PRESSING GANDHI

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 177, 29 July 1942, Page 5

PRESSING GANDHI

HALT DISOBEDIENCE

Members Of Congress Party

See Dangers

Rec. Noon. NEW DELHI, July 28.

Members of the Congress party itself are pressing Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Azad, the party's president, to suspend for a time the threat of a civil disobedience campaign.

Satyanarayan Sinha, a committee, man, who is also the party's Chief Whip in the Central Legislature, suggested to Dr. Azad that the disobedience decision should be postponed until October, when a new Congress Committee will be elected. He argues that this most important decision should rest on the committee charged with carrying out the policy.

"It is sad beyond measure that Sir Stafford Cripps, acting as the devil's advocate, should make such statements to America," said Pandit Nehru, commenting on the Lord Privy Seal's broadcast. "He has injured British-Indian relations more than any other Englishman could have done. He has picked out passages from Gandhi's statements without reference to the context and built up a case for British imperialism.

Sir Stafford Cripps has completely misrepresented the Congress position. Congress has clearly stated that a free India would defend the country in every way by armed force. The question of nonviolence had not arisen."

The New Labour member of the Viceroy's Council, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, who is also Leader of India's Depressed Classes, speaking in Bombay last night, criticised the Congress party's resolution. He said the Congress party's threat of civil disobedience was fraught with the gravest mischief and was sure to result in harm to the country. "India is faced at this moment with the Axis threat of invasion," he said, "and it would be madness to weaken law and order when the barbarians are at our gates intending, not merely to defeat the British, but to enslave us. No one can deny that the transference of power from British to Indian hands has been continuous and, of late, rapid. "Indians should realise that their destiny is bound up with a victory for the Allies against Naziism. If democracy wins, nothing in the world can stop the freedom of India, provided the Indians take care to unite. The supreme task is, therefore, to see that democracy wins the war."

Dr. Ambedkar, in an article in the Times of India ? wrote: "Gandhi's present move is irresponsible and insane. No one expects consistency from Gandhi, but everybody has a right to expect a sense of responsibility from him."