The Indian Independence
Act, 1947
BY D. V. GUNDAPPA
Ink of some sombre shade will have to be mixed with
red and gold by the historian of India in writing the figures “1947”. With the
passing of the Indian Independence Act by the British Parliament, India opens
undoubtedly a new chapter. But it cannot be a chapter all of hallelujahs. The
spirit of the past will brood upon its pages with many dark posers. Can India
obliterate the vestiges of Britain’s imperialism? Can she rise above theocratic
sectionalism and grow to the secular brotherhood of nationalism? Can she set
aside the relics of feudalism and make possible for all Indians the full human
stature of democratic citizenship? Can she achieve all this without raising
flames and spilling blood? Such are the problems set to India by the callous
irresponsibility and spirit of sabotage actuating Britain in the process of
leave-taking. Great is England in a part of her record in India–great,
inspiring, memorable. But it is the other part that will cast its shadow across
our path for many a long day yet. Great as is her glory for having put India on
the road to world-politics, far greater should it have been if only her soul
had remained steadfast in loyalty to the memories of her Burke and her Montagu.
The voice of idealism used to be heard from England once. Today she is
dominated by calculating opportunists.
The Mountbatten Plan is the biggest master-stroke
of Britain’s imperialist diplomacy. That the Congress and the Muslim League
could not find it in their hearts to resist it is a tribute to the finesse of
its technique. It offers each party a semblance of success; and each feels that
to reject it is to leave for itself no other prospect than that of a pathless
wilderness of strife and self-exhaustion. It is from prudential motives
relating to the party’s own programme,–and not because of the justice or the
reasonableness of the plan as judged from the point of view of India as a
whole,–that the Congress and the League have accepted it, the latter not
without reservations in form at least. To the Congress, the plan holds out the
promise of a free hand to shape the future of at least the larger part of what
today is British India. To the League it offers the consolation of a diminutive
version of its own demand. To non-party India, however, it forebodes the
continuance of communal convulsions and civic unsettlement for an indefinite
length of years. We are buying independence at the cost of unity; and loss of
unity is loss of peace, for peace comes from a sense of security; and where is
security if you have no means of influencing the ways of your neighbour? The
independence that would have you keep armed guard day and night against your
neighbour, if you want to live at all, is in effect nothing but a snare of fate
that holds you at his mercy!
Britain is not going away in any mood of remorse or
of renunciation. She is only bowing to the inevitable. She recognizes that the
upsurge of nationalism in India is irresistible in its vitality; that the
pressure of world-politics is inescapable for her; and what is more, that with
her man-power reduced and her resources depleted and with the growing urgency
of her own domestic problems, her ability to keep hold on India is no longer
what it used to be. Hence has it seemed expedient to her to take herself off.
But this peremptory expediency of quitting need not preclude her considering
one or two ways of making the best of what to her is a bad situation:
(i)
Securing the means to
retain her influence (as distinguished from power), at least
indirectly, upon India’s affairs; and
(ii)
Making it in any case
impossible for India ever to grow to be a first-rate Power, and therefore a
rival to herself, in world-politics.
These motives are at the heart of the Mountbatten
settlement. Of the two Indias that Britain leaves behind, if one is smaller and
weaker, that must satisfy the other; and incidentally, the weak one may be
induced, by the very strength of the rival in the neighborhood, to seek the
continued support of the outside friend. If both India’s choose to remain
within the British Commonwealth, there is nothing for Britain to fear at all.
If only one of them does so, even that is not an advantage to be despised. If
neither chooses to stay in Britain’s parlour, then they are sure to quarrel
some day soon and the States may be depended upon to take sides. So let
disintegration work. Such is the working of the imperialist mind.
There is a verse in Britain’s old National
Anthem,–a verse for long in disuse out
of regard for the prevailing internationalist sentiment,–which sums up her
traditional foreign policy: -
God save the King!
O Lord our God arise,
Scatter his enemies
And make them fall;
Confound their politics!
Frustrate their knavish tricks!
On him our hopes we fix;
God save us all.
“Confound their politics!” That is the inside of
the “Split and Quit” policy now adopted towards India in contradiction of a
century’s history and in despite of the professions of a hundred British
statesmen. If that were not so, Churchill’s acquiescence would be hard to
explain.
It is idle to argue, as some people do, that
Britain was without any decent alternative to “ Split and Quit”. What about the
Cabinet Mission’s (Pethick-Lawrence) Plan itself which indeed had met with Mr.
Jihnah’s acceptance in June 1946? He then slipped into error in Britain’s view;
and opportunity had to be given him to retrieve. If such was not the intention,
why did not Lord Wavell insist on the League members leaving his Interim
Cabinet since the acceptance of the Pethick-Lawrence Plan was a pre-condition
to the League’s getting a share in the Interim Government? Is it decent for
Britain to plead that she let herself be cowed down by the outburst of violence
in Bengal and the Punjab? No. Lack of the physical means to sustain the
Pethick-Lawrence Plan cannot be admitted as the excuse for Britain’s desertion
of that Plan. For a true explanation, we have to turn to a relieving feature of
that Plan which the Mountbatten settlement has deliberately dropped, namely–a
common unifying Centre for the whole of India inclusive of the States. There
seems to be difference of view among Congressmen as to the relative merits of
the Pethick-Lawrence Plan and the Mountbatten Plan. At the A.I. C. C. meeting
on June 14, Pandit Pant pointed to the defects of the Pethick-Lawrence Plan,
with its weak Centre and Grouped Provinces. But Maulana Azad differed in his
estimate of its value and declared that that now discarded plan is “the best
solution of our problem”. Its supreme merit was its keeping India whole and
intact. If the Centre was weak to start with, it could confidently be expected
to gather strength as it grew in the course of its working. The experience of
America is encouraging on this point. And that was the very ground for
imperialist Britain’s apprehensions. A United India should be made impossible.
“If you cannot divide and rule any more, then divide and ruin.” That is
Churchillian counsel.
This interpretation is not mere speculation. Refer
to Clause (c-i) in Par. II of the Cripps Proposals of March 1942. You will at
once recognize in it the real parent of the Mountbatten Plan. Churchill was the
Prime Minister in 1942, and Amery the Secretary for India. The Cripps scheme
thus had in it the cunning of the grand Tories. How could they tolerate India
in revolt? But the revolt was persistent and growing, and Britain was feeling
weary and fatigued. So, distracted and desperate, the cornered Conservatives,
deriving inspiration from the creation of Ulster in Ireland, devised “Divide
and Ruin” as the proper substitute for their more generous formula of “Divide
and Rule”. Linlithgow, Wavell and Mountbatten are the instruments successively
employed towards the Churchillian objective. The strategy remains Churchill’s; the
tactics is Attlee’s. The tempo of the present settlement too is part of the
tactics.
In announcing the terms of his settlement on the
3rd of June, Lord Mountbatten said: “A United India would be by far the best
solution of the problem.” Who came in the way of the best? Not Gandhi or Nehru,
but only those who were encouraged by the Cripps (1942) offer of 2 or 3 or even
564 separate “Dominions”. If, instead, Cripps had offered just a single
Dominion for all India, made that offer in a firm unwavering tone and not in
tentative pusillanimous phrases, and had accompanied that offer with practical
measures to implement it forthwith by the formation of an Interim Cabinet of
National Government, the course of history might have taken a more fortunate
turn; and Bengal and the Punjab might have been spared the blood-bath of many
months. Why did not Lord Mountbatten, who sighs so loudly for the United India
of his dream, strive to establish one single Dominion for at least the period
of his charge? This great “triphibian” (tribian) hero of Churchill surely
cannot pretend that he has not the requisite military strength to enforce such
a proposal. The whole country including the Congress, as is now clear, and not
perhaps including only the Muslim League, would have stood by that scheme. Let
us look at its outlines closely for a moment, because some people seem to be of
the view that no other plan could possibly have been devised to meet the
situation. The following seems an altogether feasible alternative: -
(1) India–the States and the Provinces of the present British India
taken together,–to be constituted into a single Federal State with the status
of a Dominion of the British Commonwealth (as set out in the Cripps scheme of
1942).
(2) This status, i.e., membership of the British Commonwealth, to
last till the close of June 1948 and until such date thereafter as may come to
be determined according to the procedure prescribed by the Constituent
Assembly.
(3) The Federation to deal with just those subjects that are assigned to
the Union Centre under the Pethick-Lawrence Plan, namely–Foreign Affairs,
Defence, Communications and the requisite Finance.
(4) Bengal and the Punjab each to be divided into two separate
Provinces as now–one having a Muslim majority and the other a non Muslim
majority.
(5) The Muslim majority Provinces to have liberty to form regional
groups or sub-federations of their own within the Federal Union.
(6) After the lapse of a period of time to be fixed by the Constituent
Assembly, but not later than a date also fixed by the same Assembly the Muslim
majority Provinces (and similar States too) to have the right to secede from
the Federation on a vote in favour of secession given by a specified special
majority in a plebiscite taken in the Province (or State) concerned.
(7) The Union of India to have the right to terminate its membership of
the British Commonwealth on the adoption of a resolution to that effect by a
special majority of the Federal Legislature, the decisive quantum of majority
and the procedure for counting votes–whether Unit-wise (for each State or
Province separately) or Community-wise,–being fixed by the Constituent
Assembly.
(8) On the above basis, the present Interim Government to be transformed
into a self governing Dominion Government, with a few representatives of the
States added both to its Cabinet and to its legislature.
(9) On all other matters, such as the protection due to minorities,
tribal areas, etc., the Pethick-Lawrence Plan to apply wherever it is relevant.
A settlement made by Britain on the above lines
would have by no means been condemned by anyone as an “imposed” one: because
that settlement would truly be a reflection of what there is in the mind of an
overwhelmingly large part of the people of the land. If the Muslim majority
areas want to lead a separate life, they would be free to do so if, after the
present excitements and passions have had time to cool down, a strong desire
for separation is still seen to persist. This must satisfy the Congress too
with regard to its recent doctrine that it would not coerce any unwilling unit
or area to be a fellow-partner. And as Muslim majority areas are partitioned
off from the rest in both Bengal and the Punjab, the grounds on which objections
were raised against the Provincial Grouping clauses of the Pethick-Lawrence
scheme would no longer remain there to be urged against the sub- federation
arrangements suggested above. Thus the substance of the Muslim League’s demand
would have been in effect granted to it. Nor could the Congress have any other
fundamental objection to the scheme, because it makes provision for the
dissolution of the British tie and the declaration of complete independence by
India when the will of the Indian people is indubitably made up that way. Such
a settlement Lord Mountbatten could have brought about, without exposing
himself even in the least to the charge of having “imposed” it.
