AGITATION IN INDIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 February 1939, Page 5

AGITATION IN INDIA

DUTIES OF THE PARAMOUNT POWER PROTECTION OF NATIVE RULERS. SUGGESTED WARNING TO CONGRESS. (British Official Wireless.' RUGBY, February 20. The Under-Secretary of State for India, Mr A. J. Muirhead, was asked in the House of Commons whether, as the paramount power in India was bound by treaty to protect the Indian States from external aggression and internal disorder menacing their security and integrity, he would represent to the Government of India that Congress should be warned to cease aggressive agitation in the Indian States. He replied that Lord Zetland was satisfied that the attitude of the paramount Power in regard to agitation in the Indian States was known to all quarters in India. That attitude was. as stated in a Parliamentary answer before Christmas, that the paramount Power would not obstruct proposals for constitutional advance initiated by rulers, but the British Government had no intention of bringing any form of pressure to bear upon them to initiate constitutional changes. Il rested with the rulers themselves to decide what form of government they should adopt in the diverse conditions of the Indian States. The obligations of the paramount Power to the Indian States extended to protecting the rulers against violence and disorder and to advising and assisting the rulers in remedying such legitimate grievances of their subjects as might be found to exist.