vain. They were told that British power must remain absolute and dictatorial, that an Indian Minister of Defence might at the most control canteens and stationery. When they tried to negotiate, in order to narrow the margin of disagreement, they were told, “Take it or leave it.” This “take it or leave it” attitude gave the impression that there was no real intention to negotiate, but rather to prepare the grounds for a future conflict. This impression was strengthened by the unfortunate speech of Lord Halifax on April 7, while the negotiations were still in progress, already anticipating failure and declaring that the British Government would in that event maintain power alone and that the Cripps Mission would have served its purpose in establishing an unanswerable case against future critics of British power in India.
Deterioration in the political situation rapidly followed. The British Government declared that nothing more could be done. The National Congress, frustrated in its desire to co-operate, after a period of hesitancy and divided counsels, slid down the inclined plane towards non-co-operation. Leadership passed back into the hands of Gandhi, the pacifist evil genius of Indian politics. Serious anti-Fascist leaders and advocates of co-operation with the United Nations, like Nehru and Azad, passed into the wake of Gandhi and his dangerous proposals for a non-co-operation campaign. Unscrupulous reactionary propaganda at once seized on the characteristic utterances of Gandhi, advocating pacifism and appeasement, to smear the whole national movement as capitulationist and ready to make peace with Japan, even though the personal viewpoints of Gandhi in respect of non-violence and appeasement had been explicitly repudiated by every official Congress statement and resolution. The bombshell publication of documents seized in a police raid
in order to expose facts already well known from Gandhi’s public articles illustrated this technique of preparation.
The Congress resolution on non-co-operation was put out in July and finally adopted on August 7 (against an opposition vote of 13, led by the Indian Communist Party, whose restoration of legal rights was a recognition of their growing influence and strength). This resolution reaffirmed sympathy for the United Nations and the demand for recognition of India as a free ally under a National Government for armed resistance to Fascism in co-operation with the United Nations, but added the threat of civil disobedience in the event of refusal. Reaction above had produced reaction below. To the fatal policy of the British Government was now added the fatal policy of the Congress, both leading to division in the face of the common enemy.
The anti-Fascist working-class sections of the national movement represented by the Indian Communist Party had from the outset put forward a clear and consistent line in relation to the war of liberation of the united peoples and the path forward of the Indian national movement to liberation through a positive response to the tasks and responsibilities raised by the war. This line will be found set out in the booklet Forward to Freedom, by P.C. Joshi, Secretary of the Indian Communist Party, published in India in February, 1942, and shortly to be reprinted in this country. They now set out their positive alternative proposals to non-co-operation in the present critical situation: to build up the united national front in India, including the unity of the Congress, the Moslem League and all other political sections on a common platform of resistance to Fascism; on this basis to press the demand for a settlement and for a National Government for India; while, pressing the just political demand, to co-operate wholeheartedly in the war effort and the mobilisation of the people; resolute resistance to all policies of non-co-operation as fatal to the interests of the Indian people. But with the existing embitterment of national feeling, and the reactionary refusal by British ruling circles of the demand for a National Government, this policy was not yet able to win the support of the bulk of the national movement.
No fighter for anti-Fascist unity could support a policy of non-co-operation, whatever the provocation, in the war of the United Nations against Fascism, since this means division of the forces opposed to Fascism and could facilitate Fascist victory. But it is essential for sympathetic British opinion to understand how sincere Indian patriots and anti-Fascists, goaded and provoked by the refusal of their reasonable demands, and unable to see the possibility of the positive alternative policy which the Indian Communist Party advocated, fell into the fatal trap of adopting the policy of non-co-operation, believing it to be their only weapon and their only way to the free mobilisation of the people for the establishment of a National Government and effective defence against Fascism – although, in fact, it could only mean division before Fascism, suicidal to the interests of Indian freedom. While we must deplore this failure of leadership, we cannot but recognise that the heaviest responsibility rests with the reactionary policy which refused India’s just demands and thus provoked such an outcome.
