STRIKE ACTION IS ATTRIBUTED TO COMMUNISTS

Grey River Argus, 2 April 1948, Page 5

STRIKE ACTION IS ATTRIBUTED TO COMMUNISTS

LONDON, March 31

The Prime Minister of India (Pandit Nehru) was loudly cheered in the Indian National Assembly in Delhi yesterday when, in a carefully worded speech, he denounced what he called “action calculated to challenge the foundations of democratic government, dislocate public work, and cause a breakdown of discipline in the public services”. The Delhi correspondent of the Times says: Although Pandit Nehru did not actually name any political organisation, it. was obvious ,from the tone of his speech that he considered the Communists responsible. Certain groups, he said, were bent on creating trouble, particularly among workers.

The Delhi correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says that Pandit

Nehru was referring to the threatened strike on Friday of Government great majority”. employees in Calcutta. Such action, he warned, would be considered gross dereliction of duty, entailing instant dismissal. The threatened strike, he added, was part of a larger movement. There had been incitement to violence and the organisers thought in terms of achieving their objective by violent methods. According to the Daily Telegraph correspondent, active Communists and Communist sympathisers control the trade unions in India, which have a membership of about 500,00 b. Pandit Nehru told the National Assembly that Government servants in Calcutta were threatening to begin on Friday a violent stay-in hunger strike with political motives. “This challenges the Government”, said Pandit Nehru. “It is evidently part of a larger movement, essentially political and violent, which is taking shape in some parts ot India. There can be no democratic functioning if a small minority attacks the Government violently to enforce its will, on the