If communal feuds continue in India under the One
Dominion scheme after Britain’s leaving and after the severance of her
connection, no one surely will think of blaming Britain for it. But while she
is still here, it is unquestionably her duty to enforce, by every means
available, what she in her conscience feels to be the demands of Right and
Justice, without being distracted or overawed by what this Indian party or the
other says or does. The moral basis for Britain’s authority and power in India
is in the nationalizing and liberating mission which her responsible spokesmen
have always professed and which derives sanction from the whole course of her
political history and her literature and her larger policies of administration
and public education in this country.
No one would think of recommending Dominion
Membership of the British Commonwealth to India without qualification.
Under the head of advantages, that Membership will
mean: -
(i)
a certain addition to
India’s military strength and security: The resources of the whole British
group of countries will be available to India in case of need.
(ii)
a considerable
influence for India in world-politics by virtue of her being one of a large and
powerful group of States: Where her ideology and that of the British sisterhood
coincide, or where India succeeds in winning over her fellow-members to her
side, she can work the more effectively for international justice and peace.
On the other side of the ledger are to be entered:
-
(i)
restriction of
India’s freedom to deal with Non-British States. Even as Britain feels she is
under an obligation to consult her Dominions about her Indian policy, India as
one of the British State-fraternity may feel obliged to take note of the
susceptibilities of Africa or Australia in shaping her policies towards Turkey
or Japan.
(ii)
the possibility of
India’s involvement in inter-Commonwealth complications in matters which are
primarily or materially of no interest to her. The other members of the
Commonwealth are racially and culturally the kindred of the British. As blood
is thicker than water, India may feel herself treated as a stranger in
Britain’s family circle; and it is not impossible that questions brought to her
notice are questions already decided in effect, though not in form, by the
inner family council.
The two columns of the ledger-page thus look evenly
balanced. If we put into the scale the ties arising out of the long and
eventful history of Indo-British association, and the many undoubted claims of
Britain for India’s gratitude, the course to be recommended to India is one of
permanent friendship with Britain rather than that of formal membership of her
Commonwealth. The Indo-British alliance should be based upon long-term treaties
and pacts and on commercial and cultural relations. The acceptance of
Dominionhood for the present may be a means of transition to such an alliance.
From this point of view, there is nothing to amend
in the Objectives Resolution adopted by the Constituent Assembly on the 22nd of
January. Ireland supplies a parallel. Starting as a “Dominion” in 1922, she
declared her independence in 1937; and though not within the British
Commonwealth now, she continues to be “associated” with that Commonwealth. Some
such “external associateship” is perhaps the proper form of relationship for
India to have with Britain and her family.
The initial trouble is in that Britain declines
nowadays to look into her own conscience for guidance and calls upon the public
mind of India to lay down the law for her conduct, after having however broken
up that mind herself into a hundred sharp splinters of glass. Doing the will of
the public is of course a highly virtuous rule; but have you also observed the
preliminary virtue of not tampering with the will of the public? Lord Minto
started driving a wedge between Moslems and Hindus forty years ago, and Cripps
refined the technique five years ago by promising satisfaction to every
dissident party, if only the party would keep making trouble enough for long
enough. After this, how can you find one public mind to give you
guidance? You have made many of it by your own design; and you now
profess to be bewildered by the variety of its voices. Your present respect for
India’s public opinion is in truth a stunt!
If Britain ever felt herself to have been caught
between the jaws of a moral perplexity, she could have found a way out of it,
as assuredly as it may be given to any man to do so, by comparing notes on the
issue with Mahatma Gandhi who, without doubt, represents not only the general
mind of India, but also the moral conscience of mankind. Where the best
independent judgement of Britain and the verdict of a man of the ethical
sensibilities of Gandhi coincide, Britain may be sure she has gone as near to
the heart of the right and the just as any mortal may hope to. The unity of
India is a principle upon which both Pethick-Lawrence and Gandhi are in
complete agreement; and when that is so, Britain has on her side all the moral
authority she could need to give effect to that great principle,–even by the
assertion of her military might if necessary. But is she so utterly forgetful
of self-interest and so unreservedly absorbed by passion for righteousness?
If British diplomacy has not risen above taking
advantage of Mr. Jinnah’s intransigence, Mr. Jinnah has himself come out as a
master-tactician. He knew when to speak and when to hold his tongue, when to
hasten and when to be dilatory, when to be blunt and when to be ambiguous. One
cannot help wishing the Congress leaders had been endowed with a fraction of
his self-mastery and his instinct for choosing his hour and his word. The gift
that has distinguished the Congress leaders is that for speaking and acting as
though tact and timing had no part to play in the management of affairs, and
for disclosing their plans before the proper date and more than is called for
by the occasion,–as for example in its denunciation of the provision for the
Grouping of Provinces under the Pethick-Lawrence Plan. Conscious of the
faultlessness of their logic as of their ethic, Congress leaders soon grow
impatient and proceed to take the fort by storm. Mr. Jinnah calculates his
chances and plays his cards with a cool hand. That the creed of non-violence
puts him in a different world from the Congress’s is of course a fact of vital
consequence, in more senses than one. With all that and with all the great
support of Britain’s officers, the League could not have achieved even its
present modest success if its leader had been less shrewd, less adroit, or less
constant.
The Congress has met the new situation in the
proper spirit. Maulana Azad has explained the attitude with characteristic
dignity and sense of the larger values:
“At his very first meeting with Lord Mountbatten,
Maulana Azad was asked if the country could wait for some time so that an
agreement could be arrived at. He told the Viceroy that the situation could
brook no delay and the question should be settled either way at once. He (Azad)
did not think that the present decision was the right decision: but the Congress
had no alternative. The choice before the Congress was not which plan to
accept and which to reject, but whether the present state of indecision and
drift should continue.”
“The division is only on the map of the country and
not in the hearts of the people, and I am sure it is going to be a short-lived
partition….Our attitude towards our countrymen should not undergo any change by
reason of the fact that certain parts had elected to secede.”
“The Congress had no alternative”, although Lord
Mountbatten had, and could have offered one, if he had cared. The most
satisfying feature of today’s position is that the festering thorn in the flesh
of India’s body-politic is at last to be drawn out. So long as the pus-forming
foreign matter is lodged there, there can be no hope of the wound ever getting
healed. It will be for the Union Constituent Assembly to see that the vitality
in India’s body-politic rises. Now that the limitations placed upon its freedom
so as to accommodate the League may be set aside, it can go forward to build up
a strong integrative constitution that should prove attractive to the waverers
and even to the present seceders.
From the point of view of immediate practical gain,
the exit of the League from the present Interim Cabinet and its absence from
the Dominion of India successor are things not to be regretted. The League
section was a drag upon the nationalist section of the present cabinet; and
constant friction and standstill in public business was the result. But these
gains are no compensation for the loss involved in the partitioning of the
country.
Let us visualize the outstanding features of the
picture of Post-British India as presented by the so-called Indian Independence
Bill launched in pursuance of the Mountbatten settlement. There are to be–
(1) Two Dominions of the British Commonwealth,–India (or the Union of
India) and Pakistan,–each standing armed to the teeth and gazing screw-eyed
across the border for any sign of provocation or excuse for war; each free to
cut the Commonwealth tie at will.
(2) In Pakistan, the non-Muslim minorities feeling forlorn and bitter.
(3) A large and powerful group of Pathans resentful of inclusion in
Pakistan (or maybe the Indian Union) and determined to achieve an independent
Pathanistan.
(4) In the other Dominion of India, Muslim Minorities nursing grievances
and setting up a perpetual cry of ill-treatment and oppression.
(5) The States, big and small,–as many as 562–left free to stand outside
both the Dominions, with seeds of revolution seething within their borders and
helpless against hail and storm blowing from any quarter of the globe.
“Break up and be d—d!” is thus the message of the
Indian Independence Bill to us. This inference is warranted by two fatal
defects in the Bill:
(i)
The absence of any
kind of provision to prevent acts of aggression or hostility on the part of
either of the Dominions against the other. The least that could have been done
is the insertion of a clause requiring that neither Dominion would enter into
treaties and pacts with a foreign Power without the consent of the other. Such
a clause would no doubt modify to some extent the degree of independence
connoted by Dominion status. But so modified for both the parts, independence
would be absolute for the whole of India. In other words, both Dominions should
regard independence and sovereignty in the eyes of the outside world as a
single All-Indian concern. They should at the very highest level be not
“foreign” to each other. Nor can there be any other way to safety and peace for
each either.
(ii)
The omission to
prescribe an authority to perform the functions, which were till now the
Suzerain’s, of securing public peace and good government in a State disturbed
by internal disorder and failure of the administration. If organized violence
starts in a State either against the Durbar for political reasons or for a
Pakistan like division of the territory, there must be some one to deal with it
promptly and effectively, unless the trouble is to give the Dominions an
opportunity to seize power for their own hands.
Neither fear is by any means a fancied one. How
then can we bless such a Bill? But we have no other option than to take it. We
take it only to annul it as soon as our patriotic statesmanship can evolve
something better to take its place.
The cloven hoof of imperialism is left visible in
the position assigned to the Indian States in the Mountbatten settlement. After
the passing of the Indian Independence Act, the States will stand released from
the hold of Britain’s Suzerainty, which becomes extinct at once. The States,
which really means the Princes, will then be free–
(i)
to join the existing
Constituent Assembly and in due course to become Members of the Union of India,
as provided for in the Cabinet Mission’s plan of May 16; or
(ii)
to go into the
Pakistan Assembly and there do likewise; or
(iii)
to stay out of both
and make “particular political arrangements” (by means presumably such as
treaties, pacts, etc.) with either or both of the Dominions; or
(iv)
to keep floating in
mid-air, boasting of their isolation and independence.
Very virtuously, Britain will not let the States
enter the British Commonwealth separately as Dominions. (Lord Mountbatten’s
Press Conference, 4-6-1947). This point is however not quite decided, as will
be seen later. If any State went to the Viceroy “for having a separate
treaty,–economic or military,–with His Majesty’s Government, he would transmit
such a request to H. M. G.” “We are not actually going to enter into any fresh
negotiations: we are coming out of all our commitments.” (Ibid).
“Asked what H. M. G.’s attitude would be in case of
a conflict between the people of a State and an autocratic ruler before June
1948, the Viceroy parried the question by stating that the date of
transfer was going to be fairly early this year, somewhere round about August.”
