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India in Crisis

Series

Series Name
The March of Time 8th Year

Issue

Issue No.
1
Date Released
1942
Stories in this Issue:
  1. 1India in Crisis

Story

Story No. within this Issue
1 / 1
Summary
The March of Time synopsis: In this issue the March of Time reviews the various factors making for disunity in India, and examines the disastrous possibilities of Japanese invasion.

With its great natural wealth and four hundred million population, India is a vast potential reservoir of labour, and could this be fully utilized in concentration on war production it could supply arms for all the forces of the United Nations in Asia. It was Japan’s fear of this, as much as its desire to smash the British Empire where native disunity had rendered it most vulnerable, that launched the Japanese armies on the pathway to India. It was Japan’s imminent invasion that moved Britain to a final effort to solve the old problem of India’s independence and to offer her full self-government as a dominion at the war’s end. India was to have the right, if she desired, to sever all ties with Britain and withdraw from the Commonwealth after the war provided she co-operated with the Allies now in the defence of her own territory. But even in the face of Japanese invasion the Indian leaders failed to reach an agreement, and Sir Stafford Cripps had to report: "... past distrust has proved too strong to allow a present settlement."
Meanwhile Japan is confident of easy conquest, for those same factors which contributed to our failure to reach a peaceful settlement with India make her a ready victim to the violence of an enemy. She is a nation divided against herself. Gandhi personifies the only unity India has ever known - common desire for independence. With a mighty enemy battering at the gates he continues to preach his doctrine of passive resistance.

The British in India have to contend not only with the natural resentment of a subject people for its alien rulers but also with the fact that three fourths of the Indian people belong to a religion antagonistic to Western standards of progress. For the daily life of the orthodox Indian is ritualized and regulated by a priestly tradition in which exist practices no European can understand. From the cradle to the grave Hindu thoughts and deeds are dictated less by any concern for material wellbeing than with preparation for the life to come. But perhaps the greatest barrier against the British attempt to make India a free, powerful and friendly nation, is the resistance offered by the caste system to the introduction of Western methods in industry, The cast system binds all orthodox Hindus to marry within their caste and to follow the trade or profession of their fathers. Thus, through India’s wealth in raw material could be made to yield far more than it does, seventy-five per cent, of its population still earn a bare subsistence by toiling endlessly at primitive agriculture. The hordes of Japan advance. Meanwhile the people of India, disagreeing over policies, parties and leadership are united in only one thing; the determination to throw off British domination and work out their problems in their own way.
Researcher Comments
This story was included in Vol.8 No.11 of the US edition.
Keywords
Politics and government; Foreign relations; Colonialism
Written sources
The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis
Credits:
Production Co.
Time Inc.

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