A SOLUTION FOR INDIA ?
Rawlinson, in your issue of September 19th, states that there has been a " sensational fall in Congress membership since the peak figures of 1938-9." Indians tell me that the only people who can know what the figures are are those at Congress headquarters and as far as I can discover there has been no official declaration of figures since 1939. Perhaps Mr. Rawlinson knows of an official declaration that I have missed and I would be obliged for particulars of such or, alternatively, of the basis for his statement.
Mr. Rawlinson seems to be of Mr. Amery's opinion that democracy has been tried in India and has failed. Anyone who has studied the 1935 Act knows that to say so is mischievous nonsense, as is the implication that democracy and India (or China), are incompatible.
Congress itself is as democratic as any British political party and a good deal niore democratic that some. But if Mr. Rawlinson were correct (which he is not) in stating that there are rio parties as we understand them (what else are Congress and the Moderate party?) and no body of opinion reacting against extravagant movements (what of Congress Left, Centre and Right, the Moderates and the Princes, to name a few?) but only numerous minorities suspicious of one another, then Sir George Schuster's solution of a small group of first-class men of all parties to work out a new constitutional plan is no solution at all. For, if they are party men, they are, ipso facto (according to Mr. Rawlinson), incapable of agreement, and if they are not party men, they have no mass support and will not reflect the wishes of the people.
The one thing that will work in India is the one thing that we refuse to try—democracy. More and better education would give democracy a finer basis, but education would be most effective if applied first at the top—the British Cabinet—as education in the principles of democracy and world citizenship.—Yours faithfully,
[In The Times of July 31st it was stated that the membership of Congress before the war was over 4,500,000, in 1939-40 under 3,000,000 and in 1941 a little over 1,5oo,000.—En., The Spectator.]
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