Such has been the way of Paramountcy all along the
line,–parrying questions, evading scrutiny, shirking responsibility and taking
refuge in the twilight rooms of a sacrosanct Department. And now that it is
obliged to go, its manner of going is as sinister as was its manner of coming
and living here. Not even the Princes, apart from their people, have any reason
either to remember it with gratitude or to regret its departure. To be left in
the lurch is hardly the kind of reward to be expected for all the loyalty and
devotion that the Princes lavished upon the Suzerain, often to the annoyance of
their countrymen and even in derogation of their own self respect. As to the
people of the States, nothing could be more natural to them than to feel that
they have simply been “sold” by the too-trusted trustee. It was open to
Britain, even within the last twelve months, so to use up her Paramountcy that,
at the time of taking leave of India, she could have felt in her heart the
satisfaction of having fulfilled a high mission of liberation and could have
heard in her ears the resounding plaudits of liberated millions. The highest
fulfillment and justification of Paramountcy would have been in her bringing
the States into an independent national polity and endowing them with the
springs of vital strength that are the gift of democracy. But Britain allowed
herself to be tempted out of that course by the vindictive thought of seeing
the apple of independence turn into ashes in India’s mouth. Hence her willful
irresponsibility in respect of the States.
Having had it in her power to leave behind an
integrated and politically settled India, England has planned to quit after
seeing India in disorganized fragments. But we may not be angry. Britain has
never pretended to be ruling India in the Nishkama-Karma spirit of the Gita.
She is quitting ~ because she is obliged to; and it would have been surprising
if she did not ‘feel some resentment at the prospect of having to end so
abruptly the career of power and profit she built up for so long with a zeal
and a thoughtfulness that are born only of a sense of perpetual possession and
absolute mastery. Sabotage is a very human trait; but India being our country
and our concern, as the Viceroy reminded us through his answer to a
journalistic interrogator, it is for us to repair the results of the sabotage.
Our Princes have not been under a good star. They
are stranded ‘today in Queer Street, orphaned and friendless. They missed the
one opportunity they could have had to earn gratitude as patriots of India.
They have from the very beginning looked upon the future of India as somebody
else’s concern and not theirs. Preferring reactionary advice and ‘purblind
leadership, they thought that safety for them lay in aloofness and passivity,
and were content to let British India have all the initiative. If only they had
pulled down the blinkers put on them by the agents of the Political Department
and their own heavily-feed lawyers, the Nizam should have regarded the whole of
India as his own responsibility no less than does Gandhiji; Sir C. P. Ramaswami
Aiyar should have felt (as indeed he once did) as much concern for the future
of All-India as Sardar Patel and nothing smaller than the entire country from
the Himalayas to the Cape should have been the subject of Bhopal’s statesmanly
thoughts as much as it is of Pandit Nehru’s. But the generality of Princes
somehow came to assume the role of mere spectators, remote and unconcerned,
when the nation, of which they are members as much as any of the millions of
their Motherland, was struggling to make its way to a better destiny. Not until
Britain, for reasons of her own, announced her resolve to wash her hands of all
responsibility for India did they realize what a precipice lay right in front
of their feet. The Pethick-Lawrence Plan showed a way to safety through the
Constituent Assembly. They however chose to sit on the fence, under the pretext
of not wishing to take sides as between the Congress and the League. Why should
they not have taken what to them appeared the right side? How is it that the
Congress League dispute was a matter of such complete indifference to- them?
What prevented them from taking the initiative into their own hands when an
opportunity occurred –say, after the Cripps negotiations of 1942, –and showing
a new way to both the Congress and the League’!’ It was a duty for an Indian
Prince, as for any other Indian, to state to the world what he, in his
independent judgement, considers to be the best solution of India’s political
problem, whatever be the views of the League and the Congress. Why did the
Princes look upon India as a foreign country and India’s future as the
exclusive business of the British, or of the Congress, or the League? Therein
lay the initial failure of our Princes. They deliberately let others grasp the
initiative, which should have been theirs. And when the Constituent Assembly
began, instead of going and taking their seats at its table as by right, the
Princes stood outside, negotiating and bargaining, as though the Assembly was
the personal business of Pandit Nehru’ or of Dr. Rajendra Prasad. The Assembly
is there as truly for the States’ as for the rest of India; and the Princes are
in gross error to consider themselves outsiders and keep waiting to be invited
and treated as wedding-guests.
The Chamber of Princes has resolved to commit
Harakiri. It never did anything so befitting. Its life of over 25 years has
been a record of vapid verbosity purposed to submerge democracy and
nationalism. Our Alwars and Bikaners and Bhopals and Patialas found in the
Chamber a safe platform for the display of their pompous oratory, as of their
gorgeous jewellery, and for the exercise of their: talents for propitiating the
Viceroys and fortifying themselves against the rising power of their own
country and their own people. At the time when the Montagu-Chelmsford Report
was before the country, containing among other things the proposal to set up
the Chamber of Princes, the present writer and a few fellow-workers for the
States’ people managed to place before the Subjects’ Committee of the Special
Session of the Congress in Bombay (August 1918) a draft resolution to the
effect that “it would be inexpedient and improper to institute a Council of
Ruling princes or any similar body before real constitutional government is
introduced in the Native States.” Notwithstanding the support given to it by
Lokamanya Tilak and many others, the resolution was thrown out under the
influence of the earnest exhortations of Mrs. Annie Besant and Pandit Malaviya
about the inadvisability of antagonizing the Princes, -Princes who, as they
reminded the audience, had paid so munificently for the Benares College and fed
people so sumptuously in their Chatrams. The Congress leaders in those days
were altogether unable to see the dualism in the body politic of an Indian
State. But those who lived the common man’s life in the States never expected
anything better from the Chamber of Princes than what the country has since
witnessed. The Chamber goes today unwept, unhonoured, unsung. The British have
now “served it right”.
It is some satisfaction that the second at least
among the bigger States has at last made up its mind to join the Constituent
Assembly. Mysore has the support of fact for the claim that she was the first
among the political ‘entities of India to plead for the creation of an
all-India polity. It was a Mysore publicist who laid a Memorandum before
Secretary Montagu in February 1918 (printed and published at the time)
outlining a scheme for building up the States into federal union with British
India. The then Maharaja of Mysore was the first among the Princes to declare,
in clear and impressive terms, for a federation of India. His Ministers, Sir M.
Visvesvaraya and Sir Mirza Ismail, have consistently and uniformly stood up for
the federal ideal these many years. As a matter of fact, Mysore had so far
prepared herself to join the federation under the Government of India Act:’of
1935 that, by about February 1937, her Instrument of Accession had almost been
got ready for final signature. That a State so well prepared and so eager to
take its place in the- national polity should have hummed and hawed for months
before deciding to enter the Constituent Assembly i shows the helplessness of
public opinion against the whims and fancies of men in authority under an undemocratic,
non-responsible regime. When Mysoreans heard of Baroda’s courageous readiness
to go into the Constituent Assembly and of the similar decision of several
smaller States, as they felt genuine gratification in one part of their being,
they could not help feeling humiliation in the other part owing to the
hesitancy of the authorities in [their State. Not that the cause of the States
and their people would have gone un cared for in the Constituent Assembly if
the representatives of any State had not been there. But it is an opportunity
to the States both to contribute to, and to benefit from, the all-India point
of view; and there is also need to emphasize the all-India character of the
Assembly.
It is strange that Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Acting
President of the States People’s Conference, should have given his approval to
the conditional entry of a State into the Constituent Assembly, agreeing that
it may reserve its right to join the Union or not later on. It is neither
honourable nor just for a State to make such a reservation. Having joined your
own hand in cooking the meal, you cannot afterwards say that you will not eat
it. If you apprehend that other hands may make the taste so different from what
you like it to be as to render it unacceptable to you, it is fair that you
should give your specifications to the others in clear terms beforehand and
promise to join in the feast only if the food is to your satisfaction, your own
hand not meddling with it in the meantime. When once you have definitely joined
the Assembly, it is fairplay that you should accept its decisions, whatever
they be. You will of course be entitled to state your own view of every matter
there and seek the Assembly’s support for it. But when you have done the best
possible for your case and the Assembly has come to a decision after adequate
discussion, you are bound in justice and honour to accept it. This is indeed
the foundation of any constitution. Without such a general acceptance by the
participants of conclusions arrived at by an agreed procedure, no assembly or
parliament can function to any purpose.
Hyderabad and Travancore, among the bigger States,
have definitely refused to go into either Constituent Assembly. Whatever one’s
view of their refusal, one cannot accuse the two States of ambiguity and a
design to put any party in a false position.
There is really no reason why Sir C. P. Ramaswami
Aiyar should be surprised either at the tone and volume of the criticism poured
on him for his having declared Travancore independent, or at the mere “touch
and go” of criticism in the case of Hyderabad. People had for years seen the
ways of Hyderabad and learnt what to expect of that State. They were not
surprised to see H. E. H. take a line of his own. Not so in the case of Sir C.
P. R. He had so highly distinguished himself as a staunch all-India nationalist
and opponent of division that, when at length the opportunity came to set up at
least a nucleus for an all-inclusive Union of India, people were not prepared
to find him cutting himself away. The earnestness of the remonstrances of
friends and the appeals of Gandhiji is an index to the high value attached in
the nationalist camp to Sir C. P. R’s collaboration in a common task; it is a
measure of the disappointment felt everywhere that so glaring a defection has
taken place. It must also be admitted that the firman of the Nizam
announcing his preference for independence was not provocative in tone. Sir C.
P. R., like some of his adversaries in the controversy, enjoys a combat; and
for all his complaining, he is not showing any sign of weakening or repenting.
Is it also not likely that some at least of the vehemence in the C. P. R.
controversy is to be traced to ill-adjusted personal equations on both sides?
Is there not some sense of personal hurt rankling somewhere and making
temperatures rise? But the ultimate sufferer is India.
Sir C. P. R. assures us that Travancore will
co-operate fully with the Union of India in regard to defence, foreign affairs,
communications etc. But is that enough? Is that the maximum contribution that
Travancore has it in her power to make to the solidarity and strength of India?
Sir C. P. R. has always pleaded for a strong Union Centre for India; and he
should know that loose pacts and conditional co-operation, which falls short of
substantial identity between two States, serve only to emphasize their separate
Interests.
Sir C. P. R. has explained that if India had
remained undivided, he would have advised Travancore to take her place in the
Union. He is only stultifying himself in this explanation. If independence,
which he prizes so absolutely now, is to take only the second place relatively
to national unity, why should it stand first when that unity has suffered some
damage through the work of a third hand?
Hyderabad seems to be heading for serious trouble.
