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 31 II

WHAT INDIA WANTS

AUTONOMY WITHIN THE EMPIRE
BY
G. A. NATESAN, B.A., F.M.U.

Editor, "The Indian Review"

WITH FOREWORDS BY
SIR NARAYAN G. CHANDAVARKAR.
HON. THE RAJA OF MAHOMEDABAD.
MR. V. P. M A D H A V A R A O, C. I. E.
RAJA SIR HARNAM SINGH, K.C.I.E.
PUNDIT MAD AN MOHAN MALAVIYA.
SIR JAMSETJEE JEJEEBHOY, BART.
BABU SURENDRANATH BANERJEA.
SIR P. S. SLVASWAMI AIYAR, K.C.S.I.
SIRDAR JOGENDRA SINGH.
HON. MR. V. S. 8RINIVASA SASTRI.
MR. M. K. GANDHI & MRS. BESANT.

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WHAT INDIA WANTS
AUTONOMY WITHIN THE EMPIRE
BT

G. A. NATESAN, B.A .. F.M.U.

Editor^ " The fridian Revinr."

WITH FOREWORDS BY

SIR NARAYAN CHANDAVARKAR.

G.
HON. THE RAJA OF MAHMUDABAD.
M R. V. P. M A D H A V A R A O, C. I. E.
RAJA 8IR HARNAM SINGH, K.C.I.E.
PUNDIT MADAN MOHAN MALAVIY'A.
SIR JAMSETJEE JEJEEBHOY, BART.
BABU SURENDRANATH BANERJEA.
SIR P. S. SIVASWAMI AIYr AR^ K.C.S.I.
SIRDAR JOGENDRA SINGH.
HON. MR. V. S. 8RINIVA8A SASTRI.
MR M. K. GANDHI ft MRS. BESANT.

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n>7
 DEDICATED
TO

SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURN,

THE SAINTLY ENGLISHMAN
WHO FOR OVER HALF A CENTURY HAS BEEN"

UNCEASINGLY AND UNOSTENTATIOUSLY

LABOURING FOR THE ADVANCEMENT

OF

THE PEOPLE OF INDIA

AS A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE

" FOR ALL THAT HE HAS HOPED FOR US "

" FOR ALL THAT HE HAS DONE FOR U3 "

"OR ALL THAT HE HAS BORNE AND BRAVED FOR US.'

 PREFACE.
In this book I have tried to present a
brief and succinct account of the history of
India's demand for Self Government. I have
also endeavoured to show that the constitutional
reforms now urged by the Indian people through
their leading political organizations aie "in the
line of continuous growth of the Indian polity
and involve no violent departure from the princi-
ples or methods hitherto recognised by authority."
Since this book w»s in the Press, an important
announcement has been made in the House of
Commons that the policy of His liajestj 'a
Government " is that of increasing the associa-
tion of Indians in every branch of administration
and the gradual development of self-governing
institutions with a view to the progressive reali-
sation of responsible Government in India as an
integral part of the British Empire."
The time has now come when His Majesty's
Government should make a distinct and courageous
advance in this direction and give the people of the
land a real and effective voice in the administra-
tion of the country. The only way to achieve this
is by the transference of the uncontrolled power
now vested in the Bureaucracy to the representa-
tives of the people so as to enable them to regulate
the policy of the State, control the finances, and
make the executive responsible to the people of
India.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank
my esteemed friends who have teen good enough
to peruse advance copies of this book and favour
me wjth their views.
October, 1017. G. A. NATESAX.
 WHAT INDIA WANTS
BY
THE HON. BABU BHUPENDRANATH BASU.
Thousands of our boys are receiving education on
Western lines in Indian Universities based on West-
ern models ; hundreds of them are daily flocking to-

