page 2

That Bright and Precious Jewel

". . . Thirdly, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of Government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them." So ran the declaration of Roosevelt and Churchill. And then I remembered an Act called the Government of India Amending Act that was hurried through the British Parliament in September, 1939, in the short space of eleven minutes. It gave the Viceroy of India power to over-ride the limited Indian Constitution, dictatorial power. No self-determination, no freedom of opinion here, but power "to arrest without warrant, and impose penalties for breaches of regulations, to include death or transportation for life."

There is a silent censorship over India. A country which constitutes three quarters of the total population of the British Empire, four-fifths of the overseas population of the British Empire, and more than one-half the total colonial population of the world. A censorship that is prohibitive and exclusive, and only occasionally does news leak out. News like this. "India has now one million men under arms," "There are 1,000 officials of the Congress Party in jail."

The composition of the Congress Party is interesting. It proclaimed before the 1937 electors: "The Congress stands for a genuine democratic state in India, where political power has been transferred to the people as a whole, and the Government is under their effective control. Such a state can only come into existence through a constituent Assembly, elected by adult suffrage, and having power to finally determine the Constitution of the country." And even with a limited franchise of 15½ million voters the Congress won absolute majorities in six states, a total of 715 seats. Even the Conservative "Times" said: "The Party's proposals have been more positive and constructive than those of most of its opponents. In the agricultural constituencies, where it has been unexpectedly successful, it put forward an extensive programme of rural reform.... The Party has won its victories ... on issues which interested millions of Indian rural voters and scores of millions who had no votes." It was a veritable referendum of the national will for independence and social advance.

It is not surprising that the Indians are suffering imprisonment. Yet it is an extremely dangerous situation for the British Commonwealth of Nations. Dangerous in that this huge reservoir of man-power and supplies is disunited, unwilling to carry on a war for the purpose of protecting a democracy that it does not possess.

Axis Japan has not been slow to capitalise this disunity. In her southward drive into Indo-China, her encouragement of the nationalist claims of Thailand are strategic political and military moves to outflank Singapore and to obtain a land base for pressure or attack on India through Burma. India has always figured largely in the Japanese dream of Empire.

For these reasons alone it is urgent that drastic and far-reaching reforms should be made in India immediately to give four-fifths of the British Commonwealth of Nations a democracy to fight for. For "that bright and precious jewel" of Churchill's glitters only in the pockets of those who receive India's £38,000,000 yearly tribute to British finance.