INDIA. (Hansard, 10 September 1942)

§ The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE)

My Lords, the course of events in India has been improving and is, on the whole, reassuring. The broad principles of the declaration made by His Majesty's Government, which formed the basis for the Mission of the Lord Privy Seal to India, must be taken as representing the settled policy of the British Crown and Parliament. These principles stand in their full scope and integrity; no one can add anything to them, and no one can take anything away. The good offices of the Lord Privy Seal were rejected by the Indian Congress Party. This, however, does not end the matter.

The Indian Congress Party does not represent all India. It does not represent the majority of the people of India; it does not represent even the Hindu masses. It is a political organization built round a Party machine, and sustained by certain manufacturing and financial interests. Outside that Party, and fundamentally opposed to it, are the 90,000,000 Moslems in British India, who have their rights of self-expression; the 50,000,000 Depressed Classes, or Untouchables, as they are called, because they are supposed to defile their Hindu co-religionists by their presence or by their shadow; and the 95,000,000 subjects of the Princes of India, to whom we are bound by treaties; in all, 235,000,000 in these three large groupings alone, out of about 390,000,000 in all India. This takes no account of large elements among the Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians in British India who deplore the present policy of the Congress Party. It is necessary that these main facts should not be overlooked here or abroad, because no comprehension of the Indian problem or of the relations between Britain and India is possible without the recognition of these basic data.

The Congress Party has now abandoned, in many respects, the policy of non-violence which Mr. Gandhi has so long inculcated in theory, and has come into the open as a revolutionary movement designed to paralyze communications by rail and telegraph, and generally to promote disorder, the looting of shops, and sporadic attacks upon the Indian Police, accompanied from time to time by 317 revolting atrocities—the whole having the intention, or at any rate the effect, of hampering the defence of India against the Japanese invader, who stands on the frontiers of Assam and also upon the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. It may well be that these activities by the Congress Party have been aided by Japanese fifth-column work on a widely-extended scale, and with special direction to strategic points. It is noteworthy, for example, that the communications of the Indian Forces defending Bengal on the Assam frontier have been specially attacked.

In these circumstances the Viceroy and the Government of India, with the unanimous support of the Viceroy's Council, the great majority of the members of which are Indians and wise and patriotic men, have felt it necessary to proclaim and suppress the central and provincial organs of this association, which has become committed to hostile and criminal courses. Mr. Gandhi and other principal leaders have been interned, under conditions of the highest comfort and consideration, and will be kept out of harm's way until the troubles subside.

It is fortunate that the Congress Party has no influence whatever with the martial races, on whom the defence of India, apart from the British Forces, largely depends. Many of these races are divided by unbridgeable religious gulfs from the Hindu Congress, and would never consent to be ruled by them; nor shall they ever be, against their will, so subjugated. There is no compulsory service in India, but upwards of a million Indians have volunteered to serve the cause of the United Nations in this world struggle. The bravery of the Indian troops has been distinguished in many theatres of war, and it is satisfactory to note that in these last two months, when the Congress has been measuring its strength against the Government of India, more than 140,000 new volunteers for the Army have come forward in loyal allegiance to the King-Emperor, thus surpassing all records, to defend their native land. So far as matters have gone up to the present, they have revealed the impotence of the Congress Party either to seduce or even to sway the Indian Army, or to withdraw from their duty the enormous body of Indian officials, 318 and still less to stir the vast Indian masses.

India is a continent almost as large as and actually more populous than Europe, and divided by racial and, above all, by religious differences far deeper than any that have separated Europeans. The whole administration of the Government of the 390,000,000 who live in India is carried on by Indians, there being under 600 British members of the Indian Civil Service. All the public services are working. In five Provinces, including two of the greatest, and comprising 110,000,000 of people, Provincial Ministries, responsible to their Legislatures, stand at their posts. In many places, both town and country, the population has rallied to the support of the civil power. The Congress conspiracy against communications is breaking down. Acts of pillage and arson are being repressed and punished with incredibly small loss of life. Fewer than 500 persons have been killed over this mighty area of territory and population, and it has only been necessary to move a few brigades of British troops in support of the civil power. In most cases the rioters have been successfully dealt with by the Indian Police. I am sure that your Lordships would wish me to pay a tribute to the loyalty and steadfastness of these brave Indian Police as well as of the Indian official classes generally, whose behaviour has been deserving of the highest praise.

To sum up, the outstanding fact which has emerged from the violent action of the Congress Party has been their non-representative character and their powerlessness to throw into confusion the normal peaceful life of India. It is the intention of His Majesty's Government to give all necessary support to the Viceroy and his Executive in the firm but tempered measures by which they are protecting the life of the Indian community and leaving the British and Indian Armies free to defend the soil of India against the Japanese. I may add that large reinforcements have reached India and that the numbers of white soldiers now in that country, though very small compared with its size and population, are larger than at any time in the British connexion. I therefore feel entitled to report to the House that the situation in India at this moment gives no occasion for undue despondency or alarm.