 This is the story of the Pacific and its people. Of the peaceful sea and the lands and lives it touches and their meaning to us and to the generations to come. The Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company as a public service and dedicated to a fuller understanding of the vast Pacific Basin. This broadcast series comes to you as another feature of the NBC of the Inter-American University of the Air, with drama of the past and present and commentary by Dr. Yu Shan Han of Shanghai, visiting Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. From Clive to Gandhi. The Subbleton is more nervous than Clive. The Subbleton is a better shot. What a pity for Clive. He doesn't seem to mind. What a pity. He's been unhappy ever since he came out here to India. He tried to commit suicide twice, but the pistol is fired. That's really got that foolish notion that his life was spared for some great purpose. Perhaps it was better that he died that way than this. He hadn't quarreled with that Subbleton over the card table. He might have been spared this. Look how cool he is. Just stands there calmly. The referee is handing them the dueling pistols. Giving them final instructions before they... Now, gentlemen, you understand the instructions. You will stand here back to back until you get my signal. Then you will take ten steps, turn, and fire. Yes, sir. You understand, Clive? Quite. In the event that either of you is struck, it will be the due to you, the other. They're all ready. The referee is walking away from them. I'm quick for Clive. Go. There's the signal. They're walking apart. Three, two, four, five, six, seven. I've missed. Subbleton is holding his fire. Why doesn't he fire? Subbleton is rusting his clive with his pistol. He's putting his pistol right at Clive's head. He can't kill him this way in cold blood. Come on. You have your turn. Now I'll have mine. I demand an immediate apology or I shall fire. Fire and be damned. I say you cheated. I say so still. This was Robert Clive, the English clerk destined to become Lord Robert Clive, founder of the British Indian Empire. Thousands of years before the coming of Clive, India had been harassed by invaders. Alexander the Great invaded India. The Muslims invaded India and brought their ideas and culture. Invading monarchs established the Mughal Empire. Empires rose and endured for two or three centuries and fell. In 1686 came the British and in the middle of the next century came Clive. But Nawab of Bengal wrote this letter himself. Yes, sir. I was to take it to the French commander in the Deccan. This native courier said that Sir Rajudala was enraged, General Clive. But Nawab is angry. Angry? Yes. Because English attacked French at Chandranathar. What else? He said English attacked French after he signed treaty. After his family hurt his army with only 2,000 men and 14 guns. But Nawab is probably not so angry because he drove the French out of Chandranathar. As he used to be occupied it. Sir Rajudala said English takes his possession. What is Nawab doing now? Sir Rajudala gathering forces. Attack English when French attack. Anything else? French getting ready too. Colonel, do you wish to ask him anything else? Nothing. That's all. Vulnerable position, sir. Either we defeat Nawab or we'll be driven out of Calcutta into the sea. By this time Sir Rajudala knows his letter did not get to the French commander at Deccan. Our first move is to drive a wedge between Sir Rajudala and his commander-in-chief, Mir Jaffa. Mir Jaffa is crafty. He's not above ambition, Colonel. What would you offer him? I'd make him Nawab of Bengal. In place of Sir Rajudala, if he brought his troops over to the English side. Yes, that would be difficult, General Clive. I want you to get to Mir Jaffa. Sound him out. Tell him I will set him up as Nawab if he delivers his troops to our side. Calcutta was tense. Everyone knew that action was imminent. That Sir Rajudala and his French allies would soon attack to drive the British into the sea. Then General Clive received a disturbing word from a Calcutta millionaire named Omachand. You see what's happening Admiral Watson. It's blackmail. I understand. How could Omachand have heard about it? That's not important, Major. He knows we've approached Mir Jaffa and offered to make him Nawab. Omachand will do just what he says he'll do. Inform Sir Rajudala if we don't give him what he asks for. Sir Rajudala should not be surprised at expecting anything from us. It's outrageous, Admiral. Five percent of them Nawab's capital. That's what that black-out Omachand is demanding to keep quiet. The Nawab's capital amounts to six million pounds. Considerable. You see Admiral, here's the document I've drawn up. On this red paper here. We agree to give Omachand the three hundred thousand pounds he's asking for after victory. You mean General Clive after we have turned Sir Rajudala's commander-in-chief and troops against him and stolen his six million pounds? Every Englishman of consequence in Calcutta has signed the document, Admiral Watson. Everyone but you, Admiral. I shall have nothing to do with it, gentlemen. Omachand will expose the whole plan. I shall not sign your document, Clive. Good night, gentlemen. Is Admiral Watson's signature necessary, General? It is. And with that pen? Yes, sir. The Admiral couldn't have done better himself. What an enormous sum of money to pay Omachand. Three hundred thousand pounds. If we pay him. What's that white paper? A copy of the agreement with Omachand? Not exactly a copy, Major. Omachand is the greatest villain on earth. The counter-plot the scoundrel and at the same time give him no room to suspect our intentions. We'll use two forms of agreement. The royal one, this white one, to be kept by us. And the red one, which is fictitious, to be given to Omachand. On June 15th, 1757, Clive