NOT ASHAMED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 August 1942, Page 4

NOT ASHAMED

GF PROPOSAL TO PLEAD WITH JAPAN GANDHI FURTHER DEFINES HIS POLICY. EXPLANATIONS BY PANDIT NEHRU. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 4. Mr Gandhi in a statement today said: “I think the Government’s procedure in searching the committee rooms and seizing documents is reprehensible. Congress is not an illegal body but is acknowledged to be the oldest representative organisation. “I purposely incorporated the sentence about negotiation with Japan. If this was ultimately dropped, I also associate myself with the deletion. The reading of the notes, though they are not authenticated, will not be harmful to Congress prestige. There is nothing to cause members shame. “I have never, even in my most unguarded moment, expressed the opinion that Germany and Japan will win the war; on the contrary, I have frequently said that they cannot win if Britain only sheds her Imperialism once and for all. I have nothing to withdraw or of which I am ashamed.” Gandhi also said: “If India became an independent nation tomorrow I would certainly seek the permission of the provisional Government to send me to Japan. I would plead with her in the first instance to free China.” Pandit Nehru stated that the notes seized were brief and disjointed. They were torn from their context and gave a wrong impression. Had Gandhi been present much of the discussion might have been avoided. “There is an important qualification to the statement that Gandhi expected an Axis victory,” he added. “I referred to what he has repeatedly said —his belief that Britain is heading for disaster unless she changes her whole policy toward India and the colonies. The reference to negotiations with Japan is also incorrect and is torn from its corftext. It is absurd to say that any of us envisaged some arrangement with the Japanese giving them the right of passage. It was pointed out that Japan would want this, and we could never agree. Our policy has always been based on the utmost resistance to aggression.”