Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1947 DIVIDED INDIA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 32, 23 May 1947, Page 4

Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1947 DIVIDED INDIA

THE Moslem League is continuing the boycott of India’s Constituent Assembly which it announced when the Assembly met for the first time in December. Virtually the only representatives attending the inaugural meeting were members of the Congress party of Indpendents elected by Congress votes. The Princes may, as suggested in the news, re-cast their attitude towards the Assemly by deciding to take part in it, but there , can by now be little expectation that the Moslems will depart from their plea for Pakistan. Mr Jinnah gave an indication that this would be the case after the London talks two months ago, when he said that the only practical course for the British Government was to allow the Moslems to call their own Congress and draw up their own Constitution. The discussions in London, in which Mr Nehru participated as well as Mr Jinnah, broke down, it will be remembered over the interpretation given to the Cabinet mission’s plans for the grouping of the provinces, each side professing to fear that the oppression of communal minorities might result from the proposals. Mr Jinnah, when he later urged the British Government to recognise the Moslem League’s position before it was too late, asserted that the Moslems cbuld not participate in the Constituent Assembly while there was no assurance that the Congress would agree to the provincial groupings as a substitute for Pakistan. All the signs are that opinion on both sides has continued to harden. There have already been some bitter Congress speeches in the Assembly, particularly with reference to the British Government’s December statement that it could not force upon the minorities a Constitution in which they were not represented. The Congress attitude, rejecting the contemplated request for a ruling on the interpretation of the Cabinet mission’s proposals from'the Indian Federal Court, is that questions of interpretation should be settled by the Assembly—which would of course amount to settlement by the Congress majority there. Mr Jinnah takes the view that the British Government

having itself framed the proposals, should say what they mean without appeal to any other authority. The viewpoint is certainly not unreasonable. As the Economist has argued, if the agreement were merely a kind of treaty between two Indian parties, reference to the court for an interpretation might be a sensible solution. “But,” says the newspaper, “it is also a declaration of the conditions on which Britain is prepared to transfer powers to an Indian central Government. The British Government can alone be the interpreter of its own mind on this problem, and it is idle to suppose that Britain can escape responsibility for a catastrophe in India by doing nothing.” The Congress urge towards a unified India would require, obviously, the creation of a Government dominated by Hindus. Moslems fears in this respect are real, hence the demand either for a provincial grouping which would concentrate Moslem strength in autonomous areas, or actual consent to the creation of a separate Moslem India. As in the case of Palestine, goodwill and tolerance between the two major parties could solve the problem. Unhappily, as again in the case of Palestine, there is nothing to suggest that such a solution comes within the scope of practical politics.