E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & Timesmake an acceptable offer to the Indian people. Churchill never appreciatedthese prods.Chiang Kai-shek, then in a key war position, made direct representations toPresident Roosevelt and to the British government in favour of Indianindependence.The Labour party was in the British war-time coalition government. Many of itsmembers were friends of Indian freedom; Labour ministers reflected thisattitude in Cabinet deliberations.Pressed on all sides, Churchill consented to send Sir Stafford Cripps to NewDelhi with a proposal. But though the British Empire and the Dutch had lostvaluable outposts, the optimistic, resilient British Prime Minister had more faiththan ever in ultimate military victory, and for the cogent reason that Russiaand the United States were now England's partners. He was neither depressednor defeatist about war prospects when Cripps went out to India.Tall, thin, austere vegetarian, son of a Labour Lord and nephew of BeatriceWebb, the famous Fabian Socialist writer, Stafford Cripps attended exclusiveschools and became an unorthodox, left-wing Labour Member of Parliament. Abrilliant lawyer, he gave a large part of his huge professional income topolitical causes.When the second World War opened, Sir Stafford abandoned his lucrative lawpractice and in November 1939 undertook a trip around the world to discoverwhat people were thinking. He spent eighteen days in India, saw Jinnah,Linlithgow, Tagore, Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru and Gandhi. (Cripps was thesame age as Nehru and twenty years younger than Gandhi). The Mahatma lay illon the floor of his hut, but as 'a concession to your English bones' he provided astool for Cripps.Sir Stafford drafted a plan for Indian constitutional changes which he presentedto Lord Halifax, the former Lord Irwin, now British Foreign Secretary, who filedit in the archives. Cripps's interest in India was recalled when crisis cloudsdarkened the horizon of Asia in the winter of 1942. Meanwhile, his prestige hadwww.mkgandhi.org Page 403