The popular mind has been in a ferment for years there; and recently it is
becoming more and more articulate. But the authorities there are beyond being
argued with. If the seen experience of the British Power in the face of an
insurgent people cannot impress the advisers of the Nizam, what else can? The
resignation of a nationalist-minded, progressive and far-seeing statesman of
the eminence of Sir Mirza M. Ismail from the office of Prime Minister is no
good omen for Hyderabad.
What will the Nizam do about Berar? Section 47 of
the G. I. Act of 1935 makes it clear that when the agreement between H.E.H. and
H.M.G. ceases,–as it does under Sec. 7 of the Independence Act,–Berar should
cease to be counted an annexe to the Central Provinces. On the other hand, for
forty years or more, the people of Berar have been led to regard themselves as
the permanent citizens of British India, with no possibility of their ever
having to go back to Hyderabad. It is also a fact relevant to the issue that
conditions of administration and standards of citizenship in Berar and
Hyderabad are not on a par. How could one blame Beraris if they prefer to
remain where they are? The Nizam should be told that human beings are not
cattle and sheep to be transferred from owner to owner without reference to
their own wishes. Let him first attend to earning the approval of his subjects
in Hyderabad. If he is not persuaded to come to an amicable agreement with the
Dominion of India about Berar now, we will have to be prepared for a
first-class all-Indian crisis. There again we shall have to thank the
pusillanimity of the British Government for the grievous anomaly.
No serious-minded man can persuade himself that the
prospect before India is one of refreshing peace and undisturbed recuperation.
We shall have to face unrest and trouble of many kinds. Fanatical excesses in
one Province, retaliation in another, reprisals in a third. mob fury in labour
ranks, civic commotion in the States, corruption in elections, fight for
places, party intrigue,–all these we will have to pass through. Should not at
least the Non-Pakistan parts of India stand together as one man during those
fateful trials? That is the question of questions today. What is Sir C.P .R.’s
answer?
It is astonishing that some eminent lawyers have
worked themselves up to a great excitement over what they regard as the legal
aspects of Paramountcy and of the sovereignty of an Indian State. There is no
definite body of accepted law on the subject. There is no court invested with
jurisdiction in cases of dispute with the States. The rulings of the British
Political Department and its precedents and practices, which may be taken as
something like case-law, are in a state of chaos, being susceptible of
varieties of construction. That Department’s judgement of what was expedient
for the moment was all that there was to fix the relations between the State
concerned and the Paramount; and that Department drew its authority as well as
its inspiration from British imperialism. Is imperialism subject to any law
available in the armoury of our lawyers? Has any court jurisdiction over it?
The erudition of our Alladis and Ambedkars is irrelevant and unavailing here.
Moral considerations and practical good sense, rather than formal law or subtle
juridical theory, should be our support in considering the position of the
States.
Paramountcy (or “Suzerainty” as it is termed in
certain Acts of Parliament) is a peculiar species of authority, unclassifiable,
indeterminate in composition, standing by itself, and not accessible to
interpretation and debate under any ordinary law, or before any court known to
the law of the land. It forms part of the prerogative of the British Crown and
belongs to the domain of the constitutional law of Britain. Those who can speak
with authority for Crown and Parliament have pronounced the decision in
unambiguous and conclusive terms. According to them, Paramountcy may be extinguished
by Britain the moment she chooses to do so; and it has pleased her to decide
that such a moment shall be the same as the moment of her stepping out of
British India. She need leave behind no residuum and no legatee. Paramountcy is
simply not there when she is not there.
The law of our lawyer-politicians may be sound; but
are they sure that their reading of the facts is as sound? The late Sir P. S.
Sivaswami Aiyar (whose personal kindness it was the present writer’s privilege
to enjoy) used to contend that Paramountcy was acquired and built up by Britain
in the capacity of ruler of British India and therefore primarily for the
benefit of British India. But for whose benefit was her rule established in
British India itself? Surely for her own. If it be that Britain’s empire is for
British India’s benefit, why does British India ask her to quit? When Britain
thought it necessary to justify the inscrutable workings of Paramountcy, it is
true she sometimes advanced the plea of “the good of India as a whole”. (See
the Butler Report, par. 51 and 55). This was merely good public policy. And let
us not forget to note that the object was “the good of India as a whole”, not
simply of British India. Sir P. S. Sivaswami Aiyar, using the language of
praedial law, would claim for British India the superior status of a dominant
owner, assigning a servient position to the States. It is the invidiousness of
this supposed relationship,–based as it is upon an inverted reading of
history,–that galls the States, both the Princes and the people. When the
present writer ventured to point out in his book “The States and Their
People in the Indian Constitution” (1931), how facts stood against Sir
Sivaswami’s argument, how no such distinct political entity as British India
was at all in existence at the time when Suzerainty was having its beginnings
in treaties and pacts with the States, how the Super-State of Paramountcy and
the Sub-State of British India were being built side by side at one and the
same time, how the easement analogy is wholly inapplicable, and how Britain,
having acquired the attribute of Paramountcy for her own purposes, must be
deemed to have the right to dispose it of in her own free discretion,–one of
the present high legal disputants was so good as to review the book approvingly
in the pages of this very journal* and also write a personal letter to the
author, expressing appreciation of the criticism of Sir Sivaswami’s theory.
Apparently, it is as easy for some lawyers to change their law as to change their
clients.
THE C. P. R. BROIL
The legalistic approach is the wrong kind of
approach in this matter. The law to be invoked is the moral law; and its proper
instrument is persuasion, not threat of retaliation or revenge. “The good of
India as a whole” is an ideal which Sir C. P. Ramaswami surely shares with his
countrymen. The question to be addressed to him is: not “What right has
Travancore to stand aside?” or “How can she claim independence?”; but “Can
Travancore do her best for India by keeping herself out?”, “Is not any
subtraction from the highest strength possible for India, a subtraction
proportionately from the maximum of strength possible for Travancore as well?”
It would be surprising if Sir C. P. Ramaswami did
not have a hundred points to pick a quarrel over with the Congress. So
orchidaceous a personality must find it hard to be wholly pleased with any one
under the sun; and the awkward exigencies and the clumsy movements of the
leadership of a non-violent mass revolution must be incomprehensible to an
aristocratic temperament like his. But if he makes up his mind to take his
place as before among the forces of progressive nationalism, we may be sure he
could for himself discover a way of return from the fortress which his recent
speeches and statements on Travancore’s independence have erected around him.
But if neither he nor the Congress’s leaders have stature enough to bow as
friends, both will have combined to dwarf India.
Moreover, all his bluster notwithstanding, we may
be sure Sir C.P.R., can realize that circumstances have a way of developing and
exercising pressure beyond any statesman’s reckoning. Travancore’s life is
naturally and inextricably interlocked with that of the neighbourhood. Pakistan
may hope to have its isolation supported, for a time at least, by differences
of religion and social milieu. Travancore’s heartstrings cannot be so snapped
or tucked up at the border. The India outside calls to the India inside the
State; and the outside is richer and mightier in territory and resources. It is
force majeure more than anything else that built up Britain’s
Paramountcy. How long does Sir C. P. R. hope to be there to keep nationalist
forces at bay? One great enthusiasm or one great terror will be enough to break
down all barriers. Why does Travancore prefer to shrink when it is open to her
to grow as a partner in a vast national and international enterprise?
It is not good for a State that anyone man in
it,–even though he be the Maharaja or a man of miracles,–should have in his
hands so much power as Sir C. P. Ramaswami is now able by himself to wield in
Travancore. It would be odd if it has not occurred to him to ask himself
whether the line he has been pursuing, with an energy all his own, is not in
the long run bound to affect the position of the Maharaja in the eyes of his
own people. Is it really proper that he should take upon himself the whole
responsibility for making Travancore stand outside the Indian Union? He has
sometimes admitted the claims of democracy. Should he not have waited to
ascertain the wishes of the public through the re-constituted legislature? Was
it necessary that he should have been in such haste to commit the State before
consulting the citizens? Sir C. P. R. has been overforward and impetuous. If he
does not wish to leave behind him a scene of trouble for the Maharaja, it is
time he thought of retracing his way.
It is symptomatic of the sluggishness of the
ethical sensibilities of our age that at the prospect of the disappearance of
Paramountcy, our best men should be thinking of the claims which the parties
may successfully assert for themselves rather than of the duties which it casts
upon them. Neither the Congress nor the Princedom can honestly take credit for
making Britain withdraw her Paramountcy. That withdrawal is, so far as we are
concerned, a voluntary act of hers, maybe one required by the exigencies of her
own policy. In any case, when what has been so important a factor in our life
is about to cease to be, our thoughts should first have turned to the nature of
the vacancy thereby to be caused and the best manner of filling that vacancy.
Paramountcy definitely had certain important functions to perform, whether it
did in fact perform them or not. How are we going to provide for those
functions? Our politicians have no doubt pleaded for the recognition of the
principle of the Sovereignty of the People. And there are others who still
honestly doubt whether the doctrine of the Sovereignty of the People or that of
thc Sovereignty of Dharma is the sounder doctrine. Nothing is however
gained in practice even if popular sovereignty be conceded as a theory. How
will it be endowed with implements for action? That is the vital issue. Let us
set down the chief purposes which Paramountcy has clearly acknowledged as its
own: -
(i)
Protecting the States
against attacks from without and within, and securing their continued and
unimpaired existence;
(ii)
Guaranteeing to the
Ruling Princes and Chiefs their personal and dynastic rights and privileges;
(iii)
Stepping in to
correct misrule and ensure good government; also to arrange for administration
during the Prince’s minority etc. and other contingencies;
(iv)
Making equitable and
harmonious adjustments between the Individual claims and interests of the
States and those of India as a whole.
These are undoubtedly functions essential to the well-being of both the States and the rest of India. It should not be difficult to create new agencies acceptable to all three sides–the Princes, the People of the States, and the Union of India–to take charge of the above functions and to re-distribute power among those agencies accordingly. The arrangement need not in the least smack of the old Paramountcy or permit of the assumption of a new imperialism over the States by what once was British India. Congressmen have always protested their allegiance to democracy and intra-national brotherhood and equality of status in citizenship. They can well afford to give evidence of that allegiance in the manner of the invitation they extend to the States.
Of the four specified purposes, the first,
namely–preservation of territorial and political integrity,–can be guaranteed
by the fundamental Constitution of the Union of India. The second, viz.,
disputes about the personal and dynastic rights of the Ruling Prince, can be
entrusted to suitable arbitrational and judicial authorities. The need for the
third, namely–correction and reform of internal administration from outside and
government during the Prince’s minority etc.,–can be completely obviated by the
adoption of democratic responsible government by the States, a constitutional
position therein being defined for the Prince and for the operation of his
authority. The fourth purpose, relations with the rest of India, can be secured
by bringing the States into equal partnership with other members of the Indian
Union. In short, the powers comprised in Paramountcy have to re-incarnate
partly as the local democratic citizenship of the People in the State and
partly as their All-Indian federal citizenship. The first will secure the
integrity and autonomy of the State, and the second will secure the due
implementation of all its external rights and interests in a manner more
efficient than the old Paramount’s.
