BY PROF. N. SRINIVASAN, M.A.

The demand of the Congress in regard to the constitution is a simple one. The Congress seeks to establish a democratic State, independent and completely outside the orbit of British Imperialism. Independence, Unity, Democracy, and Self-determination through a Constituent Assembly, sum up its ideals for the future constitution and the method of making it. These are the vital principles on the basis of which it considers the settlement of the problem of Indo-British relations possible. On these principles the Congress could not accept any compromise. But on details it would accept any reasonable modifications: it is not tied down to any. The ultimate realisation of these ideals must be guaranteed beyond a shadow of doubt. That is what the Congress insists upon today.

The position of the Congress has been reaffirmed several times since the present crisis arose. But the resolution of the Ramgarh session of the Congress most succinctly and authoritatively sums it up. In view of its importance it may be quoted rather fully:

"The recent pronouncements made on behalf of the British Government in regard to India demonstrate that Great Britain is carrying on the War fundamentally for imperialist ends and for the preservation and strengthening of her Empire, which is based on the exploitation of the people of India as well as of other Asiatic and African countries. Under these circumstances it is clear that the Congress cannot in any way directly or indirectly be a party to the War which means the continuance and perpetuation of this exploitation."

"The Congress hereby declares again that nothing short of complete Independence can be accepted by the people of India. Indian freedom cannot exist within the orbit of Imperialism; and Dominion Status or any other status within the imperial structure is wholly inapplicable to India, is not in keeping with the dignity of a great nation, and would bind India in many ways to British politics and economic structure.

"The people of India alone can properly shape their own constitution and determine their relations to other countries of the world through a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of adult suffrage.

The Congress is further of opinion that, while it will always be ready, as it ever has been, to make every effort to secure communal harmony, no permanent solution is possible except through a Constituent Assembly, where the rights of all recognised minorities will be protected by agreement as far as possible between the elected representatives of the various majority and minority groups, or by arbitration if an agreement is not reached on any point. Any alternative will lack finality. India’s constitution must be based on Independence, Democracy and National Unity, and the Congress repudiates attempts to divide India or to split up her nationhood.

The Congress has always aimed at a constitution where the fullest freedom and opportunities of development are guaranteed to the group and the individual, and social injustice yields place to a just social order.

The Congress cannot admit the right of the rulers of Indian States or of foreign vested interests to come in the way of Indian freedom. Sovereignty in India must rest with the people, whether in the States or in the Provinces, and all other interests must be subordinated to their vital interests. The Congress holds that the difficulty raised in regard to the States is of British creation and it will not be satisfactorily solved unless the declaration of the freedom of India from foreign rule is unequivocally made. Foreign interests, if they are not in conflict with the interests of the Indian people, will be protected."

The clearness with which the resolution sets forth the basic principles of a constitutional settlement leaves indeed little more to be said. It touches most of the difficulties in the way of a settlement and offers a procedure for their solution. But in view of the misunderstanding of the position, or misrepresentation of the resolution in India and in Britain, it might be useful to amplify the resolution in a few respects, from the earlier and later pronouncements of the Congress and its leaders.

The Congress defines the goal of India as complete Independence, the equivalent in English of the term ‘Swaraj.’ This ideal involves full self-government, with the right of the State to order its foreign relations at will and the complete control of its defences. But it does not mean that India seeks isolation in an inter-dependent world and to withdraw into her own shell. India is willing to undertake her full share of responsibility for the common well-being of the world, for peace and for the maintenance of the principles of just relations between States. It is indeed most anxious to contribute its best towards the creation of a world order based upon democracy and freedom, and the ending of the exploitation of one country by another. Nor is complete Independence incompatible with a close external association with the British Commonwealth for common purposes and mutual advantage. Dominion Status, as it has evolved particularly in relation to Ireland, has shown Independence as defined by the Congress to be absolutely compatible with the Status as defined by the Statute of Westminster. Even an independent State could well co-operate with Britain in a close and intimate way, as Egypt has been doing since the settlement of the problem of Egypt to the satisfaction of her elected representatives. What is incompatible with the Congress claim is the continuance of Imperialism in India in any form, political or economic. The shedding of Imperialism, in substance as well as in theory, is an essential for the State that the Congress contemplates. If the friendly association with Britain does not involve the exploitation of India’s resources and her people by British capital–assured a privileged position by constitutional safeguards and backed by military power which is a deadweight on progressive Indian economic development in the interests of the millions of India–and if the equal citizenship of Indians in the Commonwealth is a fact and not the helotry that it is today in the Dominions and even in India, and lastly, if such association does not involve participation for the exploitation of fellow Indians and backward African tribes, a partnership with Britain would be most welcome. The partnership has to be one not imposed by Britain, but one to which India voluntarily agrees considering her advantages. There is here no tyranny of phrases clouding the real issues, and no rejection of Dominion Status conceived as it truly ought to be. An Indo-British partnership, provided it is free in the fullest sense of the word, would be the most natural culmination of the relations of India with Britain. The circumstances of India, the ideals of democracy and freedom that India cherishes as Britain does, make such a partnership in common purposes the only solution of the problem of Indo-British relations. It is significant that Mahatma Gandhi has visualized the future of India as in a partnership with Britain for their mutual advantage and for the good of the world.

