CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS.
When Lord Minto closed at the end of March the first Session of the
Imperial Council, as the Viceroy's Legislative Council, enlarged under
the Indian Councils Act of 1909, is now officially designated, in
contradistinction to the enlarged Provincial Councils of Provincial
Governments, his Excellency very properly described it as "a memorable
Session." It was, indeed, far more than that. Even to the outward eye
the old Council Chamber at Government House presented a very significant
spectacle, to which the portrait of Warren Hastings over the Viceregal
Chair always seemed to add a strange note of admiration. The round table
at which the members of the Viceroy's Legislative Council used to
gather, with far less of formality, had disappeared, and the 59 members
of the enlarged Council had their appointed seats disposed in a double
hemicycle facing the Chair. They sat for the most part according to
provinces, and the features as well as, in some cases, the dresses, of
the Indian members showed at a glance how representative this new
Council really was.
The tall burly frame of the Kuvar Sahib of Patiala was only more
conspicuous than that of the Maharajah of Burdawan because the former
wore the many-folded turban and brocaded dress of his Sikh ancestry,
whereas the latter, like most Bengalees of the upper classes, has
adopted the much more commonplace broadcloth of the West. The bold,
hawk-like features of Malik Umar Hyat Khan of Tiwana in the Punjab were
as characteristic of the fighting Pathan from the North as were the
Rajah of Mahmudabad's more delicate features of the Mahomedan
aristocracy of the erstwhile kingdom of Oudh. The white _swadeshi_
garments affected by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, from the United
Provinces--who opened the last meeting of the Indian National Congress
at Lahore with a presidential address which lasted for two hours and a
quarter, and wound up with an apology for its brevity on the ground that
he had had no time to prepare it--testified, at any rate more loudly, to
the sternness of his patriotic convictions than the equally _swadeshi_
homespun, cut at least in European fashion, of another "advanced"
politician, Mr. Bhupendranath Bose, of Bengal. More worthy of attention
was the keen, refined, and intellectual face of Mr. G.K. Gokhale, the
Deccanee Brahman with the Mahratta cap, who, by education, belongs to
the West quite as much as to the East, and, by birth, to the ruling
caste of the last dominant race before the advent of the British _Raj_.
The red fez worn by the majority of Mahomedan members showed that their
community had certainly not failed in this instance to secure the
generous measure of representation which Lord Minto spontaneously
promised to them three years ago at Simla. The peculiar glazed black
headdress of the Parsee and the silk kerchief of the Burman in turn
indicated the racial catholicity of the assembly in which Sir Sassoon
David, of Bombay, worthily represents, by his authority as a financier,
the small Jewish community of India.
Nor were the different interests and classes, with two important
exceptions, less adequately represented than the different races and
creeds. Besides the great territorial magnates, of whom I have already
mentioned two or three by name, there were not a few other well-known
representatives of the landed interests which, in a country like India
where agriculture is still the greatest of all national industries, have
a special claim to respectful hearing, even though they have hitherto
for the most part held aloof from the fashionable methods of political
agitation. There was indeed a good deal of disappointment among the
urban professional classes, in whose eyes a Western education--or rather
education on what are, often quite erroneously, conceived to be Western
lines--should apparently constitute the one indispensable qualification
for public life. But they too had secured no inconsiderable number of
seats, and if the voice of the Indian National Congress did not
predominate it had certainly not been reduced to silence.
Doubts were freely expressed among Englishmen before the meetings of the
new Councils as to the competence of the Anglo-Indian officials for the
novel duties allotted to them in these assemblies. It was argued, not
unreasonably, that men who had never been trained or accustomed to take
part in public discussions might find themselves at a disadvantage in
controversial encounters with the quick-witted Hindu politician. It is
generally admitted now that the first Session at any rate of the
Imperial Council by no means justified any such apprehensions. Not a few
official members, it is true, were inclined at first to rely exclusively
upon their written notes, and there was indeed, from beginning to end,
but little room for the rapid thrust and skilled parry of debate to
which we are accustomed at Westminster. Most of the Indian members
themselves had carefully prepared their speeches beforehand, and read
them out from typed or even printed drafts before them. In many cases
the speeches had been communicated two or three days ahead to the Press,
and sometimes a speech was printed and commented upon in the favoured
organ of some honourable member, though he had ultimately changed his
mind and preserved silence, without, however, informing the editor of
the fact. In other cases a speech was published without the
interruptions and calls to order which had compelled the orator to drop
out some of his most cherished periods. As it was the custom for Indian
members to communicate also to the departments immediately concerned the
gist of the remarks which they proposed to make, the official members
were tempted at first to frame their replies on similar lines and to
read out elaborate statements bristling with figures, which would have
been much more suitable for circulation as printed minutes. But
gradually many of them took courage and showed that they could speak
easily and simply, and quite as effectively as most of the Indian
members.
