INDIAN NEGOTIATIONS UNDER WAY

Chronicle (Levin), 3 April 1946, Page 5

INDIAN NEGOTIATIONS UNDER WAY

^ DEMON STR ATION AGAINST GANDHI Received Tuesday, 9.30 p.m. NEW DELHI, April 2. Gandhi today conferred with Sir Stafford Cripps and Lord PethickLawrence. Gandhi, in a plain loincloth, squatted on the floor in a plain white- i washed room of the bungalow which f was the scene of his meeting with Sir } Stafford Cripps, who sat opposite him { in a wooden easy-chair, says Reuter 's correspondent. Sir Stafford Cripps and j Gandhi later chatted amicably as they ! strolled through the ccmpound. ! Gandhi 's conference with Lord Pethick- [ Lawrence was behind locked doors and lasted 75 minutes. .t-oj.iti.cal, social and religious leaders from India's 6,000,000 Sikhs, meeting at Lahore, declared that they would oppose any division of India. They maintained that, if/ India were I to be divided 011 religious grounds, thei Punjab must be given to the Sikhs as | the homeland of their community. xhere were cries- of "Down with j Gandhi!" immediately Gandhi entered j a hut in the sweepers ' quarters at New • Delfii yesterday. Demonstrators then | approached the hut and began to stone 1 it. Police charged the demonstrators j and drove them back. Gandhi, who was observing his customary Monday silence, ignored the incident. A violent clash occurred on Sunday night between residents at the untouchabies' colony at Worli, on the out- ; skirts of Bombay, and members of the Scheduled Castes Pederation (the untouchables' political organisation), who demonstrated against Gandhi 's decision to stay there. Fiffceen -persons, ineluding three of a party of police attempting to separate the contestants, were injured. Sixty-five persons were arrested. Gandhi left Bombay before the clash occurred. Eight thousand mill hands belonging to the Scheduled Castes Federation in the .Worli area struck yesterday. Eight mills are affected. Replying to criticism in the Indian Press, Sir Stafford Cripps stated: "We came India without a scheme, citheron paper or in our heads. We are working with a clean slate. Independence no longer being the only aim, it is the mission's sole duty now to do all it can to help India in arriving at an agreement for the new constitutional structure. "We have stopped going back to interpref past utterances. Conditions have changea, and past utterances may even be contradictory to present circumstances. " Mr. Ambedkar, leader of the Scheduled Castes, has received a letter threatening him with murder if he pregses for a separate electorate for the Scheduled Castes when he meets the British Cabinet Mission on April 5. The letter added: "The threat may be carried out even while the mission is here."