the Universities of Europe, A merioa and Japan and

on their return home spreading the knowledge that
they have acquired. You may chain Prometheus, but
the fire is lighted and cannot be extinguished. {Hear,
hear.) India wants a higher life, a wider sphere of
activity and India wants that her Govern-
usefulness.
ment should be consistent with her growing self-res-
pect and intellectuality, India wants th»t the pre-
sumption which has all along existed, and which the
Bo ird. of Directors, in ISSS, made a vain attempt to

dispel, namely, that the Indians can only rise to «

certain limit, should be removed from the precincts of
tier Courts ashas been from the Statute-Books and
it

the door to her services should not be closed by artifi-

cial barriers against her own sons. India wa/its
that her children should have the same rights of equal
citizenshiji as other members of the Empire. (Hear,
hear, and India wants the removal of
applause).
vexation* hind •uncs on the liberty of speech <i>i<l
freedom of the Press (hear, hear, and applause) fruit-
less and dangerous alike to the Government and the
people. And above all India wants that her Govrrn-
nir-it thouid b* an autonomous Government uiu/rr
the British En>p>->-e .—(From thf Presidential Address
to the Madras Congress, 1914.)
 FOREWORDS.

PAGE.
Sir Narayan G. Chandavarkar i

The Hon. the Raja Saheb of M&hmulibad iv

Mr. V. P. Madhava Rao, c.i.e. v

Raja Sir Harnam Singh, k. c.i.e. vii

Hon. Pundit Madan Mohan Malaviya viii

Sir. Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy,BABT. ix

Hon. Babu Surendranath Banerjea x

Sir P. S. Sivaswami Aiyar, k.c.s.i. x
Sirdar Jogendra Singh xi
Hon. Mr. V. S. Srinivasa Sastri xiii

Mr. M. K. Gandhi xiv

Mrs. Annie Besant XV
 CONTENTS.

Self-Government The Objective

:

The Charter Act, 1833

Act of 1853
Royal Proclamations
Views of British and Anglo-Indian Statesmen
English Education and Indian Aspirations .

Lord Lytton's Policy

India under Lord Ripon
The Foundation of the Congress
The Curzonian Regime
Mr. Dadabhai's Ideal of Swaraj
Indian Reforms and the Bureaucracy
Provincial Autonomy
Hindu-Moslem Entente
India and the War
India and the Empire's Reconstruction
The Congress and Moslem League Scheme .

The Memorandum of the Nineteen

The Reconstruction of the Councils
The History of the Legislative Councils
Reform of the Legislative Councils
The Minto-Morley Reforms
The Bureaucracy and the Reforms
Reforms now demanded :
—
Elected Majority in the Councils
Council to elect its own President
Resolutions to Bind the Executive
Indians in the Executive Council
Civil Servants & the Executive Councils.
Control over the Budget
Fiscal Independence
Work of the Non-officials
The Congress and League Scheme in Brief .

India After the War

 FOREWORDS.

Sir Naravan G. Chandavarkar, KC.I.E.

