“FREE INDIA”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1942, Page 4

“FREE INDIA”

NEGOTIATION WITH JAPAN ANTICIPATED BY GANDHI. IN ORIGINAL PROPOSAL TO CONGRESS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, August 4. “If India were free, her first step would probably be to negotiate with Japan.”—This statement was contained in Mr Gandhi’s original draft of his “quit India” resolution, before it was amended by the Congress Party Working Committee, according to documents seized by the police when they searched the Congress offices at Allahabad, some weeks ago. Revealing this, the Press Association’s lobbyist says the Indian Government proposes to publish the documents. These show that Pandit Nehru opposed Mr Gandhi’s draft, stating that it would inevitably make the world think that the Congress was passively lining up with the Axis. The lobbyist states that Pandit Nehru objected to the method of approach, rather than to Gandhi’s actual proposals. The resolution was finally carried as drafted by Pandit Nehru. Pandit Nehru, interviewed in Bombay, said that Congress civil disobedience probably would be launched a fortnight after the ratifications by the Congress at the end of the week. The campaign was likely to last for three months, and to decide the country’s fate. Congress, he said, will not be satisfied until India has been granted complete and immediate independence. Internal disturbances are unlikely if the local authorities discharge their duties faithfully.

The Indian Communist Party has issued a statement saying that the Indian Communists are doing their utmost to convince fellow patriots that civil disobedience does not lead to freedom, but cuts the nation from freedom’s battle and only helps to strengthen imperialists who refuse to move with the times.