It was entirely within the competency of Britain as
Suzerain to use up and re-incarnate the essence of her Paramountcy in the
quadrilateral arrangement above suggested. But from the very beginning,
Britain’s spokesmen–the R.T.C.’s and Cripps and the Cabinet Delegation and
Linlithgow and Wavell–have consistently turned a deaf ear to the cry of those
most affected for well and for ill by Paramountcy. They have all alike declined
to see,–even to see–representatives of the States’ People.
Lord Mountbatten, speaking to pressmen on June 4,
said: “We must try and approach the question of quitting power in as legally
correct a manner as possible.” This ostentatious regard for legal
correctitude is fantastic pedantry. The Empire was not acquired under the
sanction of any law, nor have the Indian States been dealt with in rigid
conformity to the high canons of jurisprudence. On the contrary, authoritative
declarations have repeatedly cast the Indian States beyond the pale of
International Law. Expediency and sense of advantage have always been much more
than any juristic considerations in the making of the Empire; and it is
pharisaical to plead law or the want of it at this juncture as the reason for
Britain’s commissions or omissions in the States.
If Lord Mountbatten would consider the spirit as
well as the letter of such law as there has been in existence to govern the
relations of Britain with the Indian States, His Excellency will at once
discover that obligations exist for Britain in respect of the people of the
States, in forms just as solid and serious as those which Britain has
discovered towards the Moslems. As though the support so long and so
uncritically given to autocracy and mediaevalism in the States carried with it
no responsibilities towards their people, paying no regard whatever to this
principle of bare justice, Britain today has the conscience coolly to walk away
from the scene.
Pandit Nehru, speaking at the A. I. C. C., meeting
on the 15th, claimed what he calls “inherent Paramountcy” for the Dominion
Government:
“There is a certain inherent Paramountcy in the
Government of India which cannot lapse, an inherent Paramountcy in the Dominion
State in India, which must remain because of the very reasons of geography,
history, defence etc., which gave rise to it when the British became the
dominant Power in India. If any body thinks that it lapses, then those very
reasons will give rise to it again.”
The argument lacks the lucidity which usually marks
Pandit Nehru’s pronouncements. Geography, history etc.,–though not
defence,–were all there before the British came; but they gave rise to no
Paramountcy before the British moved their deft hands. It is Britain’s policy
and diplomacy of 180 years,–from Clive to Shore, from Wellesley to Dalhousie,
from Canning to Wavell,–from “reciprocal friendship” to “ring fence”, from
“subordinate isolation” to “subordinate union,”–that built up her Paramountcy.
And what Britain created, Britain dissolves: and nothing of it is left behind.
If what Pandit Nehru refers to, however, is the compulsive power that
geography, history, defence etc., can put into the hands of the Dominion
Government and the pressure which that Government could thus exert upon the
States, his use of the word “Paramountcy” can only be regarded as rhetorical.
He means by it force majeure, the pressure of solid fact. Strictly
speaking, Paramountcy is a species of that very imperialism upon which Pandit
Nehru has waged ceaseless war all these years. Paramountcy implies the
existence of vassals or feudatories; and that is an order of things obsolete in
our day. We today look for equality as between State and State, as much as we
look for it as between man and man. No more overlordships and no more fiefdoms.
The name proper for the kind of authority that Pandit Nehru would secure for
the Dominion of India is “federal authority”. Federalism is as far from
Paramountcy, or hegemony, or imperialism, as democracy is from despotism.
The position of the States after Britain’s quitting
is left very much a matter of doubt. Lord Listowel said, on June 3 (as reported
in the press): -
“After the transfer of power, the States would be
free to choose their own future. British Paramountcy will end. Courses left
open to the States would be autonomy or affiliation with either Pakistan or
Hindustan. He would not say whether the States were eligible for Dominion
status, but did declare that Britain did not contemplate entering into special
relations with any of them.”
Prime Minister Attlee, speaking on the Indian Bill
in Parliament on July 10, was no more definite or conclusive on this subject.
He said: –
“The transition of the States from the lapse of
Paramountcy into a free association with the new Dominions is a process
naturally requiring proper discussion and deliberation. “If I were asked what
would be the attitude of His Majesty’s Government to any State that has decided
to cut adrift from its neighbours and assert its independence, I would say to
the Ruler of that State: ‘Take your time and think again. I hope no irrevocable
decisions will be taken prematurely’.”
Travancore and Hyderabad may “take time and think
again”, and again and yet again. If their most mature thinking however confirms
them time after time only in their preference for independence or in their suit
for alliance with Britain, what will be her answer to them at the very last?
Will she not be moved by their orphaned condition? Will she remain deaf to the
pathetic cry of their appeals?
The British Government has not yet made up its mind
finally. Until the question arises actually and compellingly, we may be sure
Britain will not think of that question. The British are no doctrinaires. The
change in their attitude towards the Pakistan demand, from the Pethick-Lawrence
fiasco to the Mountbatten mess, is a case in point. The resignation with which
they accepted the innovations of De Valera in Eire is another. The flexibility
of the British constitution is itself an evidence of the British characteristic
of being prepared to change in answer to change. What Britain will ultimately
decide to do, if our States in their freedom keep pressing for affiliation in
some form, remains to be seen. We need not be surprised if two or three years
hence, Hyderabad or Travancore or any considerable group of States were at last
recognized as a Dominion, or admitted under some other name as a Member of the
British Commonwealth. After all, why should Britain bind herself for ever to
having only two Dominions in this country and not a third and a fourth? Of course
there are risks. Her having many handles to manipulate here may rouse local
suspicions and foreign jealousies. It may create for her obligations not now
foreseeable. As against such risks, what are the gains she may look for from
having Dominion relations or treaty alliances with our weak potentates? What
advantage has Bhopal or Travancore or Mysore or Hyderabad to offer that can
outweigh the disadvantage or entering into commitments with States in such
complicating circumstances?
Nothing can be postulated at present about
Britain’s final course of action towards such States as will seek association
with her independently of both Pakistan and the Indian Union. The event will
dictate the policy. Everything depends. So all is left moot and ambiguous.
Much has been said about the Indian States not
being ‘persons’ in the eye of International Law and their having to stand alone
and friendless in the world, if Britain refuses to look at them when they keep
themselves outside both the Dominions. The argument has no substance. The
Indian States were till now not recognized by any Foreign Power, because
Britain had made herself their sole and exclusive spokesman. Now when she is
nobody to them, they are free to seek and form contacts for themselves with any
other country in the world. If Russia or America cares to have alliances with
Bhopal or Indore, who is Britain to come in the way, and how? Recognition in
the international world is a matter of each different country’s independent
individual choice; and the crying chaos in that world today does not give one
any hope of any one consistent principle or uniform policy prevailing there. It
is thus not impossible that some of our States will see encouragement there.
The question which they have to put to themselves is:–“Would it be worth
while?”, “Would it be the best for us?’, “Is that really better in any way than
the membership of the Indian Union, or even as good?”
The first task for the nucleary Union Government to
take in hand is the ingathering of the States. No State should be allowed to
keep out, unless it be a State that has chosen to go into Pakistan conformably
to the terms of geography, as so piously enunciated by Viceroy and Secretary.
Islands of scattered little principalities are a constant source of disturbance
and even danger to the neighbourhood. Apart from that, their subjects are a
living part of the nation and, as such, deserve to be rescued from the
isolation of their narrow existence. Every consideration of justice and equity
as well as of patriotism would justify the Union Government’s adopting all
necessary measures to get the States into its own corpus. The measures should
in the first instance be persuasive, and only when they have failed may
recourse be had to compulsive alternatives. A fact to be borne in mind in
dealing with the Princes is that the imperial protector who had lulled them
into sleep has scuttled away, without giving them any time to know where or how
they stand. This sudden desertion by a trusted friend qualifies them for a
measure of sympathy at the hands of the successor. The Constituent Assembly
should, in framing the Union constitution, remember to keep a door open in it
for a period of 4 or 5 years for the entry of such States as are for the moment
at a loss to find out their bearings in the new situation, and would like to
have some time to get themselves ready. The door should indeed be open to admit
even Pakistan or any of its constituents in course of time.
But if a State continues recalcitrant and repels
all friendly advances, would the Union Government be justified in employing
coercive measures to get it into the Union? The Congress placed itself under a
handicap in subscribing to the doctrine of self-determination and forswearing
the path of coercion towards unwilling localities. Strictly viewed, all State
activity is coercion. When an individual tries to exercise self-determination
in a manner that does not coincide with the way of life prescribed for him by
the community, you consider him rebellious and punish him. When he defies your
laws, you apply sanctions. Self-determination in matters that concern the
community, by one whom the community claims as its own and whose membership it
regards as necessary for its continued existence, is, if allowed by it, the
beginning of its own disintegration. If the State renounces its right to do
whatever may seem necessary to secure its own integrity and strength, it will
soon be no more. The democratic principle that government should be with the
consent of those to be governed has doubtless its sovereign place in the
organization of the State: but to apply it outside that place may be ruinous.
That principle, for example, is not to prevail in a magistrate’s court. Nor in
the case of a mutinous squad in a military or police regiment. Every form of
social organization does imply acceptance by its members of a certain measure
of compulsion; and a well organized society is one in which the liberty of the
individual, or of the smaller group within the political community, is
harmoniously adjusted to the needs of the safety and strength of the whole.
Self-determination and coercion are both the extreme points of one and the same
relationship. When an individual or a group chooses to break away from the
whole of which it was a part, whether that whole or its larger part should
adopt coercion to retain the other is, in the last analysis, as often a
question of expediency as it is one of morals. If the larger part is clear that
no ethical difficulties are involved, its right to employ such compulsive
methods as may be adequate is in the nature of a duty it owes to itself.
In the context of the Indian States, we have a
special point to note. When we speak of the refusal of a State to join the
Union of India, we are referring to the attitude only of its Ruling Prince and
not at all to that of its people in general. There is not a man in the States
outside the Palace circles who will not be grateful to be taken out and placed
on the road to all-Indian citizenship. Of this fundamental contradiction
between the Princes and their peoples, the British Government, which is largely
responsible for the contradiction, took no notice at any stage during the long
period of political negotiations in this country. If the Dominion of the Indian
Union would take into account the will of the people of the States, it need
feel no compunction whatever about taking effective action to get them into the
Union.
