Good-by, Mr. Cripps

"We have tried, by the offer I brought, to help India along her road to victory and freedom. But, for the moment, past distrust has proved too strong to allow a present settlement."

On the New Delhi radio, Sir Stafford Cripps's voice was level and controlled. But his self-control could not hide his enormous disappointment. With the Japanese on the road to Mandalay and their bombers already roaring over the Indian coastline, India's political factions had been unable to resolve their suspicions of each other and of Britain. Many observers felt that they had witnessed one of those rare occasions in history when great bodies of men, after years of misunderstanding and misdealing, had a precious chance for a real meeting of minds-and were prevented from doing so by their own purblind, disputatious humanity.

Up until the last the outcome had been in doubt. For days correspondents sat in the sweltering Imperial Hotel drinking chota pegs* or nursing the local form of dysentery called Delhi belly, laying bets on Sir Stafford's efforts as though they were a horse race.

A new and gusty figure had entered the negotiations, onetime U.S. Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson, head of the U.S. economic mission to India, who had also got from President Roosevelt the title of "minister plenipotentiary and personal representative of the President." In his best brash style, Personal Representative Johnson had blown up a small tornado of interviews (19 with Sir Stafford Cripps, 16 with the Indian National Congress Party's Jawaharlal Nehru). He got along famously with his Indian callers, freely admitting that he knew nothing about India except what he had learned from Kim and With Clive In India as a boy. Once he quoted to Pandit Nehru: "I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

"That's Emerson," said Nehru.

"No," said Johnson, "it's Carlyle."

The next time they met, Nehru remarked: "We were both wrong. It was Voltaire."

For a time it was thought that the energetic stranger from the U.S. would be a great help to Sir Stafford. But soon, significantly, Pandit Nehru told the press: "We have not asked for anyone's intervention. For my part, I admire President Roosevelt and consider he has been shouldering a very great burden worthily."

And then the sorry news was out. The Congress at first had objected to Britain's demand that control of India's war effort remain in British hands. Sir Stafford compromised by suggesting that the Defense Minister be an Indian, while control of the strategic and operational spheres be left with the British Commander in Chief, General Sir Archibald Wavell.

The Congress rejected this compromise, and also objected to several features of Britain's plans for post-war Indian self-government (TIME, April 6. et seg.). The Congress feared the principle that provinces could set up separately if they did not like the majority's constitution (a British concession to Moslem League demands for a separate Moslem state). Finally, the Congress demanded independent government at once. This would mean ultra-confusion during the war crisis, and a government by party nomination that might well offend large minorities.

Behind the elaborate wording of the rejections the political bitterness and rivalry for local power between the Congress and the Moslem League was plainer than ever. There were rumors that Pandit Nehru had led a Congress minority which favored accepting Britain's compromise, that the Moslem League had been ready to accept until the Congress decided to reject. Sir Stafford implied as much when he said : "Negotiations have been pro longed in the case of the Congress only." Though his great mission had failed, it was likely that his three weeks in India, and his account of them, had only in creased his stature in the world's eye. He stressed the fact that India's political groups must agree before self-government could honorably be given, that Britain could not ignore its pledges to protect the Indian minorities. He offered to take all the blame for the failure of his mission, if that would help to unite India for her own defense. And he gave an eloquent argument for that unity. Said Sir Stafford: "The basic philosophy of the Japanese forces, as of their German counterparts, is that they, as a superior race, have the right to enslave all whom they can conquer. I have seen and heard of the exploits of the Nazis . . . and I know that none but the most diseased imagination could ever conjure up the ghastly and sadistic horrors which these barbarians have made a reality. . . .

"No peoples with the culture of the Indians, a culture as old, as deep and as real as that of their Chinese neighbors, could ever stand by and tolerate these insults to their moral standards and to their common humanity. ... In whatever form we may each worship our own conception of supreme power and absolute goodness, we one and all desire to see those ethical and moral standards which are implicit in our religion become touchstone of our behavior. . . .

"India is threatened. All who love India as I love India and you love India must bring their energies, each in his own way, to her immediate help."

*A small drink of spirits.

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