MOSLEMS’ ATTITUDE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25021, 15 September 1942, Page 5

MOSLEMS’ ATTITUDE

PAKISTAN DEMANDED NO PART IN WAR EFFORT NEW DELHI, Sept. 13. It is understood that the Hindu Mahasabha Committee has applied for permission to interview Mr Gandhi and other detained Congress Party members. The President of the Mahasabha, Mr Mookerjee, said: “We feel that our efforts have reached the stage of demanding an immediate consultation with Mr Gandhi and other Congress leaders.” The President of the Moslem League, Mr) Jinnah, stated: “The Moslem League is definitely not prepared to enter a provisional Government unless Pakistan is explicitly granted. The Congress civil disobedience movement is a‘ declaration of civil war not only against Britain, but against the Moslem League. Congress wants to establish a Hindu overlordship in India to which the Moslems must submit. If they do not submit, they will be treated like the Uews in Europe. The Moslem Leaghe is not supporting any war effort, not because it is recalcitrant, but because it is unable to give wholehearted support to the war unless it feelsHhat the people have a real voice and share in India's Government, but, however much the league deplores the British policy, it will do nothing to embarrass Britain.”

RECENT SABOTAGE GREAT VALUE TO ENEMY LONDON, Sept. 13, A special correspondent of the Sunday Despatch says: “ From military viewpoints, particularly from the viewpoint of attack from the east, the recent sabotage in India, which is supposed to be a political demonstration, could not have been more valuable to the enemy if it had been organised by a Japanese stall officer. The Congress followers attempted not only to paralyse ; India’s general war effort. Put also to hamper immediate operations against "the Japanese by interfering with all-the important communications in Bengal presidency and Assam nrovince.”

The correspondnt asks why " civilians ” ch,ose as the scene of their demonstrations provinces that might have been selected by an Axis staff officer, where a few acts of efflcie.it sabotage could have blocked communications and thus stabbed in the back our forces in the Assam mountains. The concentration of acts of violence into Eastern India showed clearly the greater design.