A SOLUTION FOR INDIA
By AN ANGLO-INDIAN LL the permutations and combinations of the conventional means of approach to the Indian problem have been discussed thread- bare, and nothing has emerged that will help. The depth of our despair can be gauged from the suggestion that India be given a year's—or was it two years'?—notice that if 40o million people, largely illiterate, unorganised and inarticulate, cannot agree amongst themselves, a constitution will be imposed on them from outside. But why start again from the egg? Why not build on the excel-
lent foundation of provincial autonomy more laid? Provincial autonomy worked reasonably well for more than two years. In the Punjab it was, and still is, an outstanding success and a vast improve- ment on both dyarchy and bureaucracy. When war broke out, how- ever, the Congress Ministries resigned, not at the bidding of their electors, but by the very undemocratic act of obeying the orders of an outside and irresponsible All-India Committee. Their excuse for resigning was that India had been plunged into the war without being consulted. Had she been consulted the result should have been a foregone conclusion, as several Ministries had already said they would fight, and Congress itself had for years been condemn- ing aggression, and criticising Downing Street for not coming to the aid of China, Abyssinia, Austria and Czechoslovakia. The issue was therefore academic and could have been tackled in an academic manner. Had the Congress Ministries registered a formal and digni- fied protest and then plunged into the prosecution of the war nothing could have prevented India getting all she wanted in two years.
The next undemocratic incident was the Cripps Mission. Sir Stafford made his offer to the wrong people. By no stretch of imagination could the League and Congress leaders claim, in the face of the recent elections, to be the democratically elected repre- sentatives of India. No one knows what their membership is nor where they get their funds. The Punjab has repudiated them both, 'Ind could not be bound by any agreement they made. And it is the Punjab that has led India's martial efforts in two world wars. Rut how in the name of democracy could the constitutionally elected representatives of the whole of British India be ignored in favour of these committees? The Central Assemblies had already been rejected as the foundation for a Federal Government. They were Irresponsible—debating societies rather than the rulers of a conti-
nent—and bore no relation to the Government of the day in the provinces they should have federated. But what about the Pro- vincial Governments which had been solemnly elected a few years before the greatest and best organised General Election ever held in India, had all taken office and governed, and had some of them been governing their provinces ever since? True enough, several of these Ministries had ceased to govern—Congress and the League had never governed at all and were not organised to govern—but the Ministers and the members of the Provincial Assemblies were still in being. Why on earth did net Cripps call together the Premiers or the Ministries of the Provinces, the constitutional repre- sentatives of the units of the hoped-for Federation, and ask them what they thought about the running of the Centre?
After all, it is they and they alone who know where the shoe pinches, what powers the Centre and the Provinces should each have and what should be the safeguards and controls. What can Con- gress and the League know of these purely administrative matters? But apart from this practical point, what right had the British Government, after conducting a General Election and setting up autonomous Ministries in India, to by-pass them in favour of the committees of political societies of unknown authority? No wonder we are at a deadlock after such a betrayal of democratic principles and constitutional practice. The new approach to the Indian problem can only be by way of the autonomous Ministries. Unfor- tunately, less than half are now functioning, but at least these can be invited to depute resident Ministers to Delhi to enable their Provinces to have a full share in the Central Government. That would, at any rate, be a start back towards constitutional sanity.
The constitution of India cannot be a machine built to a blue- print. It must be an organism growing from a germ. It is our task to plant a seed which, given good will and common sense, can grow into a Centre which will be acceptable to the provinces and States of India. This may be regarded as a provincial, even a Punjab, view ; but surely it is in the self-governing Provinces that political realism and statesmanship are to be found. They are governing, and in some cases governing extremely well. Besides, how can the Centre ever be built in any other way but on the Provincial Minis- tries? India is a continent with more languages, races, religions, cultures and climates than Europe, and its population of 40o million, as already stated, is unorganised, inarticulate and largely illiterate, with very inadequately developed communications by way of roads, railways, newspapers and radio.
On this foundation has already been built a provincial system of government with provincial parties, policies, Legislatures and Minis- tries. Does any practical man really believe that on top of all this, but completely independent of it, can be superimposed All-India electorates and elections, All-India parties and policies? And what relation would the All-India member have to his Provincial Ministry? It is hard enough to get the common man, even when literate and organised, to work a party system and join in an election, but to expect him when unorganised and illiterate to join in two party systems at the same time (or even one after the other), one provincial and one "continental," bearing little if any relation to each other, is surely asking too much. To all but dreamers the only possible hope for an agreed and workable Centre is to abandon the idea of Assemblies and Senates, parties and party politics, majority votes and Press galleries, and let the Centre be run by a Cabinet of Ministers deputed to represent them by the self-governing Provinces and such States and groups of States as might decide to join in.
It is unfortunately true that the All-India Congress might sabotage such a Federal Cabinet by insisting on bringing " politics " into as many issues as possible, and by acting not as representatives of their Provinces, but as puppets of the All-India Congress Committee. If that happened, of course, a new deadlock would occur, but there could then be no doubt where the fault lay—it would not be with
those who wished to instal democracy in India. It is also true that
—even with its present record in war and peace—the Provincial Congress parties can at any time win General Elections in many Provinces, for the very simple reason that there is no other organised party. In the Punjab the Unionist Party is a brilliant exception. The U.P. landlords might also have been if after the last war they bad changed their ways, lived on their estates and developed them and attended to the welfare of their tenants and dependents. But they committed political suicide by continuing in their bad old ways, and Government never stimulated them to do otherwise. At the same time a Provincial Congress Party is a constitutional party, as long as it remains loyal to its electors and speaks as their representa- tives and not as the puppets of an All-India Committee.
This suggested approach may be a shock to the partisans of All- India societies and to those who look forward to one great Parliament representing the 40o millions of India. But surely a working rea:ity is better than an unworkable dream? It may be objected that this plan will make for a weak Centre. This so-called weakness will be its very strength. Its decisions will have to be implemented by the States and Provinces which sent their representatives to the Centre, and therefore the Centre will have to make agreed decisions, and there can be no persecution of minorities and no hasty experi- ments. The Centre may be slow and weak at first—there will be nothing novel in that,—but at least it will be a self-governing and representative Centre, and that is what we are looking for.
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