Indian India
DURING the next few months we are likely to hear a great deal about the Indian States and their relationship to British India. As with so many facets in the Indian problem, we must beware of the innumerable ex-parte statements that are current. This book by a Professor of Economies and Political Science at Benares Hindu University is most valuable in enabling us to obtain a proper perspective. It contains, too, appendices of all documents necessary to an understanding of the problem and a useful map.
There are certain points on which commentators are pretty generally agreed, as for example, that the States have nothing in common one with another except that they are all governed by " potentates " who, as the author makes very clear, are not sovereign in any practical sense of the term, but are all equally under the suzerainty of Great Britain. The brief prepared by Sir Leslie Scott and the other eminent counsel of the Standing Committee maintains, however, the theory of direct relations, that is to say, that the Indian Princes expect to treat directly with the Crown and not with the Government of India. Fifteen out of sixteen closely printed pages of the Butler Report are devoted to proving that the Paramount Power does not possess any such rights except those granted by the States to the Crown. This, of course, as Professor Singh shows, is empty theory and legalistic twaddle. Actually only some forty States can lay claim to any treaty engagements with Britain and their " right4 " have often lapsed by "usage and sufferance." In 'practice the relations of the Indian States have been always with the Government of India, and if and when British India takes on the status of a Dominion then their' relationship *eiald be with the new government in British India and not, as some of the Princes' advocates contend, with the Viceroy in person—which would mean; of
course, in actual fact, a great increase of power for the Political Department.
We are reminded here incidentally that the "joint opinion" embodies only the views of the rulers of very few States, and that even now the views of States like Hyderabad, Mysore, Baroda, and Travancore have not yet been placed on record. What will be necessary, at any rate, for the future relations between " British " India and " Indian " India pending that complete federation which Professor Gumiukh Singh recognizes to be impossible at present is for some Supreme Court to be set up at the earliest possible moment. It is a pity that the Nehru Report shirks this all-important issue of the political union of the Indian States with British India. The Committee appointed by the All-India States' subjects, Madras, . indeed severely criticized the All-Party Congress for this omission and they have themselves put forward a separate scheme for a full fledged Federation.
l'rofessor Singh states very fairly the attitude both of the Princes and the States' subjects—except for one serious misinterpretation of the League of Nations Covenant. Article I. provides, certainly, that Members shall be "self-governing," but it does not stipulate for any special form of democratic or repredentative government. That is entirely an internal question, and it can only be raised in any future federation of India either in cases of gross misrule in the States—which permits of intervention to-day—or through the ever-increasing pressure of opinion within the States and without. We are entirely in agreement with the suggestion made here that the Chamber of Princes, which does at least provide a very prac- tical classification of the States in the light of their actual importance, should be replaced by a Chamber of States com- prising, not the hereditary and despotic rulers, but repre- sentatives of the Durbars very, much on the lines of the national delegations to the Council and Assembly at Geneva.
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