In the event of some of the States not being able,
for whatever reason, to join either the Dominion of India or Pakistan at once,
it is essential that there should be some authority created to act in matters
relating to such States during the interregnum between the withdrawal of
British Paramountcy and the advent of federal authority in its place. The
interregnum must be made, of course, as brief as possible. But not a day of
even that brief interregnum should be without some agency to look to issues
arising between the Union and a Non-Member State. Such an arrangement is
indispensable from the point of view of the Indian Union (or Pakistan) as much
as from the State’s. The agency may take the form of an ad hoc Commission
made up of five or six members,–two of them being taken from the Indian
legislature, out of whom at least one should be from its States’ section, two
or three others being representatives of Non-Member States, and the Dominion
Minister in charge of the States’ affairs being the Chairman. This Commission
will be responsible for all matters arising as between the Non-Member States
and the Union during the interregnum; and it will maintain the status quo
ante as far as possible.
Provision could easily have been made in the Indian
Independence Bill for the creation of such an agency to take charge, for a
specified period, of the duties that belong to Paramountcy and to re-distribute
responsibility there for between the State on the one side and the Dominion (or
its successor) of which the State is later on to become a component on the
other side, so that Paramountcy could end functus officio within a
reasonable period of time and not abruptly and mischievously as now. It is not
a little significant that the earnest pleadings of Congress leaders in this
behalf have gone ignored. As though the possibilities of friction and
unsettlement, which the setting up of two successors in British India when only
one was proper must bring with it, were not enough to plunge India deeper into
confusion, Britain chooses to leave behind 562 seed plots of disorder and chaos.
The newspapers have reported that Lord Mountbatten
has proposals for a “stand still agreement” between the States and the Dominion
of the Union, to be accepted immediately, on financial and economic matters,
and that Congress leaders have asked that that agreement should be made to
cover political relations also. The omission of political relations may lead to
grave harm. Conditions in the States are far from quiet. Trouble may break out
any moment. The Dominion should not find itself unprepared for the emergency.
It can readily be seen that to be without at least
a “standstill” arrangement, is for the States, to bring life to a stand still.
Why should not the Dominion, acting under the proviso to Sec. 7 of the I. I.
Act, discontinue the services of the Post and the Telegraph to a State which is
not,–as it may not be after August 15,–“India” for the administration? The
extent of the British Government’s irresponsibility can be judged from this one
instance of the inconvenience sure to be caused to the States’ public by the
new arrangement forced in defiance of a plain fact of geography. Why should the
public of Travancore or of Hyderabad be made to suffer for the ill-judgements
of their rulers who are not subject to the people’s correction? If in his
perversity the Chief or the Minister of a State declines to accept a standstill
understanding, where is the remedy for his people? The position created by the
Mountbatten scheme is full of such troublesome anomalies.
It is good that the Interim Government, in
preparation for the next phase, has set up a separate Department to deal with
States’ questions and that the new Department is to be in the hands of Sardar
Patel. The friendless have often found a friend in Mr. Patel. He is a consummate
tactician, with a shrewd eye and a steady hand. It was the clarity of his
vision and the firmness of his voice that sustained the morale of the public
during the uncertain and anxious months when the Wavell and Mountbatten
conferences were dragging on. The Patel touch, whether with a velvet glove or
with a “wagnukh” (tiger-nail), can be effective. If he has the
assistance of a small Consultative Committee, with Ex-Dewans like Sir Mirza M.
Ismail and Sir N. Gopalaswami Iyengar in it, we may take it that the States
will all have found themselves persuaded in the course of a few months to walk
into the Indian Union. It may not be extravagant to hope that Mr. Patel’s flair
for negotiation cannot fail even with Travancore and Hyderabad.
The attitude proper for the States’ representatives
to adopt in the Constituent Assembly is this:–The Union of India is as much for
the States to share in as for the other governmental units of India. Its
strength will be theirs; and their weakness is bound to be its. This is a
condition imposed by both geography and history and therefore by all the forces
of natural environment and inner psychology which determine our character and
our very living. Trying to go against this condition is to do violence to
nature and violence to ourselves.
Next, what is it that Princes or people have to
fear from their States’ joining the Union? The rights and interests likely to
be affected by the States’ membership of the Union are mainly of three kinds: –
(i)
Interests belonging
to the State as such, and therefore of consequence to both Prince and People,
such as the State’s territorial and political integrity, protection against
attack from without or within, internal sovereignty rights, fullness of
autonomy, special capital resources of the State such as mines, ports,
long-established rights and privileges in trade and traffic etc.
(ii)
Rights that directly
concern the Prince such as that of dynastic succession, hereditary titles and
dignities, court ceremonial etc.
(iii)
Rights of mainly the
People, that is–democratic government and the freedom of citizenship.
Under the first head, conflict is impossible between a Prince and his people as the interests concerned are to be shared by both. On the other hand, both are sure to stand united to safeguard the permanent possessions of their State. The Union cannot harm such common interests.
Under the second head, the people are not likely to be dogmatic at all; and in any case, there is no reason why the people’s representatives should oppose the claims of the Princes here, as they do not touch the people’s rights. There is no reason why the Union should be hostile to them.
It is only under the third head that divergence between Prince and People is likely; and here the sympathy of the rest of India will no doubt be with the People of the States. But it is impossible that the Princes today can be blind to the significance of the tremendous revolutionary change that has come over the entire country and the entire world. All will be well if they would, agreeing with the representatives of their own People, move the Constituent Assembly–
(1)
to set up a special
committee to draft the outlines of a model constitution of democratic
responsible government for the States, and
(2)
to authorize the
Union Government to appoint an ad hoc Commission, for five years in the
first instance, to advise that Government on all questions arising between
itself and the States and their progress in democratic responsible government.
Except in regard to this one point, there is no likelihood of any serious difference arising between the Princes and Ministers on the one side and the People of the States on the other; and the claims which the two sides jointly put forward on behalf of the States are not likely to meet with any opposition from the rest of the Constituent Assembly. The only factor likely to modify from the sovereignty claims of a State is the necessity of all-India national policies; but as the attributes of a federal Union are, on a long-range view, for the enjoyment of the component State as well, in equal partnership with other similar fellow-members, the States need not grudge the concession asked for by the Union.
In the Muslim League’s refusal to let the same
person be Governor-General of both Dominions (though provided for in the I. I.
Bill) and in its choice of Mr. Jinnah for the office in Pakistan, Mr. Attlee
could read an answer to his glib hope that “this severance may not endure, and
that the two new Dominions may come together again”. No one grudges Mr. Jinnah
the high honour. He is indeed accepting only a coronet when the crown of
Presidentship in an All-Indian republic should easily have been his, if only
his arms had been stretched out to their full length. Here is a colossus
choosing to squeeze himself into a dwarf’s chair. But it is not unnatural that
the father should be anxious to attend personally to the upbringing of the
child. It would have been better for Mr. Attlee’s hope if Mr. Jinnah could have
kept his natural paternal eagerness in check. His record is not encouraging to
those who look for a temperate and conciliatory use of authority. Fingers
accustomed to scissoring are not necessarily the best for suturing.
Unless people want the ‘Constituent Assembly to
under-estimate the gravity of the task before it, there is no point in
circulating the easy optimism which would assure us that somehow everything
will right itself, and somehow the two Indias will become one. How much will the
country have to suffer, and for how long, before the good prophecy somehow fulfils
itself? Twenty-five years after the separation of Ulster from the rest of
Ireland, there were questions in the British House of Commons about the
persecution of the Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. (The Hindu
of June 19, 1947). Here are a few extracts:–
About 20 Labour Members and a few Liberals drew
attention to “Ulster Tories”,–Tory Totalitarians exercising Dictator measures.
Mr. Bing said: “Religious sectarianism was
everywhere rife and encouraged even by Members of the Cabinet....Democracy
became a farce.”
Mr. A. Mulvey: “The position was the most
undemocratic in the British Commonwealth....Out of all Europe, only in Northern
Ireland was there a religious bar to public employment.”
Mr. Ede: “Civil servants in the employ of the
United Kingdom Government might suffer disabilities for their religious and
political views if transferred to the Northern Ireland civil service.”
Mr. Ede is the Home Secretary, and his words quoted
above occur in his reply to the charge. He did not rule out the possibility of
there being room for fears of that kind. His denial was formal, in the usual
official, diplomatic style. It in effect suggested the existence of grounds for
the charge.
Partition may not prove any better in India. It
certainly is no solution to the problems created for Government and citizenship
by differences in religion and theology. The only true and lasting solution for
religious and caste-made communalism is in making our people understand that
the State can have no concern with the way in which a man prays or eats his
food; that they must “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto
God the things that are God’s”; that the secular and the sacerdotal can
co-exist side by side, each without interfering with the other; that it is a
grievous error to import into the domain of citizenship considerations that may
be proper in the realm of religion and theology. In short, the nationalist must
summon courage to “debunk” religion and theology (without the least disrespect
to true Religion, of course) and promote the spread of scientific knowledge and
rational thought. There alone is the way to our salvation from religious
fanaticism and caste communalism.
The division of Bengal and the Punjab is to be
welcomed not as a solution of the communal problem, but as a measure to make
population groups more homogeneous. That is merely a palliative, not a cure by
any means. There is not a town and not a village throughout the length and
breadth of India in which Hindus and Moslems are both not found having to live
their life as neighbours and fellow-citizens. In secularizing their civic
outlook and in enlarging their sense of common interests is the way to the
dissolution of their denominational and sectarian antagonisms.
Irrespective even of the need of homogeneity, there
is something to be said for the reduction of the size of territory of some of
the existing Provinces of British India. Area and population in excess of
certain limits, deducible from general conditions all around, must prove
prejudicial to efficiency in the work of administration. Large tracts in almost
every part of India have long remained backward and undeveloped, because of the
concentration of the Government’s attention upon certain other localities near
about the bigger towns. If the new regime should mean anything tangible to
people out of sight and neglected till now, and if it should likewise mean the
addition of new resources of wealth and strength to the assets of the country
as a whole, our administrative divisions and districts should be made less
unwieldy and more compact. It must also be noted that an increase in the number
of Provinces gathered in the Indian Union will serve to make the representative
character of the Union itself more real and more conformable to fact, and
likewise increase its capacity to give general satisfaction.
No one who loves his country would willingly say anything
that is not pure praise and gratitude for the work of the Congress. But a
review of its policies may not be a disservice. Two complexes have queered its
policies during the last 25 years. One is the “fight” or N. C. O. complex.