The present administration in India is
virtually anadministration of the Indian
Civil Service, which is almost entirely com-
posed of British officials. They are indeed capable
and conscientious and have done good work ;
but they are the slaves of a system, which
makes the Service a close Service, wedded
to red tape and routine, slow to discern and
move with the times, jealous of outside and inde-
pendent criticism and, owing to their comparative
aloofness from Indian society, due to social and
other causes, more or less out of touch with r
because unable to find out, real Indian sentiment
and public opinion. The
result is that, in impor-
tant matters the Indian conditions,
affecting
knowledge comes too late to the Service and to the
Indian administration which it practically controls,,
too late i.e. after things have gone wrong, pu-
blic dissatisfaction has become acute, and mischief
has been done. Some of the best members of the
Service have themselves admitted that. For in-
stance, refer to the speech of the late Mr.
Crosthwaite on the Jhansi Encumbered Estates
Bill in the Imperial Legislative Council in May 1882
and to Mr. George Cambell's speech in the House
of Commons on Feb. 28,1879.
The Mesopotamia Commission's report, con-
demning the system of Indian administration, only
 repeats the lessons of the Mutiny of 1857, of the
Orissa Famine of 1866, of the sensational muddle
of the Indian finances in 1880, of the famine
administration of 1877, and of the legislative and
administrative measures relating to the chronic
indebtedness of the Indian ryot (agriculturist) and
to the land revenue systems of India and to the
partition of Bengal.
A.s Lord Northbrookin substance said, when he
was Viceroy, in a despatch of 1875 to the
Secretary of State for India, and subsequently also
in the House of Lords, the present system of
Indian administration suffers seriously for want
of a constitutional machinery fitted to find out
Indian sentiment and public opinion as the basis
of legislative and administrative and especially
financial measures.
There can be no other way to remedy that
serious defect of the system than to provide a
Constitution which shall make the administration
primarily and at one end responsible to Indian
public opinion, and finally, at the other end, to the
British Parliament.
I am, therefore, generally speaking, in agree-
ment with the proposals for Indian reform made
in the memorandum of the nineteen non-official
Indian members of the Imperial Legislative Coun-
cil and in the scheme adopted by the National
Congress and the Muslim League at their respec-
tive sessions held at Lucknow in December, 1916.
The best merit of the memorandum and of the
scheme is that they aim on the whole at what Lord
Ellenborough, who had been Governor-General of
India for some years, and afterwards President of
 Ill

the Board of Control during the regime of the

East India Company, wrote in 1859 :
—
"We must
abandon the exclusive British system and nation-
alise our Government."
The memorandum and the scheme have been
condemned in some quarters as being revolutionary
on the main ground that their proposals
transfer power from the Indian Civil Service, who
(it is said) are best fitted to represent the ni
in India, to the Indian educated classes, who (it is
maintained) are not the true representatives of
the masses. We may, without fear of the result
in favour of the Indian educated classes, invite one
test, which is a sure test, on this question. If
we take the history of the administration from
1858 down to now, with special reference to the
amelioration of the condition of the Indian agri-
culturists, who form seventy-five per cent, of the
people in India, we shall incontestibly find that
measures advocated in their interests by the edu-
cated Indians through their newspapers and pub-
lic associations and at public meetings had been
strenuously opposed as chimerical by the British
officials in India for a long time and were ulti-
mately more or less adopted under the stress of
circumstances. It is the view of the Indian edu-
cated classes regarding the ryot's lot which, gene-
rally speaking, has after more or less painful ex-
perience to some extent won and the official view
;

has yielded in the end.

In publishing this book on " What India
Wants," and presenting to the British and the
Indian public the view of the best mind of India
on the change required in the Indian administra-
 IV

tive system, Mr. Natesan is rendering very useful

service toEngland and India alike. Such a book
as this ought to clear the air and give us the
Indian situation in its full and true perspective at
this moment when England is proving ready to
further justify her mission in India and to prove
once more true to her ancient tradition of helping
nations to govern themselves as parts of her world-
wide Empire.

The Hon the Raja Saheb of Mahomcdabad.

The psychological moment when Britain

should take a definite step towards conferring on
India, the right of managing her own internal
affairs has in my opinion arrived. Any delay
would be fraught with possibilities of danger.
India does not desire what have been termed
catastrophic changes in the government and the
administration of the country but what she does
;

desise is that she should be put on the road to

self-government within the Empire and that no;

