THE INDIAN ELECTIONS
VOTING in the Indian provincial elections has begun. Bengal, the Punjab, Assam, Orissa, Bihar and the Central Provinces all poll this week ; the Frontier Province on February 1st, the United Provinces on February 8th, Bombay and Madras on February 15th. Thus, on the date of Provincial Autonomy, April 1st, the Governors of the eleven Indian Provinces will be in a position to instal the new Ministries in office, and the second stage—the first began in 1921—of the new political era in India will have begun. The present elections mark an important point in the process of inauguration, and they would have received more attention in this country if the public mind had not been engrossed by affairs nearer home. In the present circumstances of India the comparative inattention to these elections may be attributed to a belief in Great Britain that the part to be played here was already complete when the Act was passed ; or it may be due to the fact that the public as a whole finds Indian politics too baffling to follow and leaves them with a sigh of relief to those who choose to concern themselves with such matters.
But there is a further consideration which explains the absence of the dramatic element from the present Indian contests, and may be held to justify the belief that they arc not " news." It is an undoubted fact that, for various reasons, the importance attached to the elections in India itself is not as great as their significance would seem to warrant. It would be natural to assume that the first elections under a regime of greatly expanded provincial autonomy should awake public interest in a high degree, and that the desire to take part in the new provincial legislatures and to compete for Ministerial office should have provoked political contests of an engrossing nature. But this expectation has not been realised, nor was it entertained by well-informed observers who have followed the recent course of Indian politics. It is true that the number and variety of candidates are as great as ever, and the often bizarre problems which the presiding officers have to solve are no fewer than before. None the less, there is little evidence to show that the Indian public regards any immediate issue as critical, and the current of popular interest does not seem to be flowing at full strength. It is probable that the new Legislative Assemblies will meet in an atmosphere of political uncertainty and a mood of perplexed curiosity quite unlike the tense excitement which electrified the air in which their prototypes met in 1921.
That the atmosphere is free from violent passion is all to the good. The Montagu-Chelmsford Con- stitution was very nearly wrecked in the storm that raged in India during its earliest days. No such tempest threatens the early life of the Federal Union ; but there are factors in the present situation• which, while they account for the comparative calm of today, are not to be read as indicating a barometer " set fair " for the immediate future. There is a certain scepticism about Parliamentary institutions themselves, which is partly due to the prevailing temper of the rest of the world, and partly to the propaganda of the Congress Party under Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Something of the lack of vehemence in the present contest is. due to divisions in the Congress itself, and much to the patent fact that the character of the new Federal Centre and not of the Provinces is the real hub of controversy. It is significant that the resolutions of the Faizpur Conference—the fiftieth Christmas meeting of the Indian National Congress—had little or no bearing on genuine Provincial issues ; and that the chief problem in all minds was how to preserve the façade of unity under the pressur,e of controversial passions aroused by Pandit Nehru's programme of Socialism. What emerged from Faizpur was an apparent refusal to accept the new Constitu- tion, coupled with the moral certainty:that, by April, some if not many, prominent Congressmen will bp found in more than one Provincial Ministry.
Once again, this is all to the good, even if it reveals the unreality of Indian politics.. And it is to be hoped that members of the Congress -Party -will take office, for they will . bring to the Provincial Cabinets a power otherwise lacking, and they will themselves begin to know for the first time what an Indian problem really • is for him who seeks to solve it by political or administrative action. The problems which will confront these. Provincial Ministries will vary from one Province to another : but one thing they will have in common, for no Province will be free from the besetting difficulties of finance. Some of them, eight in fact, will start with special subventions from the Government of India ; but, with or without such assistance, they will soon realise the truth of Lord Zetland's warning, in his telegram to the Government of India, accepting the main conclusions of Sir Otto Niemeyer's Report, that "the financial administration of all provinces will demand great caution.'' Fortunately for them and for the Government of India, the rising values of India's primary products must soon be reflected in a welcome increase in the public revenue ; and in this respect the reforms of 1937 start upon their course under somewhat better financial auspices than those of sixteen years ago. The experiment of diarchy, then begun, was starved, of money from the outset. The present stage opens with a somewhat better financial prospect, even if the immediate future must be one of prudent financial husbandry.
The merits of the new Constitution have now passed out of the sphere of debate into the test of practice. The severity of the test will be greatest where Hindu-Moslem tension is strongest. Already there are signs that this old feud will raise its head before long in Bengal, where orthodox Hinduism deeply resents the Communal Award and will not easily reconcile itself to a predominantly Moslein Government such as seems possible, if not probable. In the Punjab the signs point to the electoral success of the Unionist Party, -formed under Sir Sikander • Hayet b an on an .agrarian asis and representing an attempt to give economic problems precedence over religious divisions. But, however the issue of religion is approached, we can -only hope that the sense of Ministerial responsibility will be strong enough' to guide both policy and administration along lines which will abate conflict, instead of provoking— it. This may seem to be a counsel of perfection, and the early stages of provincial autonomy can hardly escape Communal trouble. What will be riew will be the incidence of responsibility. In the last resort, no doubt, the Governor would exercise his constitutional powers to save his province from the extreme penalty of disorder. But the very essence, of the new" regime is the responsibility of his Ministers, and through them the responsibility of the pOpular Chamber. An unexampled oppor- tunity is laid before India. It is by. ' legislation and administration in the Provinces rather than at the Centre that the lives of the mass of the people are directly touched. Indians who care genuinely for 'their country can do nothing better for it than by striving to make the Provincial legislatures a success.
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