BY SARDAR RAO BAHADUR M. V. KIBE, M.A.

It would have been in the interests of all the parties concerned in the well-being of India, if the Home Rule Bill drafted by the late Dr. Annie Besant and introduced as a private measure by a Labour Party member of Parliament had been placed on the Statute Book. But it was not adequately supported, because on this side it was regarded as vague or inadequate, and on the other side as too idealistic and premature. It had, it is true, left many things for future development, but those constitutions which evolve by conventions are more lasting than those that are rigid in their structure. The science of Politics in India was floating, and symptomatic of the state of the society. The English Constitution is largely the result of a conventional growth. The latter, thus being akin to the genius of the former, should have been followed here. The present Government of India Act is, too lengthy and therefore intricate.

Its distinguishing feature is distrust of the party to which power has to be ceded. No doubt the representation of too many interests, the threadbare discussion of the measure in several main and subsidiary conferences, the gathering of opinion by taking evidence, and the intervention of the diverse Indian States, which are politically considered a unit apart, have made it so.

Having regard to the interests of India as it has grown under the aegis of the British rule in a century and a half, the Constitution foreshadowed by the Nehru Report would have made for the more rapid progress of India towards a place in the sun than the present one will ever make. The former broke on the rock of electorates. The introduction of the principle of weightage in representation and the acceptance of separate electorates in favour of the biggest and most influential minority community in India, by the Lucknow Pact, however statesman-like it may have been at the time, has not brought luck to India which it was expected to do at the time. Indeed it was claimed that there would be ‘luck now.’ It is true that this, and the subsequent Khilafat agitation, succeeded in rejuvenating a paralysed, though once virile and potent, part of the Indian population. But world forces and the exclusive nature of the majority party have widened the breach. It may be that it is a passing phase, which will last a generation or two. There are hopeful signs among the younger generation, and, at any rate, in the talk of older statesmen of both the communities, in this direction, although the strength of the present opposing forces cannot be underrated.

Whatever the cause, it is universally acknowledged that the Government of India Act of 1935, in its federal constitution, has succeeded in dissatisfying all parties in India. The legislature proposed for its Government is fissiparous, conflicting, weak as a democracy, or for that matter any ‘cracy,’ fantastic as relying on unrealisable and therefore false hopes. And the Government that will be formed out of it will not only suffer from these defects but will also be toy-like. It will be composed of incongruous elements and persons holding views in all stages of development, but its administrative functions being meagre it will become grandiose and therefore ridiculous. The key functions will be carried on by a bureaucracy, mostly foreign, as at present.

Now that the road of conventions is being trodden in the Provinces, it is not unnatural to derive some lessons from it. All the same, it too can carry matters a little further only, as the Governments in the Provinces, in spite of the adherence of English Governors to understandings and constitutionalism, are not fully responsible to the electorates.

Having regard to the fact that the machinery for amending the Act is not easy to move, it cannot be denied that the path of conventions may be treated as an experiment in itself, if satisfaction can be given by the British Government that agreed conventions, not transgressing the letter of the law, will be established and that they shall be binding on the successors of the present Government in power almost like an Act of Parliament. A gentleman’s agreement will be adequate to go on with.

There is a bright spot in the Act, to which attention does not seem to have been drawn. Part II. Section 6 (5), leaves the progress of the principal partner, which is British India, free in its advance. Those States which like to join in these matters may do so. At present the minimum for a federation will be agreed to. This is in accordance with the idea suggested by me in a lecture delivered by me at a meeting of the East India Association in London in December 1931 and published in its quarterly Review of January 1938.

But Part V generally is the darkest Chapter. Its provisions go back upon the fiscal convention at present in force. No convention to modify them seems possible. At any rate, to establish one in the interests of India will tax the ingenuity of the subtlest minds. The Chapter cannot be made satisfactory without wide amendments. As it stands, it will retard the industrial progress of India, until the ideal of the population depending entirely on village industries is attained, or the larger interests of the Empire compel the paramount power, even in its restricted sense of the expression, to make India self-sufficient in the case of many industries.

There are some other features of the Act which are also likely to stand until the whole Act is amended or rather replaced by another. Principal among them are the constitution and powers of the Council of State, the indirect election to the Legislative Assembly, the idea behind the retention of the Advisers to the Secretary of State, the independent Railway Authority, and lastly, the freedom of the Reserve Bank from the control of the Federation.

In my lecture in London, I had anticipated that the control of the Army, which will not be given up by England for a long time to come, at any rate till India is fully and financially ready to bear the burden, will involve the retention by it of control over foreign affairs, including the paramountcy over Indian States, and control over the finances of India.

The working of the special responsibilities of the Governor-General can be satisfactorily settled by negotiations leading to a construction of the Act, as in the case of the Provinces. So also by convention, matters of the departments of the Advisers may come up for discussion in the Council of Ministers, and some of them for criticism before the two Chambers of the Legislature.

But in order that the political progress of India may be fully attained, reference has to be made to two preliminaries which I had laid down in London. One is the guaranteeing of the fundamental rights to minorities, and the other the reconstruction of the Provinces on a linguistic basis having regard to regional, economic and cultural considerations. Some slight attempt has been made in the latter direction. Many more Provinces, on the principles at the basis of the creation of Orissa and Sind, can be re-constructed. Although the linguistic consideration is the predominating factor, yet the other considerations will have to be given their due weight. To deal with this question satisfactorily may require a series of articles, but that it is of vital importance cannot be exaggerated.

If, however, India obtains an assurance from the British Government, as suggested by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, that the present Act will be replaced by another Act prepared by Indians themselves, the utmost that seems possible is that the Central Government will be formed with a nominee of the Congress as the Premier, two other Ministers of the Congress persuasion, one of whom will be a Mussalman, two representatives of the Indian States, one of whom will be a Mussalman, a representative of the Europeans or Anglo-Indians and, possibly, one of the depressed classes. Thus, out of eight members, three will be Hindus, three Mussalmans, and two of the other denominations. A ninth Minister, also of the Congress persuasion, may be added, if the Congress insists. It may also succeed in having an Indian as financial Adviser of the Governor-General. The present political and Foreign Secretaries may be merged into one and raised to the status of one Adviser. For Army affairs the Commander-in-Chief may be nominated. How far such a heterogeneous Council of Ministers will work may be left to the future. But in the transitory period it will have to be worked.

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