TWO WARNINGS

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 256, 28 July 1942, Page 5

TWO WARNINGS

Gandhi To Japanese; Gripps To Gandhi INDIA DEFENCE ISSUE (British Official Wireless and Press Assn.) (Received July 27, 8.20 p.m.) LONDON, July 26. Speaking in Bombay today, Mahatma Gandhi warned Japan that India’s movement demanding the withdrawal of British rule did not mean any welcome of the Japanese; on the contrary, the Indians would resist with all the might that could be mustered. "I have no ill will against the Japanese, though I dislike intensely their attack against China, which is tantamount to treachery to Asiatic ideals, he added. In Delhi today, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru (prominent Liberal politician and former member of the Round Table Conference with Britain) suggested a round table conference of representatives of the Indian parties and communities with a view to arriving at a settlement for the period of the war. The Indian people, he said, needed a new spirit to face the enemy next door, but the mass movement proposed by Congress was more likely to stir up internal strife than to strengthen the resistance against Japan. The representatives should discuss how best to remove the present tension, and they could discuss later the question of a permanent Constitution for peacetime. Broadcasting to India tonight, Sir Stafford Cripps said he knew the Indians as a whole did not support Gandhi. It would be the duty of the British Government to insist on keeping India as a safe base for operations against the Japanese, and whatever steps were necessary to that end would be taken fearlessly. India was now essentially a vital part of the world front against the Axis Powers, and British, Americans and Chinese, as well as Indians, were fighting to defend it. The action threatened by Gandhi was calculated to endanger the war effort both of the Allies and India. Gandhi was threatening extreme pressure at a difficult time, in order to gain political power, and there was not the slightest doubt that the other large political parties were opposed to his demands. India had been offered complete freedom to provide in whatever way she chose for her own self-govern-ment when victory was won, but that victory must first be gained, and Britain could not allow a visionary, however distinguished in his fight for freedom in the past, to thwart the United Nations’ drive for victory in the East.