Indian Suspense
All that can be said about India at this moment is that uncertainty about the future may or may not be ended in time to avert worse trouble than has been seen yet. Nothing, naturally, is known definitely about the nature of next Monday's announcement, but surmises are not difficult, and most of the surmises follow the same lines. Lord Mountbatten will make a last attempt to secure agree- ment to the maintenance of the unity of India, but with very little hope of success. The alternative is agreement on the basis of par- tition, which presents almost as many difficulties as the other. The Congress Party may acquiesce in partition, but there is not the smallest prospect of its tolerating a corridor to link the two halves, eastern and western, of Pakistan. The problem of the army looks almost insoluble. A single army, as at present, seems only reconcil- able with a closely-federated India ; to divide the army communally, on the other hand, means to disintegrate it finally and to leave the future of such elements as the Sikhs and Rajputs completely un- determined. The same problem arises, though less has been heard of it, in the civil service. There Pakistan, more than Hindustan, will be hard put to it to secure an efficient administration staffed solely by members of its own community. But the chief anxiety is the immediate future. British civil servants are losing their authority because everyone knows that their days in India are numbered ; Indian civil servants are more than ever anxious to find favour with the chiefs of their own community, whichever it may be. All this militates menacingly against a peaceful transference of power, and against peace or efficiency after the transference. On one point only both British and Indians seem to be agreed—that if any man can engineer a smooth transition it is Lord Mountbatten.
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