marched out of Calcutta to engage the Nawab at Machidabad, 120 miles to the north. Clive's force consisted of 900 English troops, 2,000 Indian troops, and eight guns. Against him was the Nawab's force of 35,000 infantry, 15,000 cavalry, and 50 guns. The force marched northward. Then in the evening Clive called the Council of War. Do we have any assurance, General Clive, that Mia Jaffa will not double-cross us? None. It's quite possible that he might. If he does, none of us shall live. Yes, sir. Our problem is whether, in our present position, without assistance it would be prudent to attack, or whether we should wait until joined by some naked power. It's my opinion, sir, that the offensive means running risks in which we are not justified. Why? Because of the numbers of our force and our situation. That's my opinion too, sir. The rest of you. How do you feel about it? I believe it's omitted, sir. Yes, sir. That's right. We're in a tight situation, sir. Very well. That's my opinion also. I'm gratified that we're all of one mind. Ahead lay the enemy. Then a warb's force of 50,000 men. Would Mia Jaffa turn on Sir Rajidala, or on Clive? To think out these problems, Clive walked down to the riverbank in the dark of night. Hours later at midnight, he returned. We will attack. But, sir, didn't we agree just a few hours ago? We will attack. Order the troops to cross the river at dawn. Our force march brought Clive's force to a mango grove at Lassie, 30 miles south of Ashidabad the next night. When dawn came, the nobles lined up a semi-circle, General Clive, perhaps surrounded. So I see. The French are on the Nawab's list. Yes, sir. We're out in number 15-to-1. Yes, and there's a deep river behind us. This is victory or death. The French have opened fire around our positions, sir. Red turn the fire. Yes, sir. Oh, see, sir! Fire! The Nawab's infantry is advancing, sir. Break them with rifle fire and break shot. Yes, sir. Oh, that will! The Nawab's have sent us down here, sir. We're unable to advance. If we can hold throughout the day, we can devise some stratagem during the hours of darkness to defeat the Nawab. It's doubtful that we can hold. Direct some of our cannon fire on Mayor Jaffa's cavalry. But Mayor Jaffa is our ally. A duck for allies. We must keep him at a safe distance. Yes, sir. Throughout the morning, the heavy guns of the Nawab funded against Clive's line, and Clive's musketry and light cannon raked every advance of the Nawab's infantry. Then the heavy rain broke and soaked the ammunition of the Nawab's guns. Clive kept his powder dry. The cavalry, they're charging our lines, sir. Ah, the Nawab thinks the rain has put our guns out of action, too. The galloping full tilt with sabers and spears. Hold your fire until my order to fire. Yes, sir. We'll be honest in an instant, sir. Hold our fire. The Rajadara's forces are in retreat, sir. Thank you, Colonel. We won. Mayor Jaffa did keep his word to us. I shall make Mayor Jaffa vice-royal then go. And here. Here is a note to Omicand. See that he gets it. But, uh, read it first. Yes, sir. Omicand, the red paper is a trick. You are to have nothing. Robert Clive had defeated the Bengal forces at Klassi. And in the name of the British East India Company had taken Bengal, the richest province in India. Among the 900 Englishmen at Klassi was a 26-year-old civilian, Warren Hastings. He it was who was to lay the foundation for the British Empire in India. Clive had taken over political and economic control and Hastings was to inaugurate the actual beginning of British rule. For the next century, British power in India expanded step by step until in 1858 the British government took over all the territories of India as a crown colony. Some 20 years later in the 80s began the Indian nationalist movement. And in 1914, why the nationalists are treating this fellow as a hero? He's the senator Walt. Just getting back from England, is he? Been there twice, he has, to plead for the Indians. He's a natural leader. These Indians don't pay much attention to leaders. They're following this fellow and we're going to hear more from him. He joined the Congress party. And if any Indian can make in an organization of the people, that's Gandhi. In the middle 20s, Gandhi had become a power in India. The Indians resented the monopoly of the government on salt. In 1923, when the salt tax was increased the flame of growing Indian nationalism was found and by Gandhi. This is one of his disciples. The salt tax which is now heavier than ever bears as heavily on the poor as on the rich. All of us must use salt. As a symbolic protest against the monopoly on March 12, 1930 Gandhi began his ethical salt march to the sea. Gandhi, he has selected 60 of his honourable disciples to make the march to the sea with him. I have been fortunate to be selected as one of these. Tonight, all 60 of us are stretched out around Gandhi's quarters. We are sleepless and restless, but Gandhi is in a deep sleep. 50,000 of his followers have come to take a stand around his quarters. Bonfires are blazing brightly and come what may, these thousands are standing guard over Gandhi ji. There were rumors that Gandhi would be arrested before he could cross the Sabramati river, but at dawn the long march to the sea was started. Gandhi ji led the procession with his arm around his wife. He led us through the thousands that had washed over us through the night. They threw flowers on him as he parted and behind us followed the marches, a sea of trotting humanity. As the procession moved through the countryside, thousands more joined the march to the sea. The disciples parted from the procession long enough to talk to villages along the routes and to organise the coming civil disobedience campaign. During these visits, I came face to face with the poverty of our India, the salt march ended at