Labour Monthly, April 1942
Source: Labour Monthly, April 1942, p.105-108, signed by D.N. Pritt, Q.C., M.P.;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
The imminent danger of a Japanese invasion of India, coupled with the revelations of the Malaya-Singapore campaign as to the military difficulties of defending territory inhabited by an indifferent – let alone a hostile – population, has naturally enough done far more than years of propaganda to bring the problem of India near to solution. The British Government, and the general public – which has never paid enough attention to India – have now been roused to understand both the truth and the cruel urgency of what Socialists have long been telling them: that if we are to face and defeat the onward march of Fascism we must satisfy the national demands of the Indian people, and enlist them as active allies on our side.
We have not in reality a choice between recognising full Indian independence or clinging to the old promise of “Dominion status after the war”; the only alternative is between the acknowledgment of Indian independence or the loss of India to Japan. The land of India must, in short, go to the people of India, or be conquered by the Japanese; we can only fight in India if we do so in alliance and co-operation with the Indian people.
It is good news, accordingly, even with the great military dangers arising out of the delay involved, that Sir Stafford Cripps has been sent to India, with the authority of his membership of the War Cabinet, to discuss with the various interests there a scheme which the War Cabinet has agreed on but not published. This is of course only the beginning and not the end of the problem. Writing before the middle of March, one can only guess that the negotiations, notwithstanding the great urgency of the position, will last some time; and it is more than ever necessary that progressive public opinion shall be both awakened and informed, so that the Government may be encouraged and if necessary driven to a satisfactory settlement, and reactionary elements may be prevented from wrecking the negotiations by futile efforts to cling to what they have in fact already lost.
We cannot for some time know or guess very much of the terms which the Government proposes to offer to India in our name, and the danger must always be present that reactionary elements may force it to offer too little; but there is at present some general optimism as to the prospects of agreement, founded perhaps on a feeling that rulers really do not continue to fiddle when the fumes of burning cities are catching in their nostrils. We cannot, however, afford illusions or complacency, and an examination of the Prime Minister’s statement in the House of Commons on March 11 is not altogether reassuring. It lacked warmth, and the frank admission that this important new step had been brought about by anxiety over the Japanese advance, and not by any change of heart or feeling of justice, was honest rather than tactful. It was unfortunate, too, that Mr. Churchill based himself on the Government statement of August, 1940, which was really nothing more than the old promise of “Dominion status after the war,” and represented to most Indians not an advance but a great disappointment. Mr. Churchill also emphasised somewhat strongly the old bogy of “minorities,” and thus increased the suspicion that the offer may not go far enough to satisfy Indian national opinion, and may give altogether undue importance to such views as those of the Moslem League, which is discussed below. There may, however, be tactical reasons for the tone of the statement, so that the substance of the offer may prove after all to be better than that tone would imply.
The feature that causes most anxiety is the secrecy as to the terms of the offer. There is a good deal of plausibility in the reason advanced for this, to wit, that the public announcement of the terms now might provoke fierce disputes in India, and thus prejudice the chances of acceptance of a settlement to which all sections might be willing to agree if they had the opportunity for private consideration before having to take any standpoint in public. But it remains true that the whole transaction, perhaps the most important in our history, is removed for an indefinite time from the democratic control of public opinion and of Parliament, and indeed that this control may not be brought to bear until the matter is virtually settled for better or worse. And one thing at any rate is plain, that at every stage of this war public opinion has been far healthier, more courageous, and more progressive, than the Government of the day.
But, nevertheless, whatever the dangers, disadvantages, or suspicions, the new step is a great advance, and should be welcomed and encouraged. It must also be carefully watched. Every progressive element in the country should follow events very closely. The disastrous indifference which the mass of the public – even many of those interested in home and European politics – has hitherto displayed to the whole problem of India, an indifference which has enabled reactionaries to have their disastrous way so long, is now beginning to disappear, and we must work hard to hasten this process, and to overcome the immense obstacles which censorship, propaganda and plain misrepresentation present to those who seek to form a correct judgment. Secrecy to-day does not inevitably mean that the terms will be kept secret until it is too late for public opinion to exercise a decisive influence on the course of events, and at any moment, and probably at many moments, powerful and well-informed pressure will be needed to keep the Government along the right path, and to hold the reactionary elements at bay.
The cardinal question as to whether Indian independence should be recognised scarcely admits of argument. Every nation is entitled to its independence, and that the Indian people have a definite national sentiment and cohesion which constitutes them a nation has been tacitly assumed in many official declarations; it is indeed involved in the proposal for Dominion status. The time has gone by when a nation demanding its independence, the right to determine its own destiny, can be called upon to “qualify” for such elementary rights by demonstrating its good conduct; but it is nevertheless worth recalling – if only as an indication of the manner in which they will fight as independent people if the Japanese invade their country – that the Indians have a very fine record of anti-Fascist activity. They warmly supported the Chinese in their resistance to Japanese aggression, when too many of our statesmen were condoning that aggression and reinforcing it by continuing to supply Japan with war material; they were equally strong in their support of Abyssinia in its fight against Italian aggressors; and when they saw in Spain a people who were neither Asiatic nor “coloured” equally exposed to the savage attacks of Spanish, German and Italian Fascists, it was soon seen from their support of this cause too that their anti-Fascism was not limited by any question of locality or colour. They need indeed fear comparison with no European people in the clarity and sincerity of their attitude to Fascism; and it is noteworthy that Mr. Bose, who now forms so prominent a feature of Axis propaganda, was expelled from the Congress party before the outbreak of war in September, 1939. Throughout the present war, too, the Indian people through Congress have repeatedly declared their anti-Fascist attitude with great firmness.