obstacles should be placed in her way. To this

end the reforms contemplated in the memoran-
dum, of the nineteen non-official members of His
ExoiiHency the Viceroy's Council, and the scheme
prepared jointly by the Indian National Congress
and the All-India Moslem League are the mini-
mum which the United India urges the freedom-
lovif j; British public to promulgate in this great
" dependency "? of the Empire.
 Mr. V. P. Madhava Rao. CLE.
The appearance of Mr. Xatesan's book on "What
India Wants " is first rate importance
an event of
at this juncture. presents in a succinct form
It
facts and arguments for giving full Self -Govern-
ment to India within the Empire. It gives the his-
tory of the British connection with India from
almost the beginning of the last century and rightly
starts with quoting the words of the Marquis of
Hastings who laid the foundations of the Modern
Indian Empire after putting down the lawless
Pindaries and subverting the Mahratta power.
The rulers of those days, possibly animated by
the generous spirit of the French Revolution,
looked upon the possession of India as a Trust
and themselves as charged with the dtity of
preparing the people, who were the inheritors of
an ancient civilization, to rule themselves. They
contemplated their early retirement from the
country when their work had been done and
looked upon such retirement with complacency
and with a sense of duty righty discharged.
These generous sentiments were later on embodied
in a legislative enactment, the Charter Act of
1833. But from this year onwards a change
would appear to have come over the British
Authorities as regards the spirit in which effect
should be given to the explicit declaration of
policy made in the Act, viz., Equality of treat-
ment of Europeans and Indians as regards hold-
ing offices in the Government of the country.
The book traces this change in the attitude
of the authorities and quotes the utterances of
responsible rulers to show how by the time the-
Charter had to be renewed in 1853, no progress
had been made in giving effect to the liberal
principles laid down in 1833. From the time of
the Royal Proclaoiation of 1858, there was even
a retrograde tendency and the regulations were so
framed as to place positive obstacles in the way of
Indians getting equality of treatment in spite of
the noble utterances of the great Queen.
Mr. Natesan shews how the Council Act of
1892 in passing which such high hopes had been
raised proved a dismal failure, and how the
purposes of Act of 1909 which was looked for-
ward to as giving Indian representatives an
effective control over the everyday administration
of the country were defeated by the regulations
framed under it and the spirit of hostility shewn
by the Executive towards the representatives of
the people. A good case has been made out for
transferring the Government from the Bureaucracy
to the people. The author of the book baa
discharged the task undertaken by him with rare
ability and the small handy volume though unpre-
tentious in look, marshalls facts and arguments in
a manner that must drive even a most casual
reader to the irresistible conclusion that India
stands in need of a radical change in her system
of (Jovernment. This admirable book will be
invaluable to those who have to frame proposals
for the introduction of Self-Government in its
full sense and those who have to guide the
investigations of Mr. Montagu when he visits
India.
 Raja Sir Harnam Singh, K C.I E-

I have read Mr. Xatesan's brochure entitled

"What India Wants" with interest and some care.
In my opinion it contains an admirably compressed
historical account of the progress of constitution-
alism in India. The necessity and advisability of
the first demand in the memorandum of the
nineteen is amply proved by this account and by
the paragraphs cited from the speeches and
writings of some of the best British statesmen
both in India and England. A very good case is
also made out for the argent necessity of some
definite steps being taken t confer a substantial
•

amount ofSelf-Government on this country both

as an earnest of the future and because the
country has now reached the stage wheie it must
make an experiment for itself and when even
such mistakes as the people of India may make in
the course of that experiment will be more fruitful
and will conduce luoie to the ultimate progress of
the country than the best form of external
Government. Opinions may differ on the details as
to the nature and amount, if one may so phrase it,
of the Self-Government to be bestowed but I do
not think there could be found a single dissentient
voice among the best minds of India to-day on
the principles involved in the memorandum of the
nineteen. I think the circulation of Mr. Xatesan's
book in England would furnish information
in a succinct form to the leaders of British public
opinion who may not always have the time to
look into Indian politics for themselves. I have
every confidence that with a full knowledge of
the facts the British democracy will realise that
wise statesmanship requires the grant of Self-
—
'Government to India in the near future since a
beginning has to be made, this seems to be the
most opportune time for Government to do so, at
least to lay the foundation of Self-Government
which is the goal the people are aspiring to.
It might be said the author has dwelt on one
side of the picture overlooking the difficulties in
the way. But I doubt if the difficulties are great
or insurmountable. The country will not be satis-
fied without having Self-Government throughout
India.
Hon. Pundit M. M. Malaviya.
Mr. Natesan's admirable brochure entitled
** What India Wants" is a valuable contribution
to the cause of Indian constitutional reform. The
historical summary of the movement for self-
government which he has given will show that
though like many other movements it ban received
«. great impetus from the present war, it is as old
as the Indian National Congress and* represents
the result of the deliberations of the most thought-
ful Indians during the last thirty years. The
second part of the pamphlet makes an excellent
presentment of the case for the reforms advocated
in the memorandum of the nineteen elected mem-
bers of the Imperial Legislative Council and
elaborated in the scheme adopted by the Congress
and the Moslem League. Altogether it is a very
OSefal and timely publication, and will, I doubt
not, be helpful in promoting a correct understand-
ing iind appreciation of the constitutional changes
•of which India stands in need.
 Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, Bart.