For the Government of the country the Congress seeks a democratic framework. It desires to see the sovereignty in the State, now assumed by the British Parliament, vested in the Indian people. It would base the constitution of India on the widest suffrage, "adult or near adult suffrage." It regards this as the most equitable adjustment of conflicting claims in this country and the safeguard for ensuring that the interests of the masses prevail over against the interests of the few and the privileged.

It is not only in the areas known as British India that it wants to see democracy established. It desires its establishment in the area of the States as well. It regards India as one whole and the people of India as one nation, of whom the people of the States form an indistinguishable part. It desires the end of autocracy and the sweeping away of the remnants of feudalism which flourish in the States under the protection afforded by the Paramount Power. It would establish the same civil and political rights in the States as in British Provinces. It desires to see the level of administration in the States brought to the level of administration in the Provinces. It would urge a consolidation of the areas of the smaller States which are too small and too poor to afford the cost of modernised administration to make this possible. The Congress has never expressed itself in favour of extinguishing the Princely Order; what it has always insisted upon is that the system of autocratic Government in the States should be brought to an end, that responsible Government be introduced in the States and, further, that the Princes should take a civil list. It has been exhorting the Princes to march in line with modern trends and line up with the progressive forces in the country by becoming, by their own free will, constitutional monarchs.

The Congress regards unity as fundamental. It is conscious that the winning of freedom as well as its maintenance depend alike on the achievement of unity. It seeks therefore to perfect the unity it has created by making the national movement embrace all the people of India. Politically this unity is to be expressed in a Federal structure of Government for all-India. The Congress ideal of Federation is one which would be constituted by the two types of units, States and Provinces, re-arranged on a linguistic basis, enjoying a like measure of autonomy–the widest possible consistent with the unity of India–equality of Status, with the residuary powers vested in the federating units, and an organic and indissoluble union of the units for their necessary common purposes of freedom and self-protection and ordered progress along modern lines.

But, for the sake of the unity of Federation, the Congress will not sacrifice democracy or the ideal of complete freedom. The Federation of the Act of 1935 vests the powers of Paramountcy, on the basis of a new legal theory, in the Viceroy, and reserves the field of the relations of the Government of India with the States in his hands. It creates, so to speak, a lower and higher type of federating unit in the Provinces and States respectively; the States come into the Federation at their own sweet will and under conditions which make them participants in the Government of British India, without in any wise themselves being bound. And the entry of the States into the Federation makes the evolution of India into a free State without the consent and approval of the States impossible. The Act of 1935 forbids Parliament itself to alter certain provisions of the present Act without such consent. Such alterations render the Acts of Accession of the Federating States null and void and thus they return to the conditions before Federation.¹ The unity promised by the Federation of the Act of 1935 is at the expense of the evolution of India’s constitutional powers towards Dominionhood as well as democracy. The basic reasons for the rejection of the Act of 1935 were these. Nationalist India would wait rather than sacrifice the greater for the lesser principle, democracy and freedom for the sake of unity at present which means the admission of the tutelage of Britain and of the dominance of the States in perpetuity. From the point of view of India’s march towards freedom, the Federation of the Act of 1935 was a step backwards from the Reforms of 1919. The Federal ideal to embody India’s unity, to be acceptable, has to combine Independence and Democracy with Unity.

The existence of unappeased minorities has been stated to be the stumbling block to the realisation of Indian freedom. The attitude of the Congress with regard to minorities has been defined several times. It regards the problem as a purely domestic one to be settled by mutual agreement among the elected representatives of the communities concerned. The Congress has proclaimed that the satisfaction of the minorities is one of its objectives, and that no constitutional settlement would be acceptable to it unless it has the willing assent of the minorities themselves. But it denies that all the minorities which now claim special privileges are real minorities. The Muslims are a special case. They are a very large part of the Indian people, and the danger they fear is not that their rights to an equal treatment would be jeopardised in a self-governing India, what they desire is the assurance of a definite share in power in the future scheme of Government, constitutionally or otherwise. The Europeans and other commercial and planting interests in India would not constitute, according to the Congress, a native minority which stands in need of any protection. Taking the country as a whole, Anglo-Indians, Christians, Parsis, the aboriginal tribes, Sikhs and the Scheduled Classes would constitute real minorities whose position would need to be protected. The principles that Congress advocates for the settlement of this problem are:

1. A system of fundamental rights to be guaranteed to all citizens irrespective of their religion or race, This would include the protection of race, religion, language, education, educational and religious endowments etc., and provisions against discrimination in the public services.

