IF MURDERS CONTINUE, RIOTERS WILL FORCE GOVT. HANDS

OCTOBER 1, 1947

NEW DELHI, Sept. 30. — Addressing the prayer meeting yesterday, Mahatma Gandhi said: “My reference to the possibility of war between the two sister Dominions seems, I am told, to have produced a scare in the west. I hold that not a single mention of war in my speeches can be interpreted to mean that there was any incitement to or approval of war between Pakistan and India, unless the mere mention of it is taboo. I claim that I rendered service to both sister States by examining the present situation and definitely stating when the cause of war could arise between the two States. This was done not to promote war but to avoid it as far as possible. I endeavoured too to show that if insensate murders, loot and arson by the people continued, they would force the hands of their Governments. Was it wrong to draw public attention to logical steps that inevitably followed one after another?”

Gandhiji added: “Everybody in India and the world knows that every ounce of my energy has been and is being devoted to definite avoidance of fratricide culminating in … vowed to non-violence, dares to refer to war he can only do so as to strain every nerve to avoid it. Such is my fundamental position from which I hope never to swerve even to my dying.” — A.P.I.