GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24905, 19 June 1946, Page 7

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

COALITION OFFER CONSIDERATION BY PARTIES (Rec. 11 pan.) LONDON, June 18. Reuter’s correspondent in New Delhi quotes official circles as saying that the Indian constitutional problems ate moving towards a settlement. The Viceroy (Lord Wavell) is reported to have been told by the Congress Party and Moslem League leaders that the offer of a coalition interim Government is being considered by the working committees of both parties. The Viceroy met the president of the Congress Party (Dr. Maulana Azad) today, and the president of the Moslem League (Mr Jinnah) is meeting him later. The Viceroy and the British Cabinet Mission also had further discussions to-day. ‘‘Mr Gandhi’s sermons at his prayer meetings have been so ambiguous and open to alternative interpretations that they afford no indication whether his influence will be used for or against a settlement on the basis now before the country,” says.the New Delhi correspondent of “The Times.” "Both the Congress Party and the Moslem League Working Committees met to-day, but nothing definite emerged. Another 48 hours may elapse before either gives a definite or conditional answer to the Viceroy’s offer. "It is learned that the Congress committee is divided into some moderates urging acceptance and some extremists pressing for clarification and for the substitution of alternative names on the proposed Cabinet.” "Mr Gandhi, in a message to his prayer meeting yesterday, from whiifh he was absent because Monday is his day of silence, said: “All will be well in the end, whatever immediate steps are taken.”

Dr. Ambedkar, Labour member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, representing the depressed classes, has sent a telegram to Mr Attlee stating that the proposed representative of the depressed classes in the coalition interim Government, Mr Jagjivan Ram, is a “creature of Congress elected entirely by Hindu votes.” * Dr. Ambedkar demanded two seats for the depressed classes on the grounds that 60,000,000 Untouchables are being treated on a par with 4,000,000 Sikhs and 3,000,000 Indian Christians. He also demanded that the nominees should be members of the Depressed Classes Federation, which is opposed to the depressed classes’ candidates put up by Uie Congress Party for the recent provincial elections. The president of the Anglo-Indian Association described the exclusion of Anglo-Indians from the proposed interim Government as a wanton injustice. He added that Anglo-Indians formed one of six politically recognised communities in India, so it was a mockery that they should be excluded.

N.Z. Pilot on Atlantic Air Service.— The New Zealander. Captain J. W. Burgess, has been chosen to command a Constellation air-liner on the British Overseas Airways Corporation’s new London-New York service opening on July 1. Captain Burgess in 1937 flew the flying-boat Centaurus on a survey flight to New Zealand.—London, June 18.