MANY ARRESTS IN INDIA

Chronicle (Levin), 1 March 1949, Page 5

MANY ARRESTS IN INDIA

• (N.Z.P.A.-

Reuter ,

Government Acts Against .Communists

Copyrifiit)

Received Tuesday, 12. 0 a.m. NEW DELHI, Feb. 28, Mr. Nehru told Parliament that a large number of prominent Indian Gommunists had gonfc underground and that the Government had a mass of evidence to indicate that organised attempts vvere being made to conduet campaigns of sabotage, particularly on the railways. Mr. Nehru said 870 arrests were made in the last ten days in connection with the railway strilce threatened by Communist led unions. He added that tht Government wTould consider banning che Communist Party in India but pre ferred to deal with individual Com munists. "The Communist Party has adopted an attitude not only of open hostilitj to the Government but also one which can be described as bordering on opei. revolt," he said. "This policy ha.been given effeet to intensively in certain limited areas in India, resulting ir violence, including murder, arson, ioot .jig aiid sabotage." Bpeaking of Communist revolts in tht eountries bordering India, Mr. Nehru said it was presumably to further thc same policy that attempts had . been made in India to incite people tc active revolt. ' ' The nature of the activities and objectives of certain groups in India can be judged by events whieh tooi' plaee in Dumdum and other plaees oi Calcutta two days ago. We have evidence that the same ageneies which provided weapons to students, are exploit tng them for a similar purpose during tho railway strike. There have been three eases of attempts to derail trainti during the last two days. The Communist Party is deliberately seeking to create famine eonditions by paralysing the railway system so that foodstuft's should not be transported, the object ueing to create a general background of ehaos, the breakdown of the adlninistration and mass iiprisings. " Mr, Nehru added that speakers at meetings held in Calcutta under the auspices of the Communist dominated Bengal Provinee Trade Union Congress, had urged that power be seized by violence and that the Communist dominated Bengal fcltudents' Federation tiad announced that saboteur gangs were reaijy for action. This student group was responsible for an attempt to blow up the Talla waterworks neai Calcutta a iew months ago. (Questioned about the threatened- railway strike during the second week in Mai-ch, Mr. Nehru declared that reports eontinued to reaeh the Government th.v-1 a widespread programme of sabotage had been planned and that it was decided to enforce -a strike by means ot violence. Fourteen of the people arrested in connection with the Calcutta outrages were members of the Kevolutionary Communist Party of India whiol: was a breakaway movement of thc Communist Party. The House cheered when Mr. Nehru concluded: "In any action the Government may have to take, it will always remember that the worlnlng classes are the baekbone of the eountry whose general interests must not suffer. "