Indeed, one of the best speeches of this kind was that delivered on the
last day but one of the Session by Mr. P.C. Lyon, a nominated member for
Eastern Bengals, in reply to the fervid oration of Mr. Bupendranath Bose
on the threadbare topic of Partition. On this, as on other occasions,
the florid style of eloquence cultivated by the leaders of the Indian
National Congress fell distinctly flat in the calmer atmosphere of the
Council-room, as indeed Mr. Gokhale warned some of his friends it was
bound to do. During the last two days discussion was allowed somewhat
needlessly under the new rules, to roam at large over all manner of
irrelevant subjects, but on this occasion it served at least one useful
purpose. If it were not that the Bengalee politician has no other
grievance to substitute for it, the question of the Partition of Bengal
should, one would think, have received its _quietus_, for two excellent
speeches, delivered with much simple force by Maulvi Syed Shams ul Huda,
Mahomedan member for Eastern Bengal, and by Mr. Mazhar-ul-Haq, another
Mahomedan who sits for Bengal, completed the discomfiture which poor Mr.
Bose had already experienced at Mr. Lyon's hands.
Needless to say that amongst the Indian members it was the politician,
and especially the more "advanced" politician, who figured most
prominently in the discussions. The more conservative Indians were
usually content to listen, with more or less visible signs of weariness,
to the facile and sometimes painfully long-winded eloquence of their
colleagues. When they did intervene, however, their speeches were
usually short and none the less effective. In most of the divisions that
were taken they supported the Government, and in no single instance was
the Government majority hard pressed. The minority in support of any
resolution resisted by Government never reached 20, and generally
fluctuated somewhere between 16 and 20. The only resolution which would
have certainly combined all the native members in support of it was Mr.
Gokhale's resolution with regard to the position of British Indians in
South Africa, but, as it was accepted by Government, it was passed _nem.
con._ without a division.
That in these circumstances the official members who are at the same
time heads of the most important administrative and executive
departments should be kept in constant attendance during debates in
which many of them, are not in any way directly concerned, and that they
should thus be detained in Calcutta at a season when their presence
would be far more useful elsewhere, constitutes one of the most serious
of the many practical drawbacks of the new system for which a remedy
will have to be found. It is as if not only the Parliamentary
representatives but the permanent officials of our own great public
departments were expected to sit through the debates in the House of
Commons, without even the facilities which the private rooms of
Ministers, the library, and the smoking rooms at Westminster afford for
quiet intervals of work between the division bells. Nor is that all. The
Council sat during the very months of the short "cold weather," when it
is customary and alone practicable for heads of departments to undertake
their annual tours of inspection. The _reductio ad absurdum_ is surely
reached in the case of the Commander-in-Chief and the Chief of the
Staff. Though the Imperial Council is itself debarred from dealing with
Army questions, they could be seen any day sitting through the debates
merely because their votes might conceivably be required to maintain the
official majority, and, except for one or two short excursions in the
intervals between the meetings of Council, they were tied to Calcutta
when they ought to have been travelling about the country and inspecting
the troops. Yet, it is generally admitted that at no period since the
Mutiny has it been more important for the Commander-in-Chief to maintain
the closest possible contact with the native army--especially when the
Commander-in-Chief is as popular with the Indian soldier as Sir O'Moore
Creagh.
