Clark Scores Ghandi-Nehru Idealism As Reason for Cripps' India Failure

"Sir Stafford Cripps failed in his mission to India because he could not overcome the stubborn and misguided idealism of the Indian nationalist leaders, Ghandi and Nehru," Walter Eugene Clark. Wales Professor of Sanskrit and Master of Kirkland House, asserted yesterday.

India's most pressing need today is for leaders with a more practical view point, because those who speak for India are hopeless visionaries, Ghandi and Nehru have become irrationally possessed, as only an Indian can, with the idea of complete independence for India, and their passion for the idea has blinded them to every practical aspect of their country's quest for freedom, the professor stated.

These men believe that in some mystical fashion the mere repetition of the word independence will sweep away all the obstacles which stand in the way of unification which must be attained before Indian autonomy can become a reality, he continued.

Ghandi and Nehru must cease merely shouting for independence, for the present, and announce to the United Nations how they propose to cope with two problems: "First can India, be allowed to fight her own war, as she has demanded of Cripps, when today only a very few Indians are as high in rank as captain and colonel?"

"How can she ask for an all-Indian government, when the necessary unification is impeded by the hostility of the six hundred native states, and by the minority Moslem faction towards the majority Hindu party. The great divergence of religious ideals, the existence of 15 major languages, add to the problems that will be posed later."