What can be said of the lines on which a settlement should be reached? Firstly, that the truest and broadest basis, far better than the mere recognition and righting of a wrong, is that of our vital common interest in a common struggle. Such an interest we have in full measure. We each desire the utter destruction of Fascism and Fascist power; and we each know that we cannot in the short run keep the Japanese out of India or in the long run defeat Fascism, unless we rally the Indian people to that fight by the recognition of their independence.
On the basis of that great common interest, it should certainly not be impossible to reach a settlement by recognition of the principle of independence and the establishment of a provisional National Government with full powers, representative of all interests in India, and responsible for the time being to the existing Legislative Assembly. It is, of course, necessary to include a definite agreement as to collaboration in the war, but that can present no difficulty in the light of the clear and repeated declarations of Indian readiness to take part in the war as a free people.
The settlement must, of course, involve a mass of complex detail which will have to be dealt with in its place, without delay; but there are no insuperable difficulties. One obstacle which is advanced as a formidable one by the opponents of freedom is that of the alleged widespread and irreconcilable communal or religious conflict between Moslems and Hindus. They suggest that it is difficult if not impossible to steer one’s way between the dangers of either a powerful Moslem minority in effect imposing an indefinite veto on the wishes of the Hindu majority, or of a majority decision being resisted by a minority with such vigour as to destroy internal harmony and even to render the government of the country impossible. The picture is painted of the Moslem League and the Congress facing one another, the former representing the whole Moslem community of eighty millions, and the latter representing only the Hindus, each of these standing firmly for a point of view not only fundamentally opposed to but permanently irreconcilable with that of the other.
This picture has very little reality. There is no general or insoluble antagonism between Moslems and Hindus; they co-operate peacefully enough in the administrations of the Indian states, and in the Trade Unions in British India. They have the same poverty, the same landlords, moneylenders and tax collectors.
Nor has the Moslem League any right to speak for the Moslems. It does not publish the figures of its membership, but it polled less than 5 per cent. of the over 7,000,000 Moslem votes cast in the elections of 1937. The Momins, who constitute over half the Moslems of India, repudiate it, as do the Shiah community, themselves 20,000,000 in number, not all of whom are already counted in the Momins; whilst the North-Western Frontier Province, which is strongly Moslem, is a “Congress” province. There are probably more Moslems in the Congress than in the Moslem League; its chairman is a Moslem, and the Moslem Premiers of Bengal and Sind have recently declared that they are ready for settlement on similar lines to those of the Congress. The Moslem League is in its origin a creation of past British Governments, and its vigorous demands for such impracticable arrangements as a separate independent Moslem state (with a large Hindu minority, of course) under the name of Pakistan are probably a great embarrassment even to those reactionary elements who desire to use it as a pawn in the fight against Indian independence. (The analogy of Ireland and India is often mentioned; but one is reminded at times of Ulster, too.)
It is in truth equally misleading to regard the Congress as representing merely a large section of the Indian people. On the restricted franchise prevailing in India, it achieved an overwhelming victory in the 1937 elections and formed the government of eight out of the eleven provinces of India; and there is no doubt that if the franchise (which rests on a property basis) were extended to poorer classes its vote would be even greater. Its claim to be the largest political party in the world is very likely justified, and it is certainly entitled to say that it represents the electors of India to a far greater extent than any party or government in Western Europe represents its electors.
In the light both of the electoral statistics and the very large membership of the Congress, and of the position which it holds in the political life of India, the British Government should recognise that Congress is entitled to be accepted as the representative of the whole Indian people, and that any terms to which it is ready to agree, so long as they contain provisions safeguarding minorities, should be treated as accepted by India.
In conclusion, it may be said that, whilst time presses, and the negotiations in India, with the enemy at the gates, may move slowly, with hopes of success now waxing and now waning, and with every moment calling for the exercise of public opinion to drive the Government along the right path and protect it from its own reactionary elements, there are certainly to-day more hopes of a real settlement of the Indian problem than there have been. And it is encouraging to look at the prospects and see what a tremendous prize there is to be gained, both negatively and positively, from such a settlement. Something like one-sixth of the human race will have taken the first step towards building its own free and independent national life, and will be able to look forward to a tremendous development in every field of activity, on the basis of increasing industrial and agricultural activity and a rising standard of living which will have no parallel except in the prototype of such developments, the Soviet Union. And the first result, in spite of technical difficulties, will be that a successful resistance can now be offered both to Japanese arms and to Japanese propaganda.
Looked at more narrowly, our own interests will be equally well served. One of the most effective weapons of anti-British propaganda will be gone; neither in the U.S.A., nor in such neutral countries as still exist, nor in the underground movement in Germany, nor anywhere else, will it any longer be possible to assert that every claim or assertion we make about fighting for freedom and democracy is turned into a hollow mockery by our (normally Imperialist) treatment of India. Few even of the politically conscious among us realise for how long, and to how great an extent, the name India has been used almost all over the globe to blacken the fame of Britain.
For ourselves, too, we shall have taken a long step forward. Our standard of living will no longer be a parasitic growth on the poverty and misery of our Indian brothers; we shall have gone some way towards ridding ourselves of the reproach of being accomplices in a cruel exploitation – and incidentally, with the blossoming of a new India (among other things “a better customer”) and the immense increase in our own productivity that will come from the inevitable economic changes, our standard of living will not in fact suffer any setback, but will on the contrary soon increase rapidly, in spite of the “loss” of India. We shall not only be honest; we shall be no poorer even in money for our honesty!
And it is not fanciful, but just sober realism, to foresee a peaceful alliance in Asia of the countless millions of India, China and the U.S.S.R. striding forward to build a world of tranquillity and progress, material and cultural, in which all the other peoples and nations in Asia, including the Japanese, freed of their Fascist government, can take their share.