From the December 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard
In a letter to the Manchester Guardian Weekly (September 16th, 1938), Jawaharlal Nehru, an Indian Nationalist, asks how the British Government can claim to be interested in democracy, Czechoslovakian or any other, when it denies independence to India. He writes: —
The people of India have no intention of submitting to any foreign decision on war. They only can decide, and certainly they will not accept the dictation of the British Government, which they distrust utterly. India would willingly throw her entire weight on the side of democracy and freedom, but we heard these words often twenty years ago and more. Only free and democratic countries can help freedom and democracy elsewhere. If Britain is on the side of democracy, then its first task is to eliminate empire from India. That is the sequence of events in Indian eyes, and to that sequence the people of India will adhere.
No, the concern of the British Government is not democracy, or the maintenance of independence of foreign states. It is the representative of the British capitalist class, and its function is to defend the interests of British capitalism at home and abroad.
British workers, beware! Appearances are often deceptive.
Democracy? Humbug!
Clifford Allen
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