Another obvious drawback of the present arrangements is the
inconvenience to which members of Council from the provinces were
subjected by the irregular intervals at which the Council held its
actual sittings. Either they had to waste their time at Calcutta during
the intervals, to the detriment of their interests at home, or they had
to spend days in railway carriages rushing backwards and forwards from
their homes to the capital, for in a country of such magnificent
distances there are few journeys that take less than 24 hours, and from
Calcutta, for instance, either to Madras or to Bombay takes the best
part of 48 hours. Unless arrangements are remodelled so as to enable the
Council to transact its business, whether _in pleno_ or in committee,
either in one session or in two short sessions, but in any case
continuously, many of its most valuable members, who have important
business, of their own which they cannot afford to neglect, will cease
to attend, and the Council will not only lose much of the representative
character, which is one of its best features at present, but will fall
inevitably under the preponderating influence of the professional
politician. In his closing speech Lord Minto outlined a scheme which
would in some measure meet this difficulty, but it is doubtful whether
it will prove by any means adequate. Another point which requires
consideration is whether it is desirable for the Viceroy to preside
himself over the deliberations of the Council. Even if he could properly
afford the time for it, it seems hardly expedient that the immediate
representative of the King-Emperor should be drawn into the arena of
public controversies. Proceedings are bound to grow more and more
contentious, and delicate questions of procedure will arise and have to
be settled from the chair. These are all matters in which the Viceroy
should not be committed to the premature exercise, on the spur of the
moment, of his supreme authority.
One of the chief purposes which the creation of the new Councils is
intended to achieve is that of enlightening Indian opinion throughout
the country by means of the enlarged opportunities given for the
discussion of public affairs. But that purpose will be defeated unless
the discussions receive adequate publicity. They certainly did not do so
this winter. Not only is the art of gallery reporting still in its
infancy, but many of the Indian newspapers have still to learn that "it
is not cricket" to report only the speeches of their political friends
and to omit or compress into a few lines the speeches of their
adversaries. A glaring instance of this shortcoming was afforded by the
_Bengalee_. The Nationalist organ published Mr. Bupendra Nath Bose's
speech on the partition of Bengal _in extenso_, as he had intended to
deliver it, without taking the slightest notice of the fact that he was
repeatedly called to order by the Viceroy and had in consequence to drop
out whole passages of his oration, and it published practically nothing
else--though perhaps no other indictment of the Government during the
whole session was more successfully refuted, both by the official
spokesman, Mr. Lyon, and by other Indian members. Apart, however, from
any such deliberate unfairness, the communication of speeches in advance
to the Press should be strenuously discountenanced. Many official
members showed that they could perfectly well dispense with the
doubtful advantage of knowing beforehand exactly what their critics were
going to say, and, if once this practice is stopped, newspapers,
relieved from the temptation of giving undue preference to easy "copy,"
will learn to cultivate and to rely upon more legitimate methods of
reporting. It is to be hoped also that the _Gazette of India_, which
publishes the official verbatim reports, will not in future lag so far
behind the actual proceedings.
All these are minor points. The dominant feature of the Session was that
in spite of wide divergences of views, the proceedings were generally
dignified, sometimes even to the verge of dulness, and with one or two
exceptions they were marked by good feeling on all sides. It would be
unfair not to give to Mr. Gokhale his full share of credit for this
happy result. Though often an unrelenting critic of the Administration,
he struck from the first a note of studied moderation and restraint to
which most of his political friends attuned their utterances. He
naturally assumed the functions of the leader of his Majesty's
Opposition, and he discharged them, not only with the ability which
every one expected of him, but with the urbanity and self-restraint of a
man conscious of his responsibilities as well as of his powers. His was,
amongst the Indian members, not only the master mind, but the dominant
personality. The European members, on the other hand, showed themselves
invariably courteous and good-tempered, and not a few awkward corners
were turned by a little good-humoured banter. Nor was it unusual to see
the Englishman come and sit down by the side of the Indian member to
whose indictment he had just been replying, and in friendly conversation
take all personal sting out of the controversy. As Lord Minto aptly put
it, the Council-room "has brought people together. Official and
non-official members have met each other. The official wall which of
necessity to some extent separated them has been broken down. They have
talked over many things together." From this point of view, if future
sessions fulfil the promise of the first one, the Imperial Council may
grow into a potent instrument for good.
Of the deeper significance which underlay the meeting of this remarkable
assembly it is still perhaps premature to speak. But cautious and
tentative as was the attitude of all parties concerned, and free as,
from beginning to end, the proceedings were from any startling
incidents, no one can have watched them without being conscious of the
presence of new forces of vast potentiality which must tend to modify
very profoundly the relations between the governors and the governed in
India itself, and possibly even between India and the Mother Country.
They are the forces, largely still unknown, which have been brought into
play by Lord Morley's Constitutional reforms, and though they made
themselves naturally more conspicuously felt in the Imperial Council at
Calcutta, they were present in every one of the enlarged Legislative
Councils of the Provincial Governments.
