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 States.
India and the League of Nations
[The important report of the delegates of India to the 1929 Assembly of the League of Nations (a summary of which appeared in the Times of May 21st) deserves to be widely known. In a year or two there is a distinct possibility of India being elected to the Council. This article explains some of the difficulties encoun- tered hitherto in making India's influence felt at Geneva. The author is President of the Madras Labour Union, the oldest trade union in India, and acted as Secretary to Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru on the Reforms Enquiry Committee in 1924.]
PvaLlc opinion in India has never been roused to much enthusiasm over her membership of the League of Nations. It was not understood at the time of the inauguration of the League why Mr. Montagu insisted upon and obtained for India the position of an original member. Even after a lapse of ten years, it must be confessed that hardly any point has failed to carry conviction in India so much as Mr. Wedg- wood Benn's declaration in a recent speech that her member- ship of the League was proof of the " Dominion status in action," which, according to him, in practical enjoyment is hers.
The dominating factor in Indian political life since the War has, of course, been the demand for a position of absolute equality with the self-governing Dominions. To the extent that it was denied in the actual working of the Montagu Reforms, and even in theory by some of the official inter- preters of the Constitution, the demand grew insistent and tended to throw all other considerations into the background. India's participation in the sessions of the League, and of its auxiliary, the International Labour Conference, only served to sharpen the contrast between her international status— technically one of equality with the other units of the British Commonwealth—and her domestic position, that of a Dependency.
The psychology of the Indian mind in regard to the League may thus be summed up : (a) Why should India contribute so largely towards the budget of the League ; (b) why should a European lead the annual delegation to Geneva ; (c) why should an Indian Prince be included in the delegation every year to represent India ; (d) and, above all, why should world opinion be led to believe that India has a status which, in fact, is denied to her ?
It is significant that one of the earliest resolutions to be debated in the Upper Chamber of the Central Legislature, on the introduction of the Montagu Reforms, was that the choice of the delegations to Geneva should rest with the Legislature. It was opposed on the ground that the Executive everywhere is responsible for the personnel of the delegation, not the Legislature. Sufficient allowance was not made by the constitutional pandits at Delhi for the fact that India's position was unique, as the only member of the League to be without self-government. A compromise would have been acceptable if the Government, without parting with its power of selection, had allowed the Legislature to constitute a panel, but it was not viewed with favour by Lord Reading's Government.
The dissatisfaction with the methods of selection would have been less pronounced had the Government had the imagination to perceive the importance of sending Indians as leaders of the delegations. The absurd reason was urged, in favour of a European leader, that any other arrangement might have created difficulties with the Indian Princes, one of whom was included in every delegation. The retort from India was a simple one : it was no business of the Princes to dictate who should be the leader ; and, secondly, it was not clear that the Princes had any right at all to represent India at sessions of the League. For the first time, last year, be it said to the credit of the Labour Government, an Indian led the delegation in the person of Sir Muhammad Habibullah, then a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, with great ability and distinction. The susceptibilities of the Indian Princes are presumably to be respected by the Maharaja of Bikaner being accorded that position at the forthcoming cession in September.
The question of the Princes attending meetings of the Assembly of the League has been one of keen interest and controversy in India. I am glad that the Simon Report records the view that " it is a striking fact, not always suffi- ciently borne in mind, that it is India—not British India— which is a member of the League of Nations ; a fact which is emphasized by the invariable presence of an Indian Ruling Prince as a member of the Indian Delegation." For some years we have urged from the platform of the International Labour Conference that the Princes cannot evade responsi- bility for the Conventions and the Recommendations of the Conference : they must either ratify them or refuse to do so so. We have had nothing but opposition from the Government of India, though the Director-General of the I.L.O., M. Albert Thomas, has been impressed with the correctness of the Indian point of view. It remains to be seen whether, at the Round Table Conference in London, the Labour Government will take a view different from that which Lord Birkenhead expressed as head of the India Office.
The interests of Indian labour demand an immediate solution of the difficulty. During the last ten years—mainly, as I believe, because of the International Labour Conference— there has been appreciable progress on labour legislation in India. The initiative of the Government of India in amending the Factories Act and introducing the Workmen's Compensation Act, came from the Conventions of Geneva. Moreover, the representation of Indian labour at the annual Conferences has had a stimulating effect on its organization. But the Indian States have stood still while British India has gone ahead with legislation, with the result that labour conditions in the States are definitely more unsatisfactory than in Britisk India. It is not reasonable to expect that the employers in British India will tolerate further legislation on: labour unless the States come into line. In other words, to stress only one aspect, the Report of the Whitley Commission is foredoomed to sterility if the Princes do not take action on the Conventions of Geneva. One has only to turn to the pro- ceedings of the Conferences of last year and this to realize how serious this difficulty will prove for Indian labour in the immediate future.
At present appreciation of the work done at Geneva has come more from the industrial workers and the trades union movement in India than from the politicians. Nevertheless, some of the abler amongst them have thought of the League as an instrument for the solution of the complex question of minorities in India ; one or two have gone even further and suggested the reference of our entire constitutional problem to the League. It is not, in my view, a coincidence that, with a critical situation developing in internal politics, there should have been a debate in the Council of State some weeks ago on India's claims for a seat on the Council of the League. The Times' Special Correspondent at Simla commented on the official reply to the debate that it created the impression that the Government of India viewed with sympathy the demand for the status of a Dominion.
Nothing is so certain to me as that the removal of political tension will produce a profound alteration of India's attitude towards the League. It is a great pity that the report of the delegation to last year's session has not received the attention that its valuable recommendations deserve. No one who has been to Geneva can fail to recognize that their adoption will not only enable India to make the most of her membership of the League, but to take her proper place among the nations represented at Geneva. With a continuity in the personnel of the delegations, a seat in the Council of the League, and a permanent representation at Geneva to watch India's interests —to mention only three of the suggestions contained in Sir. Muhammad Habibullah's report—India is bound to make her influence felt at Geneva and become increasingly conscious of
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