Everything must be “fought” for. Nothing is to be attempted by way of tact,
management or negotiation. Every Congress worker is a “soldier”. The language
of even Mahatmaji is not free from military metaphors. The mentality fostered
is one of general opposition and resistance,–only civil resistance
though it be. You must demand all you are entitled to and take nothing less
than that all. You accept no concessions,–enter into no compromises. You always
stand prepared for a struggle, come what may. This “non-co-operation” attitude
practised for years cannot but affect one’s way of looking at things.
The other complex is that of “non-violence”, –a
thing unique in the history of political movements. To all the world including
the India of the past, the State is an organization of physical forces for
moral ends. Just as life is a combination of body and soul, and good living a
thought-out mixture of material and moral activities, the State has in its
composition something of the physical and something of .the ethical, both in a
certain ratio and modus of adjustment. The use of physical force cannot be
completely ruled out, even as ethical ideals ought not to be ruled out. This is
the old philosophy of political action. But the acceptance of non-violence as
the supreme rule of action disturbs the old scheme of relative values. Certain
old ideas of success must now therefore go unfulfilled.
The “non-co-operation” complex worked up the
Congress’s opposition to the Government of India Act of 1935; and everybody
realizes today that the acceptance of that Act would have both avoided the rise
of Pakistan and put the States within a national polity. The same mood of
“fight” impelled the Congress to throw away office in 1939; and all are agreed
today that it was an unfortunate move. Later, when Sir Stafford Cripps brought
his offer in 1942, the same faith in heroic remedies induced the Congress
leadership to concentrate attention on the military portfolio in the
contemplated Interim Cabinet, and almost to overlook the concession proposed in
it to Pakistanis and its make-believe approach to the States’ problem. There
are many who think that if the Congress had readily closed with that offer,
reserving for future consideration the clauses promising partition, our
subsequent history should have been one of peaceful progress to Dominionhood.
And now, the “non-coercion” doctrine, issuing from
the “non-violence” complex, has compelled the Congress to reconcile itself to
the fragmentation of India, modifying the ideal of all-Indian Unity. If
following Pakistan, the Princes propose to stand out, is the Congress bound or
not bound to observe towards them the rules of non-coercion and non-violence?
And in that connection, it should be remembered that the Congress has not
denied the right of the Princes to speak for their States, even though it has
doubtless pleaded the cause of their people. The Congress thus finds its hands
and feet caught in the knots of its own ideological tangle, and Lord
Mountbatten has had the advantage of it.
Lord Mountbatten has solved Britain’s problem, not
India’s. He is leaving behind a perfect bear garden for the Union of India to
manage. A new State erected upon the loyalties of religion and theocracy in
immediate co-tenancy, a number of weak disconnected States, big and small,
scattered here and there under mediaeval autocracies, suddenly thrown out of
shelter and not able either to keep their independence or to decide how to take
advantage of it,–these are the problems presented by the Mountbatten mess. The
Union Centre will need, for facing them, all the authority and strength that
the Constitution could possibly secure for it without weakening the Provinces
and the States and without crippling their initiative. Now that the Constituent
Assembly is freed from the need to accommodate the Muslim League, it will, we
may be sure, add to the list of Central subjects specified in the
Pethick-Lawrence Plan. The Union Centre must have complete power to bring about
the secularization of political and civic institutions by removing all traces
of religious and denominational separatism and the complete Indianization of
public policies by keeping provincial and regional loyalties under check. The
U.S.A. owes its present strength to the policy of all-inclusive and persistent
“Americanization” pursued vigorously for half a century and more. Building up a
nation is working on its psychology and reforming its character. That must take
strenuous and continued effort. In the following fields, in particular,
preference for the all-Indiaan outlook is essential:
(1)
Citizenship: Laws affecting the rights and duties of
citizenship, laws of naturalization and domiciliation, extradition, emigration
and immigration, inter-provincial public services etc. And election by general
constituencies even for seats reserved for recognized minority or backward
communities.
(2)
Education:
(3)
Economic
Development: Agricultural,
Industrial and Commercial Planning; Weights & Measures; Customs, Cesses
etc.
(4)
Social
Legislation: Marriage &
Divorce laws, Public Health regulations; Labour welfare; Workmen’s Compensation
etc.
(5)
Arbitrament: Settlement of non-justiciable disputes between
States and Provinces which are members of the Union.
(6)
Emergency: Taking necessary action to ensure public peace,
order and good government throughout the Union, including measures to deal with
famine, epidemic, earthquake, floods etc.
In all these matters, the Union Centre should be able to furnish an all-India basis and introduce uniformity in practice. People’s thoughts should be made habitually to turn to Delhi as the centre of their universe for as many matters as possible affecting their daily life and well-being.
From this point of view, the Objectives Resolution
of Jan. 22 seems to need reconsideration on one point. It would vest residuary
powers without qualification in the autonomous Units. But what is to happen if
the autonomous Unit does not use at all, or abuses, its residuary power?
Residuary power is undefined power held in reserve for occasions not specified
in the Constitution. It is impossible for a Constitution to foresee all
contingencies of future times and itemize them in definitive lists. When a
grave emergency has arisen in a Province or a State calling for the immediate
use of some of its reserve power, and when the local Government, for one reason
or another–say, a hard constitutional deadlock or an incompetent and corrupt
ministry which it is not easy to remove at once,–is unable to act promptly and
with effect, should not the Centre have the right to bring some of its own
residuary into action? In our circumstances of today, it seems desirable to
divide residuary powers between the two authorities, the Initiative power being
vested in the Unit, and in the event of its failure, the Correctional or
Reparative part of the residuum being made available for operation by the
Centre. Such a conditional distribution of the residuary finds support in the
experience of the working of federal constitutions in Europe and America. Our
thinking is likely to gain in clarity if we would get out of the meshes of
learned logomachy as well as out at emotive word-glamour, and get down to
concrete facts and purposes.
The work of the Constituent Assembly will be judged
not merely by what it has put into the Constitution, but also by how it has
provided for the amending of the Constitution. The Assembly would be writing
itself down for a vain body if it did not see all along that what it produces
may call for change some time soon, in response to some new force or some
yet unrecognized fact. Amendment to the Constitution, while it should
not be too easy to be made, should not be rendered too difficult either.
The most outstanding among the tasks for the Constituent
Assembly now are:
(1)
Strengthening the
Union Centre without weakening the Units. The fields of governmental action
where the authority of the Union must be supreme and all-inclusive should be
demarcated as clearly as possible from the fields where the autonomy of the
constituent Unit should be unqualified and absolute. Residuary powers too
should be divided, the power of Initiative, for occasions calling for the
exercise of residuary authority being vested in the Unit and the power of
Remedy when the Unit has failed being reserved for the Union.
(2)
Getting the States
into the Dominion as soon as possible after the Indian Independence Act becomes
operative, i.e., about the 15th of August 1947.
(3)
Defining the nature
of the Dominion’s relations with those States that do not come into either of
the Dominions at once and providing for the appointment of agencies to deal
with such Non-Member States.
(4)
Formulating
safeguards and special arrangements to ensure equity and fairness to Recognized
Minority groups. At the same time, secularizing State-life and citizenship and
Indianizing provincial and communal particularisms.
(5)
Initiating proposals
for a treaty or pact between India and Pakistan, (i) to guarantee mutual
non-aggression, and (ii) to make reference of all disputes to a board of
arbitration compulsory before either party resorts to the use of force.
Points for the special attention of States’
representatives are: –
(1)
Getting the States to
become an integral part of the Dominion of India at the earliest moment
possible, even from the 15th of August 1947;
(2)
Getting the
Constituent Assembly to make due provision in the Union Constitution for the
equitable representation of Member-States in both the legislature and the
Cabinet of Ministers of the Union (Dominion).
(3)
Determining the
powers to be handed over by the States to the Union. This will have to be under
two heads: –
(i)
Powers ceded
in perpetuity: These are
powers absolutely necessary to the Union Centre for the performance of duties
assigned to it under the Constitution, including the duty of acting in any
grave emergency in any part of India to ensure peace, order and good
government.
(ii)
Powers delegated for
specified periods: These are under specific heads for specific purposes, such
as dealing in any external concern of a State as its agent.
Under both heads, powers handed over by States
should, as far as possible, be uniform with powers ceded by the Provinces.
(4)
Getting the
Constituent Assembly to set up an ad hoc Committee to draw up the
outlines of a model constitution of democratic responsible government, to be
recommended to the States.
On this Committee must be men having first-hand knowledge of.’ conditions in the States and experience of administration. They may be taken also from outside the Assembly.
In the absence of authoritative guidance, States’ Rulers are apt to set up “fancy” constitutions and point to them as liberal and progressive measures. We have instances of such sham reforms in many recent cases. It need hardly be argued that any constitution which does not conform, on essential points, to the constitution working in the neighbouring (Ex-British Indian) Province has no chance of being accepted for any length of time by the people of the States. The argument that the British type of responsible government does not suit the Indian States is a piece of ill-motived propaganda. If the model perfected by monarchical England does not suit our States, much less can the patterns of republican America and Switzerland be agreeable to them. The States’ people will not rest satisfied with any inferior brand of citizenship. As the model to be furnished by the ad hoc Committee of the Constituent Assembly will be only of a recommendatory nature, the Assembly cannot on that score be accused of having attempted to interfere with the internal autonomy of a State. If the Ruler rejects the advice the risks will be his. The Assembly would in any case have strengthened the hands of the People.
(5) Getting the Constituent Assembly to empower the Union (Dominion) Government to set up an agency, in the form of a Commission or Council, to serve both as an advisory body to that Government in respect of all matters relating to Non-Member States and as a liaison authority to deal with those States.
This Commission may have, the Union (Dominion) Minister for the States as its chairman, and among its members may be two members of the Union legislature belonging to States, one or two other members of the Union legislature and two or three representatives of Non-Member States agreeing to co-operate with the Union.
Such a Commission may, in the first instance, be appointed for five years. Within that time it should be possible for it to bring all the States into the Union.
(6)
Getting the
Constituent Assembly to vest power in the Union (Dominion) Government to take
cognizance of, and act suitably upon, a representation addressed to it by any
considerable body of the subjects of a State whose Ruler or Government has
declined have that State admitted into the Union and even to come some form of
amicable relationship (as suggested above) on its behalf with the Union. Where
there is serious divergence between the Prince and the People, and the People
turn to the Union (Dominion) for help, the Union should be free to inquire and
take steps to set matters right and get that State into the Union.
Secularization and Indianization should be taken as
the twin principles of citizenship and politics in the Indian Union. All
religious, caste and denominational separatisms should be kept out of the
fields of public policy and administration; and likewise all forms of State,
Provincial and other regional particularisms should be made to give place to a
broad All-Indian patriotism.
