INDIAN UNREST

Southland Times, Issue 24824, 17 August 1942, Page 5

INDIAN UNREST

POSITION IMPROVES STEADILY (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, A.ugust 15. The main news from India reaching London in Agency messages is of a steady improvement in the situation at Ahmedabad, Poona, Delhi and the United Provinces. A communique issued at Delhi states that since the beginning of the trouble at New Delhi 40 people have been killed and 55 injured. Of the injured 28 have already been dscharged from hospital. Despite many difficulties India has just witnessed the completion of an important munition plant. This factory will produce alloyed steel not previously manufactured 111 India, and will facilitate the manufacture of field guns, anti-aircraft guns and light machine-guns. In a statement condemning organized hooliganism in India Mr Rajagopalachari, former Premier of Madras, who resigned from the Congress Party Working Committee at the time of S lr Stafford Cripps’ mission, says that those who have directed activities involving such mad destruction and disregard of human safety are deluding themselves and are destroying the progress which has been achieved. Printed incitements to sabotage of public property clothed in Gandhi language were, he said, being widely distributed and plans to dislocate the social order were afoot. If the authorities failed to check these disorders mob rule of the worst type would be established. Although rioting in India is dying down observers do not think that the Indians are calling off their campaign to oust the British. They forecast that the present violence will be replaced by Gandhi’s policy of passive resistance. It is officially announced from Bombay that Mr Gandhi’s secretary, Mahadap Desai died of heart failure while under detention. Desai had long been an outstanding member of the Congress Party. He was several times arrested and was gaoled for a year in. 1938. Civil disobedience in India is slowly being driven underground, says The New York Post’s Bombay correspondent. Most of Mr Gandhi’s leading disciples are in prison, but younger officials of the All-India National Congress Party, little known to the public, are trying to take over the campaign. The more conservative members of the Party have been bewildered and inactive spectators of the week’s violence. NEW OUTBREAKS OF DISORDER It is reported that in a new outbreak of disorder at Dakor the police fired on an unruly mob, killing five people and injuring four, states a later London message. At Benares one person was killed and 18 injured, including two magistrates and four constables .when the police fired on a crowd which refused to disperse. In Calcutta the police used revolvers to disperse rowdy elements. Several Indians were injured. Nagpur streets have been largely cleared of obstructions and shops are reopening, but nervousness prevails. Police and military fired on three gangs of hooligans who set fire to a hospital mortuary, barricaded roads and looted a building. Gopinath Bardoli, a member of Congress and former Premier of Assam, has been arrested.