THE FUTURE OF INDIA
THE immensity of the experiment which is carried a stage nearer to consummation by the issue of the Report of the Joint Committee on Indian Constitu- tional Reform can best be demonstrated by recalling a few figures. The population of the American • States which federated in 1787 was about 3,000,000. The population of Canada after federation in 1867 was virtually the same. The population of Australia after federation in 1901 was perhaps a million more. The population of the India on which it is now proposed to confer a federal constitution is over 350 millions. To make another comparison, while the British Parlia- mentary system is the fruit of seven centuries of experi- ence and slow evolution, the India Oil which it is now proposed to confer a Parliamentary system has behind it twenty-live years' experience at the outside of some elementary semblance of such a system—and in reality the Morley-Minto Councils which. account for the first ten years of the period can make no just claim to that description at all. To confer anything like full self- government on India is undeniably to take a leap in the dark. The perilS of that are obvious. But the perils of not taking it are, and always have been, far more obvious. And it may well be argued that when you arc standing on the edge of a torrent and in danger of being precipitated into it, the only safe course is not merely to leap but to leap far enough to be sure of reaching firm ground on the other side.
Has the Joint Committee done that ? Do its pro- posals give an India schooled to ideas of self-government by the education we have bestowed on her, encouraged by a succession of official statements to look forward to Dominion status and study what Dominion status means in Canada and South Africa and Australia, the degree of self-government she may reasonably expect and with which she may reasonably be asked to be content ? The answer to that is partly a question of fact and partly of interpretation of fact. It will vary according as attention is fixed on the theory or the practical working out of the theory. And in such matters unfor- tunately the British temperament and the Indian differ radically. The guiding principle of this country in political affairs has always been solvitur ambulando, and on the whole it has worked passably well. But an India aspiring, suspicious, long accustomed to getting less than it asks for, must see everything in the bond. It must be there in black and white. A new charter of rights must be a charter without flaws in it. Indian opinion today will undoubtedly react strongly against the Joint Committee's proposals. It disliked the White Paper. It will dislike this more. The proposals do not confer Dominion status in any ordinary sense of the term. They confer self-government only with far- reaching reservations. It can be argued that they display none of that confidence in the Indian people which is essential if India and Britain are to be drawn into any kind of spiritual union.
Criticism on those lines, but couched in much more violent language, is inevitable in India. It will not go unexpressed in this country. And a colourable case can undoubtedly be made for it. The new self-governing India will still have a Governor-General responsible to a Secretary of State in Whitehall. In various matters the Governors of the Provinces will be responsible through the Governor-General to Whitehall. Defence and Foreign Affairs are reserved to the Governor-General and kept out of the hands of the elected Assembly altogether. In addition to that the Governor-General has considerable special powers reserved to him in regard to finance and- the prohibition of measures of a penal and discriminatory character against British imports or British trade in India; and both Governor- General and • the Governors of Provinces can exercise almost unlimited authority over the heads of the legis- latures if they deem it necessary in order to combat terrorism.
These derogations from full self-government are set out without disguise in the Joint Committee's report. It may he surmised indeed that they have been deliberately emphasized with a view to placating Right-wing critics in this country. Whether the Committee has not gone further than was necessary (e.g., in retaining recruitment for the Civil Service and the Police in the hands of the Secretary of State instead of putting it under the Governor-General) may be questioned. Its proposals will be vigorously canvassed, and will have to be con- vincingly justified, in debate in Parliament. But to focus attention on the safeguards and underestimate the magnitude of the advance represented by the committee's main proposals would be a distortion which only deliberate partisanship or mental incapacity could explain. The Committee had its Left-wing and its Right-wing disci-. dents. Its Labour members would discard practically all the statutory safeguards, maintain direct election for the Federal Assembly, and give India the right of proceeding to Dominion status by her own legislative action. (Canada, it is worth remembering, has not the right to alter her own constitution without the assent of the British Parliament.) At the opposite extreme Lord Salisbury, Lord Middleton and three others oppose the institution of responsible government at the centre altogether. But the main report is signed by 19 members, Conservative and Liberal, out of 31, and the 19 include three ex-Viceroys, three Secretaries for India past and present, the chairmen of the three committees which visited India two years ago to investigate particular problems, and last but by no means least, the chief author of the Simon Report. The findings of such a body must command profound respect.
They can, of course, be only indicated in the briefest summary here. The safeguards have already been mentioned. On the positive side, there is 'to be est:II:- fished an All-India Federation, built up out of the existing Indian States (governed in the future as in the past by their own Princes), and eleven British Indian Provinces, each with its own legislature (in five cases consisting of two chambers, in the other six of one) election being direct, and the franchise being extended to include about 14 per cent. of the population, instead of 3 per cent. as at present. The Central Government will consist of two Chambers, an Upper House and an Assembly, the members of the latter being elected, not by direct vote of the people, but by members of the Provincial Assemblies—a not unreasonable expedient, if modified in time as experience may dictate. In the Provinces there will be complete autonomy, the Governor acting on the advice of Ministers responsible to the elected legislature. At the centre the same system of responsible government is instituted but with the important qualification already mentioned, that Defence, Foreign Affairs and certain other departments of government are reserved- to the unfettered discretion of the Governor-General. In a word, always subject to the statutory reservations, something very like the Cabinet system as we know it will be instituted both at the Centre and in the Provinces—more fully in the Provinces than at the Centre—and the vital respons- /NW for law and order will at all normal times be M the hands of the Provincial Governments.
In passing judgement on such proposals it is well to bear in mind. certain fundamental facts. The Pro- vincial _ :touehes the life of the individual Indian citizen much more closely than the Central (though the_ letter deals with tariffs and excise and a good deal of taxation) and in the .Provinces, many of which are larger than most European States, almost complete self-government will prevail, And if attention is fixed on the arbitrary powers the Governor can exercise .against terrorism it ought equally to be fixed on the fact that the Governors will not all, or always, be. British. There has been one Indian Provincial Governor, Lord Shills, and many Acting-Governors, and there will and should be many more,. Self-govern:. meat on that scale—for Bengal has n population of 51 . Madras of 47 millions, and Bombay of 26 millionsshould go far to satisfy all reasonable Indian aspirations. And at the Centre the creation of such a unity as has never before. existed, or conic near existing, between the States and British India, with full responsible government, subject to certain reservations, is an immense achievement, which Indians themselves must not under- rate. Of the proposals as a whole it may be claimed with justice that if India decides to work them in a spirit of goodwill they will give her the essence of self- government and the , promise of the gradual removal of all restrictions on it—and the restrictions even as things arc will be little felt if the constitution, is. being worked harmoniously, as it will be to the interest of Governor- General, Governors and Ministers alike to work it.
The final judgement must be that the Joint Committee, while producing a scheme sound in its essentials, has erred rather on the side of caution than of generosity. Ultimately the only effective safeguard is the goodwill of the people of India. We are more likely to secure that by extending confidence than by withholding it. In particular there must be no suggestion that the new proposals represent the last word in India's constitutions,' development. If they did they would close the door to the attainment of that. Dominion status which she has been encouraged to expect and has every_ right to .expect. Fortunately the new proposals do go, further than the White Paper in making provision for future modifications. India on her part may reasonably bp asked to remember that where this country has advanced at, laborious pedestrian pace to a developed Parliamentary system she has been rushing towards it with the speed of a streamlined train. With the stage she will have reached if the Joint Committee's proposals arc adopted she may well rest content for a space.
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