It is no part of my purpose to recount in detail the long, though
generally dispassionate, controversy to which these reforms gave rise.
We may not all be agreed as to the necessity or wisdom of some of the
changes embodied in them, and some may think that we are inclined to
travel too fast and too far on a road which Indians have not up to the
present shown themselves qualified to tread without danger. But there
are few Englishmen either at home or in India who do not recognize the
statesmanlike spirit in which Lord Morley, loyally seconded throughout
by Lord Minto, has approached the very difficult problem of giving to
the people of India a larger consultative voice in administration as
well as in legislation without jeopardizing the stability or impairing
the supremacy of British control. The future alone can show how far
these far-reaching changes will justify the generous expectations of
their author, but taken as a whole they undoubtedly represent a
constructive work which is fully worthy of the fine record of British
rule in India.
How very far-reaching they are the merest indication of their most
salient features will suffice to indicate. For the sake of convenience,
though they form a homogeneous whole, they may be divided roughly into
two categories--those that affect the Executive Councils and those that
have remodelled the Legislative Councils. To the former category
belong:--
(1) The appointment of an Indian member to the Viceroy's Executive
Council. Mr. S.P. Sinha, a Bengalee barrister in large practice, was
appointed to be legal member, and the ability and distinction with which
he discharged the duties of his high office have gone far to remove the
misgivings of many of those who were at first opposed to this new
departure. It is the more to be regretted that his services will be lost
to the new Viceroy, as he has announced his intention of retiring, for
personal reasons, at the end of Lord Minto's Viceroyalty[15].
(2) The appointment of one Indian member to the Executive Councils of
the Governors of Madras and Bombay. The Rajah of Bobbili has been
appointed in Madras and Mr. M.B. Chaubal in Bombay. An Indian will also
be appointed to the Executive Council of the Lieutenant-Governor of
Bengal as soon as that body has been finally constituted[16], and
similar appointments will be made to the Executive Councils of the chief
Indian provinces when the powers taken to create those bodies shall be
put into operation.
(3) The appointment of two Indians, one a Hindu and the other a
Mahomedan, to be members of the Council of the Secretary of State,
generally known as the India Council, in Whitehall. Mr. K.G. Gupta and
Mr. Husain Bilgrami were appointed by Lord Morley in 1907. Mr. Bilgrami
retired early in 1910 owing to ill-health and his place has been taken
by Mr. M.A. Ali Baig.
In principle, the introduction of natives of India into these inner
lines of the British Executive power undoubtedly constitutes, as Lord
Lansdowne has said, a "tremendous innovation," but it may be doubted
whether in practice the consequences will be as considerable as those of
the changes effected by the India Councils Act of 1909 in the
composition and attributions of the Imperial and Provincial Legislative
Councils. These changes are of a twofold character. In the first place
the total number of members has been very materially increased--e.g.,
in the Imperial Legislative Council from 21 to a _maximum_ of 60; in the
Madras and Bombay Legislative Councils from 24 to a _maximum_ of 50; in
the Bengal Legislative Council from 20 to 50, &c. Room has thus been
made for the introduction of a much larger number of elected members, of
whom there will be in future not less than 135 altogether in the
different Legislative Councils, as against only 39 under the old
statutes. Still more important than the mere increase in the number of
elected members is the radical change in the proportion they will bear
to official members. Except in the Imperial Council, where, at the
instance of Lord Morley, a small official majority has been retained
which Lord Minto himself was willing to dispense with, there will no
longer be any official majority. The regulations determining the
electorates and the mode of election have been framed with praiseworthy
elasticity in accordance with local requirements, and care has been
taken to provide as far as possible for an adequate representation of
all the most important communities and interests. In view of the
manifold and profound lines of cleavage which exist in Indian society,
it is extremely improbable that all the elected members will ever
combine against the official minority except in such rare and improbable
cases as might produce an absolute consensus of Indian opinion, and in
such cases it is even more improbable that Government would ignore so
striking a manifestation. Nevertheless, as a safeguard against the
possibility of factious opposition, the right of veto has been reserved
to the Provincial Executives and in the last resort to the
Governor-General in Council.
