Cross Currents in India
BY SIR STANLEY REED.
THE immediate position in India is one which almost makes us throw up our hands in despair and ask if there is any way, out of this most difficult and complex issue. The Secretary of State outlined a policy in the House of Commons, on June 27th, which had many ad- mirable features. It declared the resolute determination of the Government to proceed with the enactment of a single Bill to establish at once the Federal structure and the autonomy of the Provinces. It' accepted the grave responsibility of an adjustment, at least temporary, of the communal problem which blocks the way: It carried the assurance of the most expeditious means to these ends which could be devised, and laid down the novel pro- cedure in our constitutional history of the establishment of a Joint Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament, with power to confer with representatives of Indian opinion, before a constitutional Bill has been read a first or a second time. Yet the effect of this statement has been to drive out of co-operation with the Government the most eminent men in Indian public life, and to leave us in the sterile path of a policy without a friend. And this on the eve of a pronouncement on the communal question which is bound to disappoint many of our friends, and which in no circumstances can be received in a better light than " disappointing and unsatisfactory." That very wise Indian publicist of the older generation, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, was once asked why he did not organize a party and seek for recruits. He replied : " It is unnecessary : Government policy will send me all the recruits I want." For Mehta substitute Congress and we have a picture of the Indian political scene to-day.
Those in close contact with Indian opinion are not greatly surprised at this impasse. Mortifying as it may be to our self-esteem, the prevailing atmosphere in India is one of suspicion and distrust. Especially since the General Election brought into the House a great prepon- derant body of Conservative Members, there has grown up the conviction that Parliament has no intention of giving full effect to the conclusions of The Round Table Conference, though it endorsed them by accepting the White Paper in which they were embodied. Satis- factory as the official pronouncements of policy may be in themselves, the whispering galleries of the East resound with the speeches of members of both Houses contemning the Conference and all its ways, barren of constructive thought, and expressive of the amazing conviction that peace in India can be ensured by maintaining a form of government which has outlived its usefulness, and which does not, and cannot, carry a sufficiency of support to sustain it through the tremendous economic disturbances which have riven the producer countries to their bases. Above all, in the domain of finance, there is the widespread belief that influences in London will emasculate the re- sponsibility of the new Government in India for its bud- getary policy, and that under the name of " safeguards " the India Office—or rather the Finance Committee which exercises almost unlimited authority with no responsi- bility—will reduce the Finance Member of the responsible Federal Government to a pale shadow of Whitehall. It may be argued that these fears are illusory—that the British people as a whole, and Parliament in particular, are absolutely sincere in their determination to follow re- solutely the trail to responsible government blazed in 1917. They exist ; and—this is said in all seriousness— the new procedure was damned in India the moment Mr. Churchill said he approved it, A wise Secretary of State would have avoided like the pestilence any word which could deepen these suspicions. Unfortunately, Sir Samuel Hoare was not well advised. The work of the Simon Commission was stillborn because it relegated Indians to an undefined consultative rale in framing the Constitution of their own country, and which they would be called upon to work. The Round Table Conference brought the discussions back to a fruitful stage because it .established the condition of equality ; out of that equality arose unity and responsibility. The carefully phrased announce- ment of the Secretary of State proposed to give the Joint Select Committee " power to confer with repre- sentatives of Indian opinion." What was to be the status of these representatives, and by whom were they to be chosen ? This cut right athwart the position of equality which gave the work of the Round Table Con- ference its constructive value ; it was ambiguous where it should have been clear; it re-created the position which sterilized the Simon Commission and which is fatal to any effective Indian Co-operation.
Fortunately, Sir Samuel Hoare kept the door ajar for a resumption of the Conference method. It must be flung wide open. If the new Constitution is to be anything better than a scrap of paper, it must carry the active sup- port of the men of good will and those who will have to work it. If the Conference method, or at least the reassembling of the Federal StructUre Committee, is the only means to this end, then despite the drawbacks it must be followed. The situation has been compromised by this maladroitness. Nothing is more fatal to our influence than a procedure which wears the appearance of " trying it on." It may be a shock to Sir Samuel Hoare, con- scious as he is of his own sincerity, to find his action widely construed as an effort to get behind the declared policy, and a retreat when he found that it would not answer. But as lie has shown courage on more than one occasion, he should throw his heart over the fence now and follow resolutely after it ; retrace his errant steps ; and bring the discussions back to the Conference stage. Unfortunately nothing will be quite the same as it was before. A distinguished Indian, at a much earlier stage in the political development of India, dropped a little attar of roses on the floor and then wiped up the oil with his handkerchief. " See," he remarked, " I have removed all trace of the oil, but the scent remains." The miasma of suspicion will remain ; its extent will largely depend on the promptitude with which the Government reverts to " further con- sultation of a more formal character."
Above all, there should be no more setting up of a Consultative Committee in India to work under the direction of the Viceroy, and going behind it in London. It is inconceivable that the new procedure—whatever may be said of its theoretic merits—can have carried the approval of Lord Willingdon and those associated with him, and they must not be left in the lurch again. Nor can the apprehension that, whilst embodying the Federal Constitution and the autonomy of the provinces in a single Bill, the setting up of the responsible Federal Government is to be indefinitely postponed, be allowed to persist. That it is present in many Indian minds is clear from the published telegrams. The Federal system bristles with difficulties ; those will multiply or dissolve as the Government is wavering or resolute. Any alternative to the Federal system is such as no one who desires to serve India dares to contemplate,
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