Tkis admirable little summary of the demands

of educated Indians deserves to be widely read.
Differences of opinion may legitimately exist as
to many of the proposals embodied in the scheme
of reforms put forward jointly by the Congress
and the Moslem League. There may be a diver-
gence of views regarding the pace at which it
would be safe to allow India to march towards
her destiny. But the essential principle, viz.,
that her proper place is among the self-governing
units of the Empire, has been accepted by the
best minds in the country, and has been recently
declared by the Secretary of State and emphati-
cally reasserted by His Excellency the Viceroy,
to be the true end and aim of British policy in
India. This solemn declaration, which is a strik-
ing proof both of good faith and of statesmanship,
must help to clarify the atmosphere and to create
a better understanding between the two people,
which augurs well for the future of England and
India alike. Any effort which may be made in
this connection to bring about a closer apprecia-
tion of each other's point of view should be warmly
welcomed and encouraged. Mr. Natesan's clear,
concise and vigorous exposition of the demands
of India stands in this category, and ought
to be carefully studied even by those who find
themselves in disagreement with the scheme of
reforms dealt with in this neat little brochure.
 The Hon'ble Mr. Surendranath Banerjec.
Mr. G. A. Natesan has done a valuable service
to the cause of Indian political progress by bring-
ing out a little book which he styles " What India
Wants." It is a vigorous plea for autonomy
within the Empire and is a spirited appeal to the
British democracy. It contains a vast amount of
useful information and will be specially helpful
at the present time when a scheme of readjust-
ment is being seriously taken in hand by the
responsible Rulers of India. It is a book which I
think every student of present day Indian politics
should provide himself with. It will be a valu-
able guide to every member of the Indian National
Congress and the Moslem League in his efforts to
help the political progress of India. I have my-
self found the book very useful in many ways.

Sir P. S. Sivaswamy Aiyar, K. C S. I., C I. E.

At a time when the air is thick with pro-

posals all the world over, for political reconstruc-
tion after the war, it would be singular, if India
alone were left unaffected by the movemeut.
While the discussion of such proposals is regarded
with favour in other parts of the Empire, it has
been deprecated in this country as being inoppor-
tune and mischievous. The pi'oposals put forward
in the Congress- Moslem-League scheme of post-
war reforms have on the one hand been denounced
as revolutionary and impracticable and have on
the other hand been represented as the irreducible
mini mum of reforms required. The ultimate
decision will of course rest with His Majesty's
 XI

Government and
indirectly with the British
Public. Mr.G. A. Natesan's booklet is an
attempt to acquaint the British Public with the
demands of the educated classes and the circum-
stances which have led to the formulation of
these demands. Barring certain small sections
in one Presidency, there can be little doubt that
the Congress scheme represents the wishes of the
educated classes in India and is therefore entitled
to serious consideration. The constitutional
changes wanted are in the direction of giving a
real and effective voice in the administration of
the people of this country and not the mere
multiplication of throats to voice their wishes.
Mr. Natesan's booklet will be welcomed by the
public as a timely and valuable exposition of the
demands of the educated classes.

Sirdar Jogendra Singh.

Sir RabindranathTagore in a moving poem
which he published in a recent issue of the Jlodern
Revieio in a pathetic parable asks the question :

" The day is come

"
But where is India ?