Port Dundee. Here the marches made fires on the beach and boiled sea water to recover a little salt. They are Gandhi himself. Yes, and look at the thousands of Indians here around him. He's reaching down and picking up something. That's salt. And that's the signal to all Indians to resist the salt monopoly. I guess that means that soon now we can expect resistance from all over the nation. Yes, what more perfect way could they choose to show that they believe that the salt of the sea should be free to all men? Years of the 30s, while Japan marched into Manchuria and then attacked China, Gandhi ascended to the leadership of India. And after Pearl Harbor, India itself lay in the pants of the aggressor. What's India going to do about Japan? Is India going to fight Japan or permit it to be conquered? The Japanese are at the very gates of India. What chance of the British God is the Indians all fighting? Why doesn't Gandhi join the British against the Japs? From his stashed hut in the village which he rechristened, say, Wardrum, Gandhi guided the entire nation. Here is the hub of a political machine surpassing that of either political party in the United States. Here, over the Bullock Cart Road, come ministers and envoys, leaders of the Hindus and the Mohammedans, statesmen and observers of world events. I have just seen Gandhi and had a long talk with him. He said, there are 350 million people in India. The Japanese cannot destroy all of them. Our people are not armed. What is the use of their resisting people armed like the Japanese? I asked him, suppose we have equal arms. And he said, then the Japanese and the Indians would simply destroy one another and there would still be no point in fighting. If a little child attacks me, I do not use my superior strength to crush it. That would not be human. Then I asked him if there were any circumstances under which he would fight. And Gandhi said, no. He looked benignly at me a moment and then went on. I do not see why there cannot be some compromise between nonviolence and British interests in India. The British can allow the Indians to meet the situation in their own way. And that is the way of nonviolence. We want India for the Indians. And we want India from the Japanese. Give me control in India and I will meet the Japanese, though not by fighting. I would let them land. Then by noncooperation, even though they killed my people, I would stop them from possessing India. This is Gandhi's philosophy. Rising strong on the horizon and also passionately devoted to the cause of India, is another man, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Both Gandhi and Nehru have made sacrifices for their convictions. Both are idealists and men of action. Both were born of aristocratic families and both worked for the common men. Yet Nehru has convictions different from Gandhi. I've been here in India a long time and I've talked with both Gandhi and Nehru many times. Gandhi is religious. Nehru is an agnostic. Gandhi wants an agricultural India. And Nehru wants an industrial metropolitan India. How does Nehru feel about nonviolence? That's one point on which the two men differ. Nehru not only believes that if Japan attempted invasion, that she would be actively resisted, but that the Indians would resist more vigorously if they had political independence or a definite promise of it. But then they would feel that they were fighting for their own freedom instead of the British Empire. I've heard Nehru speak. He's convincing and dynamic. Yes, he's able to instill his convictions which seem to me as an observer here in India that India's future growth tends in the direction of Nehru's ideas. Quite rightly. Gandhi and Nehru are different in their outlook. Yet they have much in common. And there's a bond between them really far between two great leaders. Today both Gandhi and Nehru are in jail because of their call for passive rebellion against Britain. Nehru has long been an ardent friend of China. He visited suffering China and saw the desolation wrought by the invading Japanese. He called upon Indians to boycott Japanese goods. On August 8, 1942, he wrote out in English for a Chinese journalist a stirring message to China. To the Chinese people, I repeat that we shall keep faith with them whatever happens. We shall do so not only because China's freedom is very precious to us, but also because with it is intertwined the freedom of India. Whatever we do now, constrained by circumstances, is aimed at the achievement of India's independence so that we may fight with all our strength and will against the aggressor in India and China. Free India can do so effectively, not so subject India, with all her great strength gained up. This is the reason why India's freedom becomes an urgent and immediate necessity and cannot be postponed to the hereafter. This was the dramatic message of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to China a year ago. The articulate voice of a billion Asian addicts fighting for their freedom. This year, in a speech on July 7, on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of China's resistance to Japanese aggression, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek said, the future peace should be a peace making the emancipation of entire mankind. After we win the war, the independent nations that have been occupied by the enemy must certainly regain their independence. As to the peoples under the rule of the enemy, or otherwise still having not attained complete freedom, we must likewise help them to be emancipated. The relative speed of emancipation may have to vary in accordance with the different cultural levels of different peoples, but it is imperatively desirable that the same principles apply in the emancipation of all peoples. This is another vital point on which I hope the United Nations will