Vol. 4, No. 2, May 1943

“News Direct from India: India’s War Losses”

  • 2,096 killed, 8,521 injured and 84,833 prisoners (reported on Sept. 23, 1942)

“Roosevelt’s Envoy Not Allowed to See Gandhi”

  • Cites Phillips’ request to visit with Gandhi and Nehru and includes excerpts from American editorials on the subject including:
  • Selwyn James: “to deny him the opportunity to get the other side of the sotry tends to reduce his visit to little less than an escorted tour.”
  • Ernest Lindley: “the attitude of the British authorities in India will not make a favorable impression in the United States. Our interest in India is direct and vital.”
  • Samuel Grafton (New York Post): “Mr. William Phillips, the President’s special envoy in India, had asked permission to interview Gandhi, and had been turned down by the ‘Indian Government’; India suddenly developing a government when one is require for such purposes as this.”

Vol. 3, No. 7, October 1942

“Gandhi’s Latest Message to America”

  • “I have in America perhaps the largest number of friends in the West….In America I suffer from the well-known malady called hero worship.” Later on, Gandhi points to British propaganda and describes being “painted as a hypocrite and enemy of Britain under disguise.”
  • Attempts provide Americans with his theoretical background to the “Quit India” movement without describing the movement itself (assuming that his audience knows what it is?)
  • Acknowledges American alliance with Britain and the argument that Indian independence should not be a priority while fighting a world war, but argues: “this is the psychological moment for that recognition [Indian independence]. For then and then only can there be irresistible opposition to Japanese aggression. It is of immense value to the Allied cause if it is also of equal value to India. I want you to look upon the immediate recognition of India’s independence as a war measure of first class magnitude.”

“Nehru’s Reply to Cripps”

  • Nehru responds to Sir Stafford Cripps’ radio broadcast to America, categorizing it as “full of misrepresentations of the Congress attitude.”
  • Labels the defense of India as the most pressing issue, one that can only be addressed by a free India.
  • “The situation between England and India is bad enough in all conscience. And yet Sir Stafford must needs go out of his way to make it far worse and must constitute himself as the champion of the Muslims and the depressed classes.”

“Wendell Willkie–American Citizen”

  • Though Willkie gave a radio address on his trip to India after the publication of this issue, India Today comments: “his [Willkie] honesty, sincerity and courage have broken through the entangling mass of complexities…and have gone straight to the heart of the whole issue:–namely, India is to the entire Orient a symbol–a symbol of Eastern subjection to Western domination, and the establishing of her freedom is the acid test of the professions of the Western Democratic Powers.”

Vol. 1, No. 12, March 1941

“The Trial of Jawaharlal Nehru”

  • First release of Nehru’s statement, after being sentenced to “four years of rigorous imprisonment” for violations of the Defense of India Rules on Nov. 3, 1940, in the United States
  • “I stand before you, Sir, as an individual being tried for certain offenses against the State.  You are a symbol of that State.  But I am also something more than an individual. I too, am a symbol at the present moment, a symbol of Indian nationalism, resolved to break away from the British Empire and achieve the independence of India.”
  • “The future recorder of this history might well say that in the hour of supreme trial, the Government of Britain and the British failed because they could not adjust themselves to a changing world.”

“India’s Message to America” by Nehru (sent through Mr. Bagai)

  • Links India’s freedom to freedom of the world, making a direct connection to China’s freedom
  • Emphasizing India’s peaceful attempts act securing independence
  • “In the destruction and desolation that grips the world, the great free Republic of the United States of America has a special responsibility to bear, for countless eyes from all over the world look up to it for leadership in the paths of peace and freedom. That peace and freedom will come only when Fascism and imperialism have ended and no nation or other group dominates over another. To the people of America we send our greetings and our assurance that we shall stand by them in everything that leads to this peace and freedom.”
  • Uses of words: world-7, peace-8, freedom-10