Thus the Indian Councils Act of 1909 cannot be said to have actually
modified the position of the Indian Legislatures. With regard to the
most important of them--viz., the Imperial Council--Lord Morley was
careful to make this perfectly clear in his despatch of November 27,
1908, in which he reviewed the proposals put forward in the Government
of India despatch of October 1. "It is an essential condition of the
reform policy," the Secretary of State wrote, "that the Imperial
supremacy should in no degree be compromised. I must therefore regard it
as essential that your Excellency's Council, in its legislative as well
as in its executive character, should continue to be so constituted as
to ensure its constant and uninterrupted power to fulfil the
constitutional obligation that it owes, and must always owe, to his
Majesty's Government and to the Imperial Parliament." The Indian
Executive therefore remains, as hitherto, responsible only to the
Imperial Government at home, and the Imperial Council can exercise over
it no directly controlling power. The same holds good, _mutatis
mutandis_, of the Provincial Executives and their Councils.
Indirectly, however, the Indian Councils Act of 1909 materially modifies
the relations between the Legislative Councils and the Executive by
giving to elected and non-official members opportunities which they have
never enjoyed before of discussing public policy and making their voices
heard and their influence felt on both administrative and legislative
matters. The revised rules of procedure, under which supplementary
questions may be grafted on to interpellations, and resolutions can be
moved not only in connexion with the financial statements of Government,
but, with certain specified reservations, on most matters of general
public interest, are undoubtedly calculated to afford a vastly larger
scope than in the past to the activities of Indian Legislatures, and it
will depend very much upon the ability and resourcefulness of members
themselves to what extent they may utilize these facilities for the
purpose of ultimately creating real powers of control. In an extremely
interesting and dispassionate study of the Indian Constitution, and of
the effects which the new reforms may have upon it, Mr. Rangaswami
Iyengar, a Hindu journalist of Madras, comes to the conclusion that "if
the powers now entrusted to the Councils are used with care, wisdom, and
discrimination, precedents and procedure analogous to those of the House
of Commons might gradually grow up, and might serve as a useful means if
not of directly controlling the Executive--a power which under the
present constitutional arrangement of the Government of India it is
impossible that the Council should possess--at least of directing the
Executive into correct and proper channels in regard to administrative
policy and administrative action." Not the least important of the
changes are those made in regard to Budget procedure. Indian
Legislatures will no more than in the past have power to vote or to veto
the Budget, but they will have henceforth an opportunity of setting
forth their views before the Budget has assumed its final shape. Members
will be able to discuss beforehand any changes in taxation, as well as
any new loans or additional grants to local governments, and they will
be taken into the confidence of Government with regard to the
determination of public expenditure. No doubt important heads of revenue
are still excluded from the purview of the Councils, but members will
have the right of placing on record their views in the form of
resolutions on all items not specifically excluded from their
cognisance, and the Finance Member will be bound to explain the reasons
why Government declines to accept any resolution that may have been
passed in the first two stages of the Budget. Much will depend upon the
reasonable and practical use which members make of these novel
opportunities, for, to quote Mr. Iyengar again, "the progress of
constitutional government is not dependent so much upon what is
expressly declared to be constitutional rights as upon what is silently
built up in the form of constitutional conventions."
In the great speech in which Lord Morley gave the House of Lords the
first outline of his Indian reforms scheme there was one singularly
pregnant passage. "We at any rate," he said, "have no choice or option.
As an illustrious member of this House once said, we are watching a
great and stupendous process, the reconstruction of a decomposed
society. What we found was described as a parallel to Europe in the
fifth century, and we have now, as it were, before us in that vast
congeries of people we call India, a long, slow march in uneven stages
through all the centuries from the fifth to the twentieth. Stupendous
indeed, and to guide that transition with sympathy, political wisdom,
and courage, with a sense of humanity, duty, and national honour, may
well be called a glorious mission." Whether we succeed in that mission
must depend largely upon the loyal assistance we receive from those
Indians who claim, in virtue of their superior education, to represent
this twentieth century. Lord Morley has fulfilled in no niggardly spirit
his pledge to associate the people of India with the Government far more
closely than has hitherto been the case in the work of actual day-to-day
administration as well as in the more complex problems of legislation.
It rests now with the Indian representatives both in the Executive and
Legislative Councils to justify Lord Morley's expectations by using the
new machinery which he has placed in their hands not for purposes of
mere destructive criticism and malevolent obstruction, but for
intelligent and constructive co-operation with the British rulers of
India, to whom alone, whatever may be their shortcomings, India owes it
that the spirit of the twentieth century has spread to her shores.