reach a thorough understanding prior to the conclusion of the war. As large as all Europe except Russia, with its teeming populations of more than 380 million, with its complexity of peoples and religions, is closely linked with the war in the Pacific, and here to tell the meaning behind the factors of the problem of India is Dr. Yushan Han of Shanghai, visiting professor of history, University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Han. India has been known to the western world for its complexity and diversity, rather than for its essential unity. But underneath the complexity and diversity of 45 races, 200-some dialects, numerous religions and castes, subcastes and outcastes, there is an essential unity, a unity of culture which is far more profound than any unity based upon mere geographical isolation or imperial domination. In addition to this cultural unity of India, there has been for the last quarter of a century a steady, consistent, gigantic struggle of a united purpose on the part of the Indians to achieve independence, the only avenue to social progress and international cooperation. The teachings of John Locke, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill and others have long taken the imagination of Indian youth. These serious-minded youth aspire to realize the ideal of democracy under a political unity of their own making. They appreciate the unity achieved under British rule through its investments in communications, transportation and irrigation systems, but they are not satisfied with a unity of subjection. The Anglo-American ideal and practice of due process of law and the supremacy of the judiciary have long been a great motivation power in India. British justice has not been lost on the Indian mind, but the Indians want a free and independent justice to be developed by themselves. On the part of the West, unity among the Indians themselves has been made a prerequisite for the granting of independence to India. Here's a crucial factor behind the problem of India. India consists of two Indians, the provinces of British India under the viceroy, who has almost unlimited powers, an example of which is the overriding of the decisions of the Calcutta High Court and the Federal Court of India for the imprisonment of Gandhi and Nehru and other nationalist leaders without a trial. The other India is made up of 562 native states, covering 45% of the total areas of India with a population of 93 million people. Most of the native states are under absolute autocratic rulers. Theoretically, these states are independent, except for foreign affairs, but actually they acknowledge sovereignty of the British crown. These native states are scattered over India, interlaced with the provinces of British India and bound by treaties with great versions. There are then two political unities in India, the enlightened imperialism of British India and the autocracy of the native states. So we have the great paradox, the expectation of unity among the Indians themselves, while the very roots of unity are being cut. It can easily be seen that the introduction of this autocratic representation into any constituent assembly for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people is impossible. The demand for a fusion of feudalism with republicanism only creates further division. This situation constituted one of the two factors for the failure of the Sir Stafford Cripp's mission. Further, the outside world can hardly understand the inclusion in the Cripp's proposal. The right to secession to descending provinces and states, as well as insistence upon British protection of racial and religious minorities. This constituted the second obstacle in the Cripp's mission. Solution to the problems were still possible had direct Indian participation in the war not been refused on the ground of protecting the minorities. Curiously enough, a similar cry of protecting the minorities had been heard from the Axis camps. Indians say if the war and peace aims are those of freedom and democracy, the objective is worth any price. If India is worthy of cooperation, they can only do so with the dignity and freedom. The Indians saw the consequence of the defense of Malaya and the defense of Burma without the Burmese, so they demanded immediate active participation in the war. The refusing of this demand was the final blow. Finally, we have come to a stage in human history when nations stand pledged to all they have and all they are for the cause of liberty, peace, prosperity and progress for all the peoples of the world. Some still dare to scoff at the idea of the hotentats being brought into the fold of the privilege, but at least most of us say we are fighting for the general advancement of mankind. Thank you, Dr. Han. You have just heard the ninth program of the new series, The Pacific Story. Next week at the same time over most of these stations, the tenth will be broadcast. The Islands of the Pacific with drama of the past and present and commentary by Owen Lathamore, authority on the Pacific and director of the School of International Relations, Johns Hopkins University. You may secure an illuminating handbook of the Pacific Story with background information on each program in this series with suggested further reading. This Pacific Story manual will be sent to you for $0.25 in coin to cover cost of printing and mailing. Address the University of California Press, Berkeley, California. It is written and directed by Arnold Marquess. The musical score is composed and conducted by Charles Dant. Your narrator, Gain Whitman. This program has been presented as a public service and another feature of the Inter-American University of the Air by the National Broadcasting Company and the independent radio stations associated with the NBC network. This is the National Broadcasting Company.