Britain's Shameful Flight from India
Winston S. Churchill (1947) |
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On March 6, 1947, two weeks after Clement Attlee's speech, Winston Churchill, former Prime minister and now leader of the Conservative opposition, made this speech in response to the policy of the Labour government toward India.
When great parties in this country have for so many years pursued a combined
and united policy on some large issue, and when, for what seemed to them to
be good reasons, they decide to separate, not only in debate but by division,
it is desirable and even necessary that the causes of such separation and
the limitations of the differences which exist should be placed on record.
This afternoon we begin a new chapter in our relations across the floor
of the House in regard to the Indian problem. We on this side of the
House have, for some time, made it clear that the sole responsibility
for the control of India's affairs rests, of course, with His Majesty's
government. We have criticized their actions in various ways but this
is the first time we have felt it our duty as the official Opposition
to express our dissent by a formal vote.
Let us first place on record the measure of agreement which lies between us,
and separate that from the differences that now lead us into opposite lobbies.
Both sides of the House are bound by the declaration made at the time of the
British mission to India in March 1942. It is not true to suggest, as was
done lately, that this decision marked a decisive change in the policy of
the British Parliament toward India. There was a long story before we got
to that. Great Britain had for many years been committed to handing over
responsibility for the government of India to the representatives of the
Indian people. There was the promise of dominion status implicit in the
declaration of August, 1917. There was the expansion and definition of
dominion status by the Statute of Westminster. There was the Simon
Commission Report of 1930, followed by the Hoare-Linlithgow Reforms
of 1935. There was the Linlithgow offer of 1940, for which, as head
of the government in those days, I took my share of responsibility.
By this the viceroy undertook that, as soon as possible after the
war, Indians themselves should frame a fully self-governing
constitution. All this constituted the preliminary basis on
which the proposals of the Cripps Mission of 1942 were set.
The proposals of this mission were not, in fact, a departure
in principle from what had long been growing up, but they
constituted a definite, decisive and urgent project for
action. Let us consider the circumstances in which this
offer was made.
The violent irruption of Japan upon East Asia, the withdrawal of the United
States fleet to the American coast, the sinking of the Princes of Wales and
the Repulse, the loss of Malaya and the surrender of Singapore, and many
other circumstances of that time left us for the moment without any assured
means of defending India from invasion by Japan. We had lost the command
of the Bay of Bengal, and, indeed, to a large extent, of the Indian Ocean.
Whether the provinces of Madras and Bengal would be pillaged and ravaged
by the Japanese at that time seemed to hang in the balance, and the
question naturally arose with poignant force how best to rally all
Indian elements to the defense of their native land.
The offer of the Cripps Mission, I would remind the House, was substantially
this: His Majesty's government undertook to accept and implement an agreed
constitution for an Indian Union, which should be a dominion, framed by an
elected Constituent Assembly and affording representation to the princes.
This undertaking was subject only to the right of nonacceding provinces
to receive separate treatment, and to the conclusion of a treaty
guaranteeing the protection of all religious and racial minorities.
The offer of the Cripps Mission was not accepted by the political
classes of India who alone are vocal and to whom it was addressed.
On the contrary, the Congress, led by Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Nehru,
did their utmost to make a revolt intended to paralyze the perilous
communications of our Army in Burma and to help the fortunes of
Japan. Therefore, the National Coalition Government of those
days [Churchill's wartime government] made a large series of
mass arrests of Indian Congress leaders, and the bulk were
kept in prison until the end of the war. I was not myself
present in the cabinet when these decisions were taken. I
was at Cairo preparing for the operations which opened at
Alamein, but I highly approved the action which was taken
in my absence by the then deputy prime minister, the
present prime minister [Clement Attlee], who sits
opposite, and which I think was the only one possible
on that occasion.
Therefore, it is quite clear that, whatever was the offer of the Cripps Mission,
it was not accepted. On the contrary, it was repudiated by the parties to whom
it was addressed… Both sides of this House are bound by this offer, and bound
by all of it, and it is on the basis of this offer being an agreed matter
between the parties, and on that basis alone, that our present and future
controversies arise. If I am bound by the offer of the dominion status and
all that it implies, the prime minister is equally bound, or was equally
bound, to the conditions about agreement between the principal
communities, about the proper discharge of our pledges about the
protection of minorities and the like. The right hon. Gentleman has a
perfect right to charge his mind. He may cast away all these
stipulations which we jointly made, and proceed only with the positive
side of the offer. He has the right to claim the support of his
parliamentary majority for whatever action he takes, but he has no
right to claim our support beyond the limits to which we are
engaged by the Cripps declaration… I am only trying to lay down
the basis on which we can agree to differ - the basis of 1942
and the present time. Before this latest pronouncement of
theirs, His Majesty's government had already departed from the
Cripps Mission declaration of 1942, and they had departed
from it in three major aspects. First, they had eliminated
the stage of dominion status. The Cripps Mission expressly
said that the objective was the creation of a new Indian
Union which would constitute a dominion associated with
the United Kingdom and the other dominions by common
allegiance to the crown, but equal to them in every
respect, in no way subordinated in any aspect of
domestic or external affairs…
If the dominion status procedure had been involved, in my view, the new Indian
Dominion would have been perfectly free to leave the commonwealth if it chose,
but full opportunity would have been given for all the dangers and
disadvantages to be surveyed by responsible Indian ministers beforehand, and
also for the wishes of the great mass of the Indian people to be expressed,
as they cannot be expressed right now. It would have been possible to
insert into the dominion constitution the necessary safeguards for
minorities, and for the fulfillment of the British pledges to the various
elements of Indian life, notably the depressed classes. This would have
been a part of the agreement between the Indian Union and Great Britain,
and would have been embodied in the necessary British legislation on
the lines of the British North America Act, to which the great free
Dominion of Canada has always attached importance, and still does.
