1941: India

Question of Independence.

As India swiftly increased the number of its men under arms and pushed the building of a war industry, the question of India's independence remained a constant source of political dissension and a drag on wholehearted Indian participation in the war effort during 1941. Not until the very end of the year was there any discernible change in the formal position of the All-India National Congress, embracing the great majority of politically conscious Indians, that independence must precede full support of the war. Breakdown of a temporary 'Christmas truce' between the National Congress and the Government of India was signalized on Jan. 3, 1941, when Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, president of the Congress, was arrested by the British authorities. Sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment on Jan. 8, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad joined an estimated 6,000 Indian political prisoners arrested under Defense of India Regulations for opposing India's participation in the war.

Question of Dominion Status.

On March 12 the Hindu Mahasabha, largest religious body in India, decided to support a campaign of civil resistance because of the Viceroy's refusal to assure dominion status for India within one year after the end of the war. A large and representative non-party conference of Indian moderates, presided over by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, unanimously approved a resolution on March 14 proposing that the Viceroy's Executive Council be transformed into a fully responsible Indian Cabinet administering all departments, including the portfolios of Finance and Defense. This Cabinet, it was suggested, would remain responsible to the Crown and would make arrangements to leave the position of the Commander-in-Chief as executive head of the defense forces unimpaired, but would bear full responsibility for all of British India's external relations. The British Government, said the resolution, 'should declare immediately its intention to confer on India the same measure of freedom as is enjoyed by the Dominions within a specified time-limit after the conclusion of the war.' Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, in his opening address to the conference, severely criticized the Government of India's 'aloofness from the people.' Never, he declared, recalling his forty years' experience of Indian public life, had 'the Government's isolation been greater than today.' The annual meeting of the Indian Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry unanimously adopted a resolution on March 22 urging the immediate establishment of a National Government. On the same day Mohammed All Jinnah, president of the All-India Moslem League, stated that the league would cooperate in establishing a responsible Cabinet within the framework of the existing constitution providing that its scheme for a separate Moslem state would be given consideration after the war when India's permanent constitution was being shaped. None of these various proposals approached the radical nature of the All-India Congress party's demand for a constituent assembly to frame a constitution for a completely independent India, but they all testified to the widespread sentiment for a move toward the substance of self-government as an assurance that India's expenditure of man-power and resources in prosecution of the war would not be in vain.

Participation of India in British War Effort.

The extent to which India was participating in the British war effort, nevertheless, was indicated on Feb. 24 by Mr. L. S. Amery, Secretary of State for India, during a broadcast in which he stated that, exclusive of Indian troops serving abroad, the Indian Army was rapidly approaching 500,000 men of all arms, mechanized on a modern scale. India, he declared, was already producing 'her own rifles, machine-guns, field artillery, and ammunition, and about 90 per cent of the miscellaneous equipment required.' Five days later, the Finance Member of the Government of India, presenting the budget to the Legislative Assembly, stated that India's armed forces totaled 500,000 men and that, under the 1941-1942 budget, defense charges would consume £60,000,000, or more than two-thirds of India's total budgetary expenditure.

A debate on India was touched off in the House of Commons on April 22 when Mr. L. S. Amery, declaring that India's government could not be changed during the 'supreme crisis' of the war, submitted measures to extend the Defense of India Regulations for an additional year. On May 15 the Government of India gave its consent to a program under which the annual training of 300 Indian pilots and 2,000 airplane mechanics would be undertaken. Announcement was made in London on June 19 of the appointment of Sir Shanmukham Chetty to head an Indian Purchasing Mission in the United States for the procurement of war supplies; the Indian Mission, it was stated, would collaborate closely with the British Purchasing Mission. Sir Muhammed Zafrulla Khan, Supply Member of the Government of India, stated in a broadcast delivered on July 16 that India's yearly production of guns was five times that of peacetime, and its output of shells 24 times greater. In addition to meeting the Indian Army's needs, oversea orders had been met for 600,000 filled shells and 150,000,000 rounds of small-arm ammunition. The first airplane to be assembled in India had been turned out, he said, and shipyards were building small craft from mine-sweepers to life-boats. The textile industries were producing 324,000,000 yards of cloth for military garments during 1941, and 9 factories were making 5,000,000 garments monthly. Armor plate was now being made and also machine tools, for which 54 firms had been licensed by the Machine Tool Controller. Announcement was made on July 20 that the British and American governments, in consultation with the Government of India, had agreed to a reciprocal exchange of representatives between the United States and India, and that, as a result, the Viceroy had appointed Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai to be Agent-General for India in the United States. Sir Girja will be the first Indian diplomat accredited to a country outside the Empire. At the same time Thomas M. Wilson, American Consul-General at Calcutta, was appointed United States Commissioner to India, with the rank of Minister.