2. Reservation of seats in the Legislatures on the basis of population, with the right to members of the minority communities to contest further seats as they choose, on the basis of common electorates.

3. Minimal representation on the Provincial and the Central Executives to be secured by convention. There would be no limit to the maximum of the places a minority may occupy on any of these bodies.

4. A guarantee of a swift policy of education and advancement economically for all the castes and creeds of India. ²

These are the safeguards which the Congress would offer to the minorities. What the Congress desires is that the minorities should not isolate themselves as separate entities with differing interests, but consider themselves as part of the Indian people. This is the nature of the solution which the Congress has advocated in the past and would be willing to accept at any time.

Since the minorities and, in particular, large sections of the Mushms have not accepted these, the Congress now offers a new method of approach to the problem. The representatives of the communities chosen through separate electorates, if the communities so desire, but chosen on the widest suffrage, may formulate whatever safeguards they desire for their security. The Congress desires a solution by agreement between such duly authorised representatives and the representatives of the majorities in the country. Failing an agreement, the matter may be settled by arbitration, and the Congress would for its part accept any safeguards such as may be devised by an arbitral body to which the parties may agree. The Congress believes that this method has the merit of giving a final answer to this vexed question.

The Congress, it must be noted, is not unwilling to come to an agreement with other parties in the country; it has been most anxious for a communal settlement. But it is equally anxious that the solution should be one that is consistent with the interests of Indian Nationalism and does not sacrifice justice and the fundamental principles for which it stands.

II

The method by which the Congress would have the future constitution of India framed is through a Constituent Assembly. This Assembly is to be elected by the widest electorate. The different communities of India are to have a representation according to their population. The Assembly, in other words, is to be a true picture of India’s different communities in their exact proportions. The Assembly is to make the constitution for India, settle her minorities’ problem and her relations with external powers. The Princes of India will have the option of being represented in the Constituent Assembly. But their representation must be based on the vote of the people of the States through an electorate of the same kind as in British India. The Congress wishes a democratic method for the solution of the constitutional problem, as it sees in a Constituent Assembly the only body that is capable of voicing the true opinion of the people and of evolving a constitution truly indigenous to the country. It wants the future constitution to be truly a creation of the people. It does not matter if such a procedure leads to an imperfect political structure from the point of view of constitutional theory. It would be at least real. ³ The people will be learning, in the only way they can learn, the precious art of governing themselves.

The demand is for self-determination for India and the concrete form of the demand is the Constituent Assembly.

It has been suggested that the demand of the Congress for a declaration of Britain’s intentions towards India was made in a spirit of bargaining at a most inconvenient moment for Britain. But if one follows the history of the National movement, and makes a serious effort to understand the thoughts and acts of the leaders of the National movement during the many years of its existence, as well as the careful attitude of non-embarrassment of the war effort in India, one would see that the charge cannot be sustained. The present stand of the Congress would appear as the only policy open to it under the circumstances.

Both the goal and method of the Congress have been a part of its programme for a considerable time. As a mass movement which has spontaneously sprung up as the natural reaction and protection against the exploitation of India by Britain, as the expression of the new hopes of the Indian people to vindicate their natural right to an honourable existence and to regain their self-respect, the Congress has been led to evolve its ideal in the course of its struggles for well over half a century. From the mild claim to be admitted to the public services in India, through the claim for the creation of local representative institutions and advisory bodies, the Congress has advanced to the claim of full self-government for India. It stands today for the complete Independence of India and a democratic polity. As the Congress has grown, its ideals have evolved parallel with it. The development of the Congress has been from an organisation of a few intellectuals trained in Western culture and anxious to Anglicize her gradually, to a genuine movement of the masses, voicing their grievances and representing their aspirations. It is today conscious of the great tradition and culture of India’s past and of the individuality of her people which it is desirous of preserving while modernising India. It is this outgrowing of the Congress which explains its insistence on the ideal of democracy, and a democratic method for the framing of our constitution. The Congress must represent the masses, or it represents nothing in Indian political life.

The Constituent Assembly became a part of the Congress programme only recently. This is traceable to two or three main causes. The first of these is the spread of the conceptions of democracy among the people. The second is the manifest failure of every other method for finding a solution of many of our vexed constitutional problems. Every other method had been proved to lend itself to manipulation in the interests of the few. There is a third reason. The Constituent Assembly offers a method of building the strength of the nation. It offers a concrete and practicable way in which the masses whom the Congress represents could give expression to their ideals and aspirations.

