A Nation Girds

In an effort to get on with the war in spite of the fact that India's politicians still refuse to wait till war's end for India's promised dominion status, the British Raj last week appointed seven "distinguished and representative" Indians to posts in the Viceroy's Executive Council.

Outstanding portfolioists: Sir Hormasji Peroshaw Mody (Supply); Sir Akbar Hydari (Information), longtime President of Hyderabad's State Council; Malik Sir Firozkhan Noon, who has been High Commissioner for India in London, now made Minister of Labor just as India's war-production effort is making her an industrial country for the first time.

Indian nationalist politicians screamed "stooges" at the portfolioists, pointed out that, while Indians have a majority in the Council, the key portfolios--Finance, Defense, External Affairs and Home Affairs--are all held by British officials. Purred Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi for the Indian National Congress: "The announcement [of the appointments] . . . does not affect the stand taken by the Congress nor does it meet the Congress demands." Mahomed Ali Jinnah, who is thinner even than Saint Gandhi and is President of the All-India Moslem League, threatened disciplinary action against those who have anything to do with the Council.

The British Raj sighed and announced that Dr. Satya Pal, hitherto a vehement nationalist, resigned from Saint Gandhi's Congress and volunteered to tend British wounded.

In spite of political noncooperation, the Indian war effort has been considerable, should become still more so. An army of half a million has been raised, not counting 60,000 Indian troops already serving in the Middle East and at Singapore, and half a million more men will be added. The Indian Air Force is training fliers at Risalpur, mechanics at Ambala.

India now manufactures rifles, machine guns, small-arms ammunition, artillery, propellers, blankets, military clothing and boots, rubber tires, railway equipment--some 20,000 separate items of war tackle. She also produces steel and coal, aviation and automobile gasoline, lubricating oils and lumber, has supplied Great Britain with 700,000,000 jute sandbags. A Bombay aircraft factory is expected to start turning out bombers and fighters this month.

A new 22,500,000-rupee ($9,000,000) corporation is being formed which will build a factory at Bangalore to produce 15,000 cars and trucks a year. Technical advice will come from the U.S.'s Chrysler Corp.

In short, India, where the pre-war average male wage was less than $30 a year, is enjoying a war boom, and the sight of an untouchable smoking a big cigar and wearing a silk shirt is perhaps no dream of the far future.

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