At the last the Congress showed every desire to reach a settlement and to negotiate. The resolution was revised to stress the desire for a practical settlement and for co-operation in armed resistance to Fascism. The final speeches of Gandhi and Nehru stressed the desire to negotiate. Nehru stated in his final reply to the debate: “The resolution is not a threat; it is an invitation and an explanation; it is an offer of co-operation.” Gandhi’s subsequently published letter to Marshal Chiang Kai-shek in July made clear that he “will take no hasty action, and whatever action is taken will be governed by the consideration that it should not injure China or encourage Japanese aggression in India or China: I am straining every nerve to avoid a conflict with British authority.” It was explained that the first step would be a letter to the Viceroy proposing negotiations before there would be any question of launching any action. The letter was begun immediately after the close of the Congress Committee, but was apparently never allowed to be finished. Within a few hours the wholesale arrests followed, which in turn provoked civil conflict and some sporadic disorders, disowned by the Congress, and met by active repression with widespread police and military action.
The arrests precipitated the open conflict and disorders, and in this way fulfilled the role of a direct provocation, almost as if to prevent the offered negotiations. It is difficult to see how this deliberate decision for a policy of repression in preference to negotiations can be regarded as justified by the situation. Once the disorders began, it was inevitable that the Government should take action against them. But it was the arrests which provoked the disorders, not the disorders which provoked the arrests. At the moment of the arrests, at the close of the Congress Committee session, there was no such immediate urgency to justify the argument of the supposed imperative necessity to precipitate the conflict. No order for civil disobedience had been given. There were obviously no plans of action ready. The aim of the Congress was manifestly to negotiate. The disorders which were provoked by the arrests were disowned by the Congress and condemned by the Congress press. It is not easy to escape the impression that the precipitation of the conflict in this way was dictated by reactionary interests in ruling circles which were more concerned to utilise a favourable tactical opportunity for crushing the Congress and the popular movement in India than in winning Indian co-operation against Japan.
We need now to do all in our power to remedy this dangerous situation. What must be done is clear. We must press for the immediate reopening of negotiations, equally with the Congress and with all political sections and leaders in India, with a view to the speediest establishment of a provisional popular Government in India, representative of all political sections and leaders willing to co-operate in the common task of armed resistance to Fascist aggression as an ally of the United Nations. This is the plain common-sense response to the present urgent situation, and the indispensable basis on which we must strive to end the crisis and establish that co-operation which is equally essential in the interests of India, of Britain and of all the United Nations.
The argument that such a coalition National Government is impossible to establish because of the divisions of the different political sections and groupings in India ignores the fact that the attempt has not been made. This negative prediction of failure as a justification for not making the attempt perpetuates the very obstacle it professes to deplore. For present purposes we need not concern ourselves with the representative or unrepresentative character of the various minority and splinter groupings and organisations, without figures of membership or electoral support, which have been inflated and publicised to an artificial importance by the conditions of foreign rule and special encouragement and protection of their anti-national sectionalism (“To emphasise the essential importance of Hindu-Moslem agreement does not imply, as Nationalists assert, that the British are pursuing a policy of divide and rule. The divisions exist, and British rule is certain as long as they do” – The Times, January 31,1941). In the present national crisis the national movement must be prepared to make far-reaching concessions for the sake of national unity; and the Congress leaders have shown understanding of this, just as the most serious and responsible representatives of other sections have shown similar understanding.
But so long as a National Government is refused, and British absolute power is maintained, then inevitably the maximum intransigence of every sectional and splinter grouping and organisation is encouraged, because every such organisation looks to the paramount Power to protect its sectional claims, and finds in these, instead of in consideration for the well-being of India, the sole reason for its political existence. So soon as this artificial sustaining prop is removed, normal political considerations hold sway as in other countries, and common danger, common national need and common emergency becomes the cement which binds together national unity. So long as the threat of civil disobedience by the National Congress is met with instant drastic repression by the Government, while the parallel threat of “revolt” made officially by the leader of the Moslem League in February if their claims are not conceded and sustained is met with instant declarations from official quarters that in that case no course must be pursued which would provoke such a menacing revolt and possibility of civil war, it is obvious that this method of rule is perpetuating division. But if once the firm policy of the establishment of a responsible National Government is definitively adopted, with invitation to participate to every political section and leadership willing to co-operate in the common effort, but with no right to any grouping to hold up the scheme by its veto, if it chooses voluntarily to exclude, itself, the imagined insurmountable obstacles will be possible to overcome, and a Government of representative men of good will from all political sections can be established with the enthusiastic support of the Indian nation. This is the path of statesmanship and of serious mobilisation of India against Fascism.