It has been sometimes assumed that the proposal for a Constituent Assembly is new. But the fact is otherwise. What is new is the name and not the principle. It has been implicit in the demand for self-determination and Independence which Nationalist India has been urging for a long time. The Swaraj claimed by the Nationalists has always been defined to include the right of India’s representatives to frame the constitution. As long back as 1921 Tilak was urging the exclusive right of fashioning the form of government and determining the most appropriate constitution for India." ⁴ In the more specific form of a demand for a Constituent Assembly, it made its appearance only later. The distinction of first having suggested the slogan and programme of the Constituent Assembly belongs to Mr. M. N. Roy. Its popularisation was due to Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru. Mr. Roy urged the Constituent Assembly as the positive counterpart to the boycott of the Simon Commission, when it was making its enquiries into the Indian constitutional problem in 1929. The Constituent Assembly was to be the organ through which the popular parties were to build the new State. It was to be based on mass organisation from below, and was to be the culminating point of such organisation. It was to be the instrument through which power was to be wrested from the British, and for building up the foundations of a new and free Indian State outside the structure of British Imperialism, and based on the people.

The rejection of the Government of India Act in 1936 was accompanied by a demand for a Constituent Assembly as the only and proper method of framing India’s constitution. It became part of the official programme of the Congress in 1936, being accepted by it at the Faizpur session.

III

The ultimate and immediate aspects of the programme of the Congress must be clearly distinguished. The framing of the constitution by a Constituent Assembly, the establishment of full democratic institutions, the setting up of a federally united India with autonomous Provinces and States, and planned economic development belong to the former aspect. They constitute a programme which necessarily takes time to realise and the Congress is not blind to this. But a beginning must be made along the ways which will inevitably lead up to them. For this, immediately, the Congress urges a declaration of the freedom of India and the treatment of India as a free country to the largest degree possible, by setting up National Governments enjoying the confidence of the people. These must be allowed, in complete freedom, to direct the policies of the country towards the desired ends. This freedom is essential for both the maturing of the ultimate programme as well as for present safety. Such representative Governments will work the preliminary agreements through negotiations with Britain, for a settlement of many difficult problems such as Defence, the British personnel in Indian Government, British commercial interests in India, the question of the Public Debt of India and others, and help to place Indo-British relations on a footing which would make the theoretical equality of India with Britain a real equality. This is the only way in which the transition from the present to the future can be effected with ease and goodwill and in swift time.

The Congress is well aware of the difficulties of realising its programme. It is aware that this is contingent upon one of two things. Britain must be morally persuaded that the programme of the Congress is the only method of dealing with the Indian question and voluntarily abdicate her powers. It depends on the willingness of Britain to shed her Imperialism, in actual fact, under the moral pressure of the Congress. In such a case a peaceful transition to the new order in India is possible, and a partnership of the progressive forces in India and in England emerges, with the common object of advancing the welfare of the Indian people and for the greater good of both Britain and India. Alternately, a grim struggle awaits the Congress. Under the leadership of Gandhiji and the influence of the great moral principles for which he stands, whose value is really perceptible in the midst of the carnage of the war of civilised nations in Europe, every effort will be made to avoid the struggle and achieve the goal of freedom by the unique method of moral suasion or a bloodless war. The Congress is dying for co-operation, but is prepared for a fight if that should become unavoidable.

It is not alone the Congress that stands up for these objectives of freedom and democracy. The Muslims as represented by the Shias, Momins, the Ahrars, and the vast body of Nationalistic Muslims in Sind and the North-West-Frontier Province, where the League’s hold is negligible, stands by the programme of the Independence of India and a Constituent Assembly. Today it might appear that the League is the most important organisation of the Muslims of India, But even the admission of this would not lessen the importance or prevent the growing strength of the progressive elements among Muslims who stand for the ideals which the Congress represents.

The Liberals of India, who must be considered a dying sect, but among whom are to be found some of the most outstanding intellectuals of India, are again in favour of the freedom of India as an equal partner in the British Commonwealth in the immediate future. Their programmes too assert the need for truly National Governments in the present and the rapid Indianisation of India’s Defence to meet the present emergency. At a slower pace, but surely, the Liberals urge the freedom of India. It has been their misfortune to fall between the two stools of British extremism and Indian Nationalism.

Among Indian parties the All-India Muslim League has a different policy and programme. But even the League stands for the Independence of India as its ultimate goal. Its main thesis is that the Independence of India must await a settlement of the communal problem to its satisfaction.

We may conclude that the national demand is an almost unanimous demand of all parties and of all shades of opinion. While, in the method and pace of advance suggested, there may be differences, there is a substantial identity of purpose among them all. They want alike the freedom of India and a democratic State with complete equality with Britain. They want immediately the recognition of this new status by the establishment of truly National Governments representing the peoples of India.