Foreign News: Hyphens & Dashes

Britain was ready to try again. Last week, in parallel broadcasts, Prime Minister Clement Attlee (from London) and Viceroy Lord Wavell (from New Delhi) tendered the Labor Government’s new plan in fulfillment of its election promise to offer India Dominion status. Based on the abortive Cripps and Wavell Plans, both of which foundered largely on the failure of India’s 256 million Hindus and 92 million Moslems to agree, the new plan promised self-rule (i.e., Dominion status) by degrees:

¶ Elections are to be held for the Central Assembly and the eleven Provincial Legislatures. Some 35,000,000 Indians will vote in provincial elections, 1,500,000 in the central election, between November and February.

¶ Thereafter the Viceroy, in consultation with representatives of the chosen legislators, will set up a body to draw India’s new constitution. If the new proposals are not acceptable, the British will consider “some alternative or modified scheme.” The 562 autonomous native states (pop. 95 million) will be invited to take part.

¶ Meantime the British Government will proceed independently with the drafting of a treaty to be concluded between Great Britain and the projected self-governing Dominion of India. As an earnest of its good intentions, Britain will publish a draft of the treaty before India starts to write her constitution.

“Foolish Man!” The Committee of the All-India National Congress, which speaks for most of India, was meeting at the foot of Bombay’s Malabar Hill. Hundreds of workers had toiled day & night for a fortnight to erect a pandal (tent) big enough to seat the 300 delegates and 25,000 visitors. Gandhi was absent with a high fever, but his deputy, Jawaharlal Nehru, was conspicuously present. Embittered Moslem League supporters signalized Nehru’s arrival by waving black flags, which Congress supporters promptly tore to tatters.

Congress met on a day edgy with temper. Speakers and audience alike were tense. Outside it rained. Inside the crowd sat jampacked in steamy heat. The speeches began, but nobody heard them—the loudspeaker system had failed. Electricians fingered frantically while tempers rose. Finally Nehru began to talk. After a few words the loudspeakers failed again. The Pandit raged at a frightened Indian electrician: “Foolish man!” The day fizzled out in fiasco.

Chink in the Door. Next afternoon the Committee resumed its work. It castigated the new India plan as “vague, inadequate and unsatisfactory.” At the same time it left the door to settlement open a chink by agreeing to contest the coming elections and negotiate with the British Government. On the prickly problem of Pakistan (a separate Moslem State) the Working Committee had already hedged: Congress would oppose partition, but, if unsuccessful, it would not compel seceding Moslems to stay inside a Hindu India. From the Moslem League and its canny, cagey president, Mohamed Ali Jinnah, came no comment. He was too busy preparing his campaign in the northwest, heart of the hypothetical Moslem State.

A week of suggestions and rejections, solutions and resolutions had merely befogged the fundamental issue: until Hindu and Moslem agreed, they could scarcely expect to agree with Britain. Probably the compromise which neither side was now willing to accept might look more feasible once the electorate had pronounced on Pakistan. Then Indians might find more truth than poetry in the words of Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, the Congress Party’s official historian’.”Differences in India are hyphens that unite, not dashes that divide.”