Congress Is Political

With wisps of Axis battle smoke all but drifting across India's borders from Russia and Thailand, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his recently released companions in civil disobedience began to waken from their prison apathy and make concessions to the logic of events. Effective as Mahatma Gandhi's passive-resistance technique may have been against the relatively civilized British, its potential worth against enemy tanks and bombers appeared questionable.

"Congress," admitted the hitherto recalcitrant Nehru, "is a political body and its attitude to the war is political, and not merely moral or ethical." He intimated the possible "self-effacement" of Mahatma Gandhi, whom, of course, no one thinks of asking to divorce his ethics from his politics. "India," Pandit Nehru went on, "is prepared to go for an all-in aid in the war, if her political aspirations are satisfied."

After waiting vainly for a reaction from the British Government, Nehru boldly told a student group that India's warm regard for China, Russia and America justified war with Japan. His statement omitted any mention of Great Britain; he talked almost as spokesman for an independent India.

To Nehru's support rushed the former Premier of Madras, C. Rajagopalachariar, who termed the defense of India "an exception to the principle of non-violence." With irrefutable logic, Rajagopalachariar added: "Surely we cannot hope for emancipation at the hand of Britain's enemies."

Delighted with all this, Britain's liberal press called on Prime Minister Winston Churchill to give India the assurance "that she is fighting and working, as we and the Dominions are, as a free people for freedom."

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