Foreign News: Only the Naive

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"The belief in man, created free, in the image of God—is the crucial difference between ourselves and the enemies we face today."—Franklin Roosevelt on the Four Freedoms, June 14, 1942.

Virtually alone among responsible British news journals, the New Statesman and Nation last week remembered that in the "dangerous and disgraceful situation" in India, one of the "crucial differences" between the Axis and the Allies was being lost. The majority of the press accepted the Government's "realism" on secondary issues.

The primary fact was that, led by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian National Congress party leaders had declared (before being jailed) for armed resistance to the Japanese, if Indian independence, or a national government, was granted. The harped-on secondary issues were Gandhi's pacificism, his suspected pro-Japanese attitude, the threat of Hindu-Moslem civil war.

It was natural that the British people, busy with war work and worrying about the opening of a second front and the military crisis in Russia, should be inclined to forget India, or merely hope for the best. But the New Statesman's voice of conscience demanded a break in the deadlock "at any cost to our Imperial pride." Steps proposed: 1) request the mediation of President Roosevelt; 2) replace Indian Viceroy Lord Linlithgow; 3) guarantee post-war Indian independence "in the name of the United Nations"; 4) issue a Government White Paper on "the real extent of the damage and trouble in India"; 5) consider the Indian situation "as the most urgent problem" when the House of Commons reconvenes.