So the second departure of the Cripps Mission declaration was the
total abandonment of by His Majesty's government of all
responsibility for carrying out its pledges to minorities and
the depressed classes, as well as for fulfilling their treaties
with the Indian states. All these are to be left to fend for
themselves, or to fight for themselves as best they can.
That is a grave major departure.
The third departure was no less grave. The essence of the Cripps Mission
declaration was that there should be agreement between the principal Indian
communities, namely, in fact, the Muslims and the Hindus. That, also, has
been thrown overboard.
I do not think that the fourteen-months' time limit gives the new viceroy a
fair chance. We do not know what directives have been given to him. No
explanation of that has been provided. Indeed, we are told very little.
Looking on this Indian problem and having to address the House upon it,
I am surprised how many great gaps there are in information which should
be in the full possession of the House. We are told very little. What
is the policy and purpose for which he is to be sent out, and how is he
to employ these fourteen months? Is he to make a new effort to restore
the situation, or is it merely "Operation Scuttle" on which he and other
distinguished officers have been despatched?…
Everyone knows that the fourteen-month's time limit is fatal to any orderly
transference of power, and I am bound to say that the whole thing wears the
aspect of an attempt by the government to make use of brilliant war figures
in order to cover up a melancholy and disastrous transaction. One thing
seems to me absolutely certain. The government, by their fourteen-months'
time limit, have put an end to all prospect of Indian unity. I myself have
never believed that that could be preserved after the departure of the
British Raj, but the last chance has been extinguished by the government's
action. How can one suppose that the thousand-year gulf that yawns
between Muslims and Hindus will be bridged in fourteen months? Here
are these people, in many cases, of the same race, charming people,
lightly clad, crowded together in all the streets and bazaars and so
forth, and yet there is no intermarriage. It is astounding.
Religion has raised a bar which not even the strongest impulse of
nature can overleap. It is an astounding thing. Yet the
government expect in fourteen months that there will be an
agreement on these subjects between these races…
Let the House remember this. The Indian political parties and political classes
do not represent the Indian masses. It is a delusion to believe that they do.
I wish they did. They are not as representative of them as the movements
in Britain represent the surges and impulses of the British nation. This
has been proved in the war, and I can show the House how it was proved.
The Congress Party declared noncooperation with Great Britain and the
Allies. The other great political party to whom all main power is to
be given, the Muslim League, sought to make a bargain about it, but no
bargain was made. So both great political parties in India, the only
forces that have been dealt with so far, stood aside. Nevertheless,
the only great volunteer army in the world that fought on either
side in that struggle was formed in India. More than three and a
half million men came forward to support the king-emperor and the
cause of Britain; they came forward not by conscription or
compulsion, but out of their loyalty to Britain and to all that
Britain stood for in their lives. In handing over the
government of India to these so-called political classes we
are handing over to men of straw, of whom, in a few years,
no trace will remain…
We are told that we cannot walk out of Palestine because we should leave behind
us a war between 600,000 Jews and 200,000 Arabs. How then can we walk out of
India in fourteen months and leave behind us a war between 90 million Muslims
and 200 million Hindus, and all the other tribulations which will fall upon
the helpless population of 400 million? Will it not be a terrible disgrace
to our name and record if, after our fourteen-months' time limit, we allow
one fifth of the population of the globe, occupying a region nearly as
large as Europe, to fall into chaos and carnage? Would it not be a world
crime that we should be committing, a crime that would stain - not
merely strip us, as we are being stripped in the material position
- but would stain our good name for ever?
Yesterday, the president of the Board of Trade and other speakers brought into
great prominence our physical and military weakness. How can we keep a large
army in India for 15 or 20 years? He and other speakers stressed that point;
and, certainly, it is a very grave point. But he might as well have urged
that in our present forlorn condition we have, not only not the physical
strength, but not the moral strength and will power. If we, through lack of
physical and moral strength, cannot wind up our affairs in a responsible
and humane and honourable fashion, ought we not to consider invoking the
aid or, at least, the advice of the world international organization,
which is now clothed with reality, and on which so many of us, in all
parts of the House, base our hopes for the peaceful progress, freedom
and, indeed, the salvation of all mankind?…
I thank the House for listening so long and so attentively to what I have said.
I have spoken with a lifetime of thought and contact with these topics. It is
with deep grief that I watch the clattering down of the British Empire, with
all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind. I am sure
that in the hour of our victory, now not so long ago, we had the power, or
could have had the power, to make a solution to our difficulties which
could have been honourable and lasting. Many have defended Britain
against her foes. None can defend her against herself. We must face
the evils that are coming upon us, and that we are powerless to avert.
We must do our best in all these circumstances, and not exclude any
expedient that may help to mitigate the ruin and disaster that will
follow the disappearance of Britain from the East. But, at least,
let us not add - by shameful flight, by a premature, hurried
scuttle - at least, let us not add, to the pangs of sorrow so
many of us feel, the taint and smear of shame.
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SOURCE:
Hansard's Parliamentary Debates [House of Commons], 5th Series, Vol. 434, cols. 663-678.
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