10 OCTOBER 1941, Page 14

A SOLUTION FOR INDIA?

Snt,—Mr. Rawlinson's letter shows how ridiculous his position is. He admit' that Congress obtained a majority in 7 out of ii provinces, Winning 715 out of a total_ of 13585 seats, of which only 657 were open to general competition. Many of the others, such as the European seats, were not open to Congress candidates, and Congress only contested 58 out of 480 Moslem seats, winning 26. Mr._ Rawlinson gets rid of the awkward majority by explaining that, like the servant's baby, it was only a little one, and, since Indians have had the bad taste to elect the wrong people, democracy must be scrapped and a small Committee of representative men got together. How are these to be selected? Evidently not by the Indian people, for they might choose as they chose in 1937. Perhaps a sound man like the Viceroy could be persuaded to act. Then we could concen- trate once more on fighting for political liberty and democracy for peoples enslaved in empires not our own. Can't Mr. Rawlinson catch up to the idea that democracy is a technique for reaching agree- ment in a community where there are differences in opinion? Such differences exist in Britain, but that is no excuse for scrapping the political parties here. Congress is only one party in India, but by general consent it is the largest one, and it's no good trying to by-pass it.—Yours, &c., F. R. GIUFFIN.

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