There is reason to believe that such a solution has been strongly urged from official quarters on behalf of the American, Chinese and Australian Governments. We have already noted the explicit declarations of the Australian Minister for External Affairs and of Marshal Chiang Kai-shek. The Times Washington correspondent reports: –
Of the anxiety which the events in India have aroused (in Washington) there can be no question, and the visit to India of General Stilwell, who commands the American forces in China, India and Burma, and of Mr. Lauchlin Currie, the President’s special envoy to Chungking, has undoubted significance. ... Suggestions looking towards a settlement have been advanced here from time to time. One, which is believed to have approval in Washington, Canberra and Chungking, was the proclamation of a nominal commonwealth (with a Provisional Government representing all parties. (The Times, August 11, 1942.)
The Chinese Government newspaper, Central Daily News, writes: –
We receive the news of the arrest of Gandhi, Nehru and Azad with the deepest regret. The arrests, irrespective of right and wrong, would inevitably affect Indians’ confidence in the United Nations, and furnish Axis propaganda. Gandhi, Nehru and the others had the support of a majority of Indians, and their arrest would not solve the problem. If the conflict were allowed to continue, it would affect the entire war.
The New York correspondent of the Sunday Times reported on August 16: –
Events in India are getting more publicity than any other events from overseas, and so far the built of this publicity has been hostile to the Government of India.
The Economist’s American correspondent noted on August 15: –
It would be a mistake to count on unqualified support from American opinion if no further attempts are made to work out a solution.
Important sections of democratic opinion in this country are also pressing for such a solution. It is unfortunate that the declaration officially issued on behalf of the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress on August 12 has continued the bad record of official Labour on India, carried forward from the Simon Commission, the Meerut Trial and the MacDonald Government’s arrest of scores of thousands. By swinging completely behind the reactionary policy pursued and directing its criticism only against the Congress, this declaration has failed to respond to the urgency of the situation and is only calculated to deepen the gulf between the peoples of the two countries. The demand that Congress must cease civil disobedience before negotiations can be opened overlooks the fact that Congress had not yet launched its civil disobedience campaign when the arrests provoked the conflict, that the disorders have been officially deplored as contrary to the wishes and interests of the Congress by such official Congress newspapers as have still been able to appear, and that the Congress was officially asking for negotiations before launching civil disobedience. In this context such a demand becomes an obstructionist demand to hinder negotiations, when it is only the opening of negotiations that can remove the obstacles to agreement. The present urgent situation is no time for standing on punctilio, but demands the instant and unconditional opening of negotiations with a view to finding the common basis for agreement in the imperative interests of both nations.
But it can be confidently stated that this obstructionist outlook is not representative of the general body of labour and democratic opinion. Such press organs as the Manchester Guardian, News-Chronicle, Evening Standard, and also the Daily Herald (until the official Labour declaration compelled it to perform a somersault and reverse its policy) have taken a critical line on the arrests and urged immediate negotiations. The Miners’ Federation National Conference on August 1, representing half a million miners, unanimously adopted a resolution for the reopening of negotiations on the basis of the recognition of India’s claim to independence. Trial ballots in big factories have shown a ten to one vote for Indian independence. The campaign of the fifty thousand members of the Communist Party has followed the lines of the National Conference resolution adopted on May 25, 1942, which declared: –
To win the co-operation of the 400 millions of India in the common struggle, we must recognise the independence of India as an equal partner in the alliance of the United Nations, and reopen negotiations with the National Congress for the establishment of a National Government with full powers, subject only to such restrictions as the Indian people are willing to accept in the interests of India and of the common struggle against the Axis Powers.
This demand has won enthusiastic endorsement at crowded mass demonstrations all over the country.
There is no doubt that the influence of world opinion, and especially of the other chief partners of the alliance of the United Nations, will make itself felt in relation to the present Indian crisis, which is of urgent concern to all, and assist in reaching such a solution. But the primary political responsibility rests here in Britain, and it is the Labour and democratic movement of this country which must play the foremost part in fulfilling this responsibility. We must exert our endeavours to overcome the present crisis and find a base for the free and honourable co-operation of the great Indian nation in the alliance of the United Nations for the defeat of Fascism and the freedom of all nations, including India. We must exert our pressure on the Government to reverse its present policy and pursue a policy which will make such a settlement possible. We have here a duty to perform, equally in our own interests, in the interests of the Indian people, and in the interests of the common cause of victory over Fascism.
R.P.D.
August 20, 1942.
[A pamphlet based on the above Notes of the Month has been prepared and is now available for readers.]