Great Britain and India
The purpose of this page is to ventilate that moderate Indian opinion which, recognizing all the difficulties, yet believes in the continued association of Great Britain and India within the loose framework of the British Commonwealth of Nations. We hope to include contributions from leading figures of the various sections of responsible opinion, Hindu, Moslem, and the Indian Stases.
The Federal Goal
PRACTICALLY speaking, apart from the niceties of constitu- tional terminology, India has been governed hitherto under a unitary system of government. The supremacy of the Government of India is constitutionally acknowledged in the British Indian Provinces ; it is acquiesced in by the Indian States.
It is this system that the Simon Commissioners wish to replace by a federal system. That may not come about at once, they recognize, but it is the aim to be steadily kept in view and worked for. As the first step, they propose to break up the unitary government of British India, to invest the now subordinate Provinces with the status of autonomous States, and simultaneously compel them to join in federation, to delegate to the central Government jurisdiction over subjects of common interest, and to extend a standing invitation to the Indian States to join if and when they please.
There is much in the circumstances of India and the evidence placed before the Simon Commissioners which makes for this conclusion. They are impressed by the fundamental unity between British India and the Indian States : only an arbitrary line divides them. The interests of both are extensively dovetailed. They are impressed also by the diversity in India, diversity of race, religion, language and history. The size of India and its teeming population, running into some 315 millions, make for decentralization. Only a federation, they conclude, can reconcile the claims of unity with those of diversity.
Moreover, Indian politicians have, with one voice, demanded during the last two decades " full provincial autonomy " ; the Muslims have supported the demand, and repeatedly claimed and demanded that the provinces in British India should, under full provincial autonomy, retain residuary powers and reduce the central government to the status of an agent for some delegated purposes. The Indian Princes contend that they acknowledge the paramountcy of the British Crown and of the Government of India so long as the latter is but an agent of the Crown, but they will not acknow- ledge the paramountcy of a Dominion Government of India responsible to the people of British India. The farthest they may consent to go is to federate with British India for common purposes. What would be more natural under the circum- stances, and more acceptable to political India, than federation in the place of the present, for all practical purposes unitary, government ?
But a closer examination of the motives underlying the plea for federation must make one pause before one accepts it. The Muslims have shouted from the housetops that their motive in advocating federation is the creation of some five Muslim States in British India, in which the power of the Muslims shall be unchallenged. They have made up their mind that, as a counterpoise to Hindu rule in the other Pro- vinces, where Hindus are in a majority, they wish to create some Muslim states. The national ideal of States which are neither Hindu or Muslim but above both they abandon, and frankly wish to cut up India into Muslim States and Hindu States. They propose to secure the rights of Muslims in the Hindu States by threatening the Hindus in the Muslim States. Is that a purpose which the British should promote ?
If the Simon Commissioners had had the advantage of listening to the evidence of the nationalist politicians of India, as distinct from the communalists, they would have realised that by full provincial autonomy " they did not mean the creation of full-fledged states in the provinces, but merely greater devolution of powers to the Provinces and, what was more important, the setting up of responsible governments therein. The integration of all-India is not complete. The process requires quickening and strengthening, and the chief reason for the Indian demand for Swaraj is that- the State may take an active share in the process. To break up India into a federation at this stage will undo the work of generations of Indian patriots, and defeat their purpose.
In the eyes of the Simon Commissioners the main justifica- tion for federation is the status of the Indian Princes ; others are but additional and adventitious reasons. The Indian Princes form the starting-point and the basic consideration of the Commission's conclusions. In the sphere of internal administration the Princes claim full autonomy and freedom from external control, both of the British and of the Dominion Government of India. It must be remembered that there are some 700 States in all, and just a handful of them approximate to France, Germany and Great Britain in size and population, while the vast bulk of them approximate to the Vatican State. Except in half a dozen States at the most, their administrations are unrelieved autocracies, mediaeval in outlook and " feudal " in operation. Most of the Princes, even if they had the will, have not the resources to evolve efficient administration. And between them they rule over 70 million peoples. Their subjects watch their compatriots in British India, with much less misrule to com- plain of, forging ahead towards responsible government ; they catch the infection and agitate for the reform of the administrations in the States. They have the sympathy and support of the people in British India. But as long as the paramount Power is the present British Indian Government, which is pledged to stand by the Princes and ask no questions and not to intervene except when it is convinced of the existence of gross misrule, the subjects of the Indian Princes see no hope of amelioration.- They are overawed by the present paramount Power into submission to the arbitrary rule of the Princes. They wish ardently for a change in the paramount Power. A Dominion Government of India will, they have every confidence, exert its moral influence not only to eliminate gross abuses in administration but to promotethe rule of law and constitutional progress in the States.
For this very reason the Princes are reluctant to submit to the paramountcy of a Dominion Government of India. Their divine right to rule or misrule without let or hindrance may be questioned. Much as they resent the interference of the present British Government in their affairs and the encroachment on their rights, they prefer to acknowledge its paramountcy because they feel that their vested rights will be safer in its hands. They fear a change of masters ; they only wish that their present masters would refrain from encroaching on their rights and just hold the ring and overawe their subjects while they continue to administer their States in the traditional manner. This is not a flattering function for the freedom-loving Britisher. In this matter of the Indian States the Simon Commissioners' view was limited to the Princes ; they did not look beyond, to their subjects. In order to safeguard and further entrench the rights of these Princes and princelings the Simon Commissioners proposed to emasculate British India as well. Considering that they did not recommend the setting up of a Dominion Government in India responsible to the people, and that therefore there was no imminent prospect of the Indian Princes having to face a change in the paramount Power, there seems to be not the slightest justification for the form of federal government advocated.
It is important to understand and realize the full implica- tions of federation--in the Simon sense. It would lead to disintegration of India ; it cuts up India into Muslim States and non-Muslim States, it entrenches the Indian Princes still more firmly in their internal autonomy and condemns the subjects of the States to suffer the undemocratic rule of the Princes, without hope of amelioration. If it was the high mission of Britain to weld together the divergent elements in India and forge a nation, and to introduce demo- cratic institutions in India, this federation proposal is bound to defeat it irretrievably.
P. KODANDA RAO ' (Member,. Servants of India. Society).,
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