(i)
This needs, first of
all, the abolition of separate communal or denominational electorates. But to
reassure the interests concerned, a definite proportion of seats may be
reserved in the legislature for Recognized Minority communities, those seats
being kept open, however, for election by general constituencies like all other
seats in the legislature.
(ii)
A Public Services
Commission may be entrusted with all work of recruitment of candidates for
Government service on principles approved by the legislature. The Cabinet of
Ministers should divest itself of responsibility for the distribution of
patronage, by transferring such matters (including contracts and monopolies) to
committees or boards working subject to scrutiny and guidance by the
legislature.
(iii)
The constitution
should restrict the power of the legislature in respect of a matter which a
definite proportion of members belonging to a Recognized Religious Group wish
to be excluded from the purview of a proposal for legislation, on the ground
that it adversely affects the interests or institutions of their religion.
Maulana Azad has made an important contribution to nation-building in the suggestion that both Constituent Assemblies should adopt a common charter of protection for the rights and interests of Minority communities in both Indias. He says: –
“The Minorities’ question requires to be treated
with calm and wise statesmanship….. Even if there had been no seceding areas,
there would still have been Minorities in India as a whole…..When the second
Constituent Assembly meets after July 15, there should be at the earliest
opportunity a joint meeting of representatives of the two Constituent
Assemblies to draw up a common charter of Rights of Minorities in both the
States.”
Common measures to assure fairplay and friendly consideration to
Minority communities; secularizing public education through a larger and more
rapid diffusion of the knowledge of science and scientific thought discouraging
denominationalism in schools and colleges and in connected institutions like
hostels, clubs, debating societies etc.; encouraging joint enterprise among
members of various communities in fields of trade and industry; refusing
recognition to organizations of workers based on religion and caste,–these are
the chief among the means to be employed to ensure the dissolution of communal
antipathies and the growth of inter-communal fellow-feeling. Results can become
perceptible only after some years of perseverance.
The Constituent Assembly has to race against a
date. One cannot help wishing it could have found more time to give to
thinking,–to concentrated and detailed and cogent thinking. One of the capital
problems of democracy is–how to organize real thinking, that is analysing fact,
appreciating argument, weighing claim against claim and estimating balance of
benefit. This is a laborious task for the intelligence; but any shrinking from
it must spell disaster. There is an impression that some among the leading men
in the Constituent Assembly show signs of nerve-rack. They should be more than
human if, under the stress and strain of today, they did not occasionally blow
off some hot steam. But that is only one side of the matter. On the other side
is the average member who, because he is not so big a man, is extra sensitive
and would not let himself be treated as though he were a nobody. Thus, between
one section of the house short-tempered and disinclined to encourage other
points of view, and the other section unwilling to be snubbed and therefore
hesitant, discussions may not always be full-viewed and penetrating. The
inelasticity of the time-table adds to the inconvenience. If amplitude of time
might have made for endlessness in speechification, hustling cannot but make
for partialness in deliberations and perfunctoriness in expression. Great
therefore is the burden laid on the shoulders of the President of the Assembly,
far greater than it should have been in normal circumstances. Dr. Rajendra
Prasad has proved himself to be the man made for the office. But are not the vast
worries of his other important office as Minister for Food interfering with the
calm and sense of ease so needed for reflection and judgement? If he had had
time for second thoughts, it is possible Dr. Rajendra Prasad may not have found
himself so very ready to part company with a publicist of Dr. Jayakar’s
experience and record of service. Members of the Assembly would do well to
remind themselves of the effects of the shape of little Cleopatra’s nose on the
career of mighty Caesar and on the course of a whole world’s history. The
individual peculiarities of men in high positions have a potency or serious
consequence to the public. A pungent phrase or a caustic comment that may go
unnoticed from an ordinary member may provoke fateful reactions when it falls
from a Nehru or a Patel. It is the speaker’s position that matters. All history
is in a very real sense nothing but an extension of biography. The temperament
of the leader is the fate of the nation. What the flash of his genius creates,
the breath of his own ill humour may destroy. To few is it given to achieve
success in an equal degree both as fighters and as negotiators for peace. A
people should be glad to walk the five continents to find a leader of the
mental balance and elevation of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The old-fashioned
virtues of moderation and dignity are nowhere of greater value than in the work
of the Constituent Assembly. It should not be made the place for fire-works. It
is only fair to acknowledge that the several Committees of the Assembly,–to
judge from newspaper reports of their work,–have so far proceeded with both
speed and care for principle and followed sound realistic lines, He should be a
cynic indeed who does not feel hopeful as well as proud to think of all the
shining idealism and practical talent that the proceedings of the Constituent
Assembly reveal and all the earnest they hold out of the great good we have all
been looking for.
Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs,
Postscript
The above article, in some parts re-written more
than once in answer to the quick-following changes in the posture of affairs
when the article was in the process of getting ready, is once again rendered
out of date by what has happened since the 17th of July.
It is now certain that the two Dominions of India
and Pakistan will have begun their careers as independent legal and political
entities on the 15th of August 1947, –probably before a good many among the
readers of Triveni have had their eye light upon this article.
Into the Dominion of India will have come many more
States than at first anticipated; and Travancore among them will be noteworthy
obviously because of her initial preference for isolation, of a benevolent kind
though it be.
The principles on which the constitutions of the
Union and of the Provinces are to be based have in some essential matters been
made clear by the Constituent Assembly. The Union will be federal in structure
and its Government will have the primary authority of delegating, controlling
and recalling power over subjects ceded to it by the States, but allowed by the
federation to be administered by those States acting as its agents. The
Governors of Provinces will have power to act in emergencies. The Governors and
the Governor-General will be elected, the first by the citizens and the second
by their accredited representatives.
The type of executive government adopted is of the
British variety, in that it is to be a cabinet of ministers making itself
collectively responsible to the popularly elected legislature, such ministers
being chosen by him who agrees to be the Prime Minister and appointed by the
Governor or the Governor-General as the case may be. It is matter for
congratulation that this type of parliamentary responsible government has been
preferred in spite of the propaganda carried on against it as somehow not
suited to India. The Constituent Assembly has so far done its work with both
alertness and rapidity; and a tribute of appreciation is due to its two Committees
whose reports show careful and judicious thought.
To one vital question, the Assembly has given no
attention yet. That question is–how to set right the errors and the
insufficiencies inevitably to be expected in the human material brought into
the legislature by the machinery of popular election? One of the most serious
problems facing democracy in every country has been,–except in England where
the hereditary house removes the want in some measure,–the problem of finding a
way to supplement the electorates as feeders to the legislature, so that
democracy could save itself from the worst effects of mediocrity on one side
and of demagogism on the other. Certain strata of society, rich in gifts of
mind and character, are generally disinclined to face the hustings; and not to
harness their public spirit is to ask the community to be satisfied with less
than the best it could be given. The only way of securing the services of such
citizens for the State, without injury to the democratic principle, is by means
of a secondary election. The elected representatives of the community may in
their turn elect and invite a definite number of their fellow-citizens to serve
as colleagues. The persons so co-opted should be non-party men and women, well-known
for attainments in learning or science, for administrative or business
experience, or for philonthropy and social service. Such co-optation is
thoroughly democratic and is only meant to supplement and not to supplant the
popular electorates. The provision of “functional representation” or election
by universities and scientific bodies cannot suffice for the purpose. It cannot
touch a great part of the kind of talent desiderated; and what is more, it may
introduce “party spirit” into academic organizations and interfere with the
integrity and the independence and harmony vital to their efficiency.
In regard to the States, it will be seen from the
remarks on Travancore in the article above that the writer was not without a
hope of that State’s changing her mind. She has indeed undergone a
“conversion”. Lord Mountbatten’s speech to Princes and Dewans on the 25th of
July was frank and persuasive, though it took care to avoid reference to the
rights of the people of the States and the obligations of Britain under that
head. His Excellency pointed to the impossibility of escape for the States from
compulsive contacts with the Dominion. Sardar Patel too facilitated the
climb-down of the Princes by his conciliatory appeal. But it is impossible to regard
the concessions made to the Princes as an unmixed good. The Instrument of
Accession makes melancholy reading. We shall here notice just two points: –
Firstly, there is a studied omission in it of all
reference to the people of the States. This is a grim comment on the
Constituent Assembly’s Objectives Resolution of January 22 proclaiming the
doctrine of the Sovereignty of the People in such glowing phrases. The
Instrument could easily have been made to include words, in clause 1 or in cl.
9, to show that the Ruler accedes to the Union in pursuance of a resolution of
his State’s legislature, or at least on behalf of the People of his State. If
the right and authority of the People is not made explicit in so important a
document, the Union would have left to itself no ground for even remonstrating
with a Ruler whose rule is bad and has led to serious civil disorders. When
there was riot or insurrection in a State before now, the Paramount could step
in and set things right. How will the Dominion be able to help in such a case
henceforward?
Secondly, clause 7 of the Instrument leaves the
Ruler free to accept or not any future Constitution of India. For the full
significance of this freedom, we have to turn to the suggestion let fall by
Attorney General Shawcross in the British House of Commons (pointedly cited by
Sir C.P.R.) to the effect that the Ruler of a State is entitled to make his
State’s entry into the Dominion conditional upon the Dominion’s pledging itself
to remain within the British Commonwealth for all time. Plainly Lord
Mountbatten’s purpose is to make it difficult for India ever to go out of
Britain’s sphere of influence. He wants to use the States as a drag and a
deadweight upon India. Sardar Patel, for his part, sees in that imperialist move,
perhaps, a chance to net the States in for the Union. It is notorious how
calculations get upset in the field of working politics. It is in no one’s
power to guarantee to us that a Patel will be succeeded by another Patel, or a
Pandit by a Pandit. Who can say that their successors will not be more obliging
to the long-pursed Princes? The old Political Department of the Paramount was
no model of incorruptibility; and the potency of Princely generosity may take
new forms under the new regime. It is greatly to be wished that in their
eagerness to win over the Princes, our leaders will enter into no compromises
that will prove a handicap for the people and a mortgage of India’s future.
Caution is needed to see that the expediency of today will not be an estoppel
for tomorrow.
All shortcomings and misjudgements notwithstanding,
it is fitting that the 15th of August should be celebrated as a day of profound
thanks-giving. It marks the triumph of Mahatmaji, even in spite of his own
disappointment in some respects. It is a great day, a unique day in the history
of India, a day indeed which the whole world will find reasons to remember with
gratitude and joy.
D. V. G.
4th August, 1947
* Triveni for March-April, 1931, pages: 136-138. Review by LEX.