Second Try

Unshaken by his first failure to break the Indian deadlock (TIME, July 16), Viceroy Lord Wavell would try again. Last week, he emplaned for London to try to figure out with the Labor Government a new way to crack the old problem.

This time there was a chance of a more realistic proposal. The highest hurdle to communal agreement between Hindus (256 million) and Moslems (92 million) has been the Moslem League's demand for Pakistan (a separate Moslem state). Before he departed, the Viceroy made a decisive move to clarify this befogged subject: he proclaimed elections, the first in eleven years for the Central Assembly, in eight for the eleven Provincial Legislatures.

The hottest issue at the polls will undoubtedly be Pakistan, with the League for and Congress against. The vote will show the real strength of the separatist trend. Commented the practical London Times: "The restoration of political life . . . even if it does not resolve the communal problem, will relate communal claims to ascertainable facts."

Both Britain and India wanted a decision. The Raj lifted the ban on Mohandas Gandhi's All-India National Congress, restored its funds, was about to free its members still in jail. The Moslem League's president, shrewd, suave Mohamed Ali Jinnah, was already campaigning in the Punjab, heart of the hypothetical Pakistan state. The Congress Party prepared its biggest campaign. Jawaharlal Nehru (see BOOKS) and other leaders would make a platform tour that would take in towns and villages in all the voting provinces.

Among those missing: ex-Congress President Subhas Chandra Bose, 48, Cambridge-educated leader of Japan's proposed puppet government for India. Last week, he was reported killed in an airplane crash in Formosa.

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