NAZI APPROVAL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 167, 17 July 1942, Page 5

NAZI APPROVAL

GANDHI'S PLAN "No Withdrawal From India," Says Britain British Official Wireless. Rec. 1 p.m. RUGBY, July 16. It is noticed in London that Axis approval of the new Gandhi programme has been instantaneous and emphatic. Germany's Trans-Ocean cable from Bangkok says: "Indians of the Far East heard with the utmost gratification that the Working Committee of the Congress party confirmed its confidence in Gandhi's leadership by accepting his programme for driving the British out of India." Similarly, the Trans-Ocean radio reports: "The Indian Independence League in the Far East would support Gandhi in every respect for the complete removal of British and American influence from India which meant India's true independence, and that was one of the objectives of the Axis Powers in the war." A study of the full text of the Congress Working Committee resolution brings out the following points: A declaration that after the British withdrawal, the present political parties would cease to function can only mean that Congress, as a totalitarian organisation, would bring their existence to an end. Secondly, although the resolution implies that Congress is a people's party in contrast, with other parties dependent on the moneyed classes, it is in fact a party largely financed, at any rate in the past, by industrialists and landlords. Thirdly, the resolution states that Sir Stafford Cripps' proposals showed that the British hold on India was in no way relaxed. The over-riding concern of the British Government at present is to strengthen the military' position of the United Nations, and the strategic importance of India must be the foremost concern. Hence the view is held that a withdrawal from India would be an abdication of British responsibility to the United Nations and would paralyse joint defence arrangements.