On July 22, Mr. L. S. Amery announced in the House of Commons that the Viceroy's Executive Council was being enlarged by the appointment of five additional Indian members, who would henceforth be in the majority. In addition, an advisory National Defense Council of 31 members, including 9 representatives of the Indian States, was being formed to assist the Viceroy in the discharge of his war tasks. Spokesmen for the All-India Congress noted that the changes effected no real transfer of power and that the vital portfolios of Defense, Finance and Communications were still left in British hands. Announcement was made on July 23 that an aircraft factory was being established at Bangalore, India, under the direction of William D. Pawley, president of the Intercontinental Aircraft Corporation, an American firm which had built airplane plants in China. Interviewed in New York on Aug. 5, Sir Shanmukham Chetty, head of the Indian Purchasing Commission, stressed India's need for machine tools, high quality iron and steel, trucks, lubricants, chemicals, and medical supplies. Broadcasting on Sept. 3, second anniversary of the war, General Archibald Wavell declared that India's armed forces 'were approaching the million mark, and well over 100,000 were serving oversea.'

Relations with Great Britain.

A storm of criticism was aroused in India when Prime Minister Churchill, speaking in the House of Commons on Sept. 9, was understood to have barred India from benefit of the Atlantic Charter by declaring that 'problems arising out of the progressive evolution of self-governing institutions in regions the peoples of which owe allegiance to the British Crown are a separate matter entirely to those States and nations now under the Nazi yoke.' Mounting protests from India during the next two months culminated on Nov. 18 in a resolution adopted by a 10 to 6 vote of the Council of State, conservative Upper House of India's Central Legislature, recommending that the Viceroy convey to the British government the 'deep discontent' of the House and that, in the opinion of the House, it [the Prime Minister's statement] 'is likely to prejudice the war efforts of India at this critical juncture.' A second year's extension of the Marquess of Linlithgow's term of office as Viceroy, bringing it to April 1943, was announced from London on Sept. 23. Considerable criticism was voiced in the House of Commons in mid-September during the second reading of a bill postponing elections to the Indian provincial legislatures until one year after the end of the war. Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai reached New York on Nov. 14 to take up his duties as Agent General to the United States. He reported that recruiting offices in India could not cope with the 'ever-increasing mass of recruits' and the Gandhi's passive resistance movement was 'not interfering with India's war effort.' After 34 days of fasting the remaining 46 Deoli hunger strikers were reported on Nov. 23 to have abandoned their demonstration; 184 of the strikers, all of whom were political prisoners, had previously ended their fast on Nov. 8. American lease-lend aid has been promised India and the first shipments have probably arrived, Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, Agent General to the United States, revealed on Dec. 2 in an interview given at New York.

The Government of India announced on Dec. 3 that it had decided to release all passive resistance prisoners whose offenses were of a symbolic character. On the following day 500 Congress party members were released, including Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, president, and Jawathalal Nehru, former president. Mahatma Gandhi refused to be appeased, while Jawarhalal Nehru declared on Dec. 10 that he 'could not help the war effort until freedom was granted to India,' despite his belief that 'the progressive forces of the world are aligned with the group represented by the United States, Britain, Russia and China.' Of course, he said, 'these progressive forces have strongly entrenched reactionary forces' among them, 'as evidenced by the treatment which Britain accords India. This treatment inevitably governs our policy.' Addressing the National Foreign Trade Council at India House in New York on Dec. 15, Sir Shanmukham Chetty, head of the Indian Purchasing Commission, declared that if the United States would provide India with the supplies needed to develop her industrial economy 'we can not only raise an army of four or five million men but we can also equip that army.' India, he continued, was 'now producing 2,000,000 tons of pig iron and 1,250,000 tons of finished steel, and expects to produce 1,400,000 tons of steel next year.' The output of small arms in India just before the war, he said, 'amounted to 6,000,000 units monthly, compared with 16,500,000 units at present.'

India's Status in the War.

A momentous conference of the All-India Congress working committee, which opened at Bardoli on Dec. 23, brought to a climax the opposition to Mahatma Gandhi's stand on the war which had been gaining strength during 1941. With the Government of India's partial release of political prisoners and the increased threat to India created by Japan's entrance into the war, Gandhi found it impossible to sway the Congress leadership to his point of view. The session, originally scheduled to last but three days, was prolonged until nearly the end of the month. On Dec. 30, at his own request, Gandhi was relieved of his leadership of the party by a resolution of the Congress working committee. A second resolution made it clear that the policy of the Congress was motivated by sympathy with all countries overrun by aggressors, particularly Malaya, China, Burma and Russia, rather than consideration for Great Britain. Gandhi's request for retirement was contained in a letter in which he wrote: 'I must continue the civil disobedience movement for freedom of speech against all wars with such Congressmen and others whom I select who believe in non-violence.' Interviewed at Bardoli on Dec. 30, Gandhi admitted that, so far as Congress policy and attitude was concerned, support for Indian 'participation in the war' was not barred. In a cryptic remark, however, he intimated that such a decision by the Congress was still to be taken and that the further measures adopted by Britain might decide the issue. 'The burden of the next step,' he said, is cast on the British Government. This is the chief thing that is relevant at present.' The old year in India thus ended on a question mark. India entered the new year with its eyes directed toward London, in the none-too-confident expectation that the British Government might be prepared to install an Indian Cabinet with full powers of self-government at New Delhi in order to win the unreserved support of the Indian people for the war effort. There was at least the possibility that, at this critical moment, the All-India Congress would be prepared to shelve its demand for complete independence in exchange for the substance of self-government within the British Commonwealth of Nations.