845.01/225: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:59 p.m.]
4248. Late yesterday afternoon at Mr. Amery’s18 request I called on him at the India Office. He said he wanted to explain to me the [Page 701] present British position with regard to India. His interviews with me on the Indian situation are not very different in their approach from the interviews our friends have with De Valera.19 They always begin with the historical background. His account dealt with the last 80 years of Great Britain’s service to India. His emphasis is always on the divisions in India, both religious and political, underlining the minority problem. He told me that some half a dozen years ago when the British Parliament was attempting to accept the responsibility of adjudicating these difficulties he was able to persuade the Government with considerable difficulty that that was primarily an Indian problem and that it was the Indians’ responsibility to reconcile these differences and present a constructive program for the future evolution of India. In our conversation he stated that during the last year he had made it clear to the Indian Congress that they would not be the sole body with which England would ultimately treat when the future political status of India was to be settled. I asked him if the English were not largely responsible for the development of the Congress and I felt his reluctance when he admitted that they were. He told me that the Viceroy now had an Advisory Council of 15, 11 of whom are Indians. I asked him if any of them were representatives of the Congress. He answered no. He told me that Cripps’ Mission broke on the insistence of the Congress under Gandhi’s influence that the Viceroy’s position be made to correspond to that of the King under the English Parliamentary system. He further told me that Gandhi realized that it was impossible to reconcile the minority elements under the Indian proposals without a continuance of Great Britain’s stabilizing influence. Amery explained to me that half the British fighting forces were recruited from Punjab and that under any loose arrangements prescribed by the Congress that state would undoubtedly establish an independent jurisdiction. He felt the same would be true of the more powerful Indian principalities. He said that the refusal of the Indians to reach agreement with Cripps was supported neither in nor out of India, that Gandhi, recognizing this, retreated from a position of reason to one of emotion and that his present mood was to return to his old technique of non-cooperation in the hope that untoward incidents which might be exaggerated to political advantage might reestablish his position of authority. Amery said that the Viceroy had wisely adopted a conciliatory course waiting for the reconvening of the Congress on August 7, in the hope that they still might adopt a more cooperative attitude. If at that time, however, adjudication continued, the British Government would take a strong position and arrest Gandhi and other political leaders. He told me that if similar interferences with the war effort were attempted [Page 702] in England they would not be tolerated and that they were only allowed, in India because of the complex situation there. He assured me that whatever action is taken by the British Government there would be no real change in India’s contribution to the war and that recruiting and production would continue without slackening. During the conversation I asked him why Burma and India had been excluded from the Atlantic Charter. He at first argued that this had not been done and then said the situation had been restored by a later statement of his to the Parliament which reinstated Great Britain’s promises to India of 1940.
He explained to me that he had to leave for a Cabinet meeting and I thanked him for his statement of the British position.