845.00/2107: Telegram
The Officer in Chargé at New Delhi (Merrell) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:27 p.m.]
468. The following statement is attributed to Sapru as his considered view of the general situation in India, “Jinnah is not going to get Pakistan and India is not going to get self-government”.
In a conversation with Weightman,57 Acting Secretary External Affairs, this morning, my mention of this statement elicited an expression of his profound regret that promises had ever been made and a prediction that “if they were kept an awful mess would result”.
This is the first instance which has come to the Mission’s attention of a British official implying that British commitments regarding India might not be kept.
- H. Weightman, Joint Secretary for the Government of India in the External Affairs Department.↩