The world has, perhaps, never seen an age with

a larger faith or a nobler spirit of sacrifice. Demo-
cracy has proved itself. The morning sun of the
new age has risen.
" The temple hall is filled with pilgrims
But where is India ? "
What India wants is her place amongst the
nations of the world. India wishes to share
 Xll

in the great movement of human progress, to

offer her treasures of sweetness, reverence and
knowledge to the Commonwealth of nations which
meet under the British flag. India now seeks
opportunities of growth under the impulse of new
ideals which are not divorced entirely from the
old. The orthodox may deplore a decline in the
old idolatrous moods which ruled India yesterday,
but the stirring of new life marks an awakening
and the people are moving forward to partake in
the new redemption. India, therefore, expects all
those who claim to be her friends to befriend her
in this her hour of redemption and help her to
achieve ideals of human freedom and human
equality.
Mr. Montagu outlined the policy of His
Majesty's Government and India expects Indians
and Englishmen to come together and take in full
faith the first steps towards the attainment of
responsible self-government. The Englishmen in
India owe to themselves and to His Majesty the
King Emperor whom they serve to lay firm the
foundations of the Empire in the hearts of the
people. It lies with them to win affection for the
King-Emperor or lose it. India wants all her
friends to combine and surmount the difficulties,
making her path smooth, helping in the advance
which has been promised, and preparing her for a
larger enfranchisement.
The advance towards self-government will help
the administration in making it more fruitful and
many things which baffled achievements from out-
side will be easily attained when the things move
from within. The coming events proclaim the dawn
 mi

of a new era in which both Englishmen and Indians

should rejoice, for it promises fulfilment of the
great ideals which have inspired British statesmen ;

and which Mr. Xatesan

ideals solemnly proclaimed
has so judiciously brought together in his small
book " What India Wants". The united effort
towards the attainment of these ideals holds forth
promise of future greatness not only for India but
the whole British Empire.

The Hon. Mr. V. S. Srinivasa Sastri.

Mr. G. A. Xatesan has added to his numerous

services to India by the publication of a little
book written by himself and entitled, " What
India Wants." Readers who wish to know the
Indian case for constitutional advance in the in-
ternal governance of the country will find it in its
pages expounded with much vigour and directness
and supported by an array of quotations which is
both full and weighty. Few students of Indian
affairs of the day will dispute its claim to be re-
garded as in the main a trustworthy presentment
•f the ambitions of the progressive school of
political thought in the country. Mr. Xatesan
makes out that these ambitions are in the line of
continuous growth of the Indian polity and in-
volve no violent departure from the principles or
methods of administration hitherto recognsed by
authority. What he advocates is a courageous
and large step in realising those principles after
the war, a step which may be taken, in the
judgment of experienced Indian politicians with
perfect safety, and which, too long delayed out of
regard for vested interests, will be hailed as a
measure of justice and beneficent statesmanship
calculated to place this great country, as nearly as
practicable at present, on a level of equality with
the Self-Governing Dominions and enable her to
share adequately in the mighty upheaval of the
forces of freedom and national self-realisation
which is expected to follow the termination of
the war. Those who appreciate justly the value
of India to the Empire and would ensure per-
manency of her connection with it will find in
Mr. Natesan's booklet much guidance and neces-
sary knowledge.
Mr. M. K. Gandhi.
I have read Mr. Natesan's booklet with the
greatest pleasure. It is a fine Vade mecuni. for the
busy politician and worker. Mr. Natesan has pro-
vided him with a connected narrative of the
movement of self-government in a very attractive
and acceptable form. By reproducing in their
historical sequence the extracts from official records
he has allowed them to speak for themselves. The
book is in my opinion a great help to the contro-
versialist and the student of our present day
politics who does not care to study musty blue
books or has no access to them.
With reference to the joint scheme of Self-
Government, though I do not take so much inter-
est in it as our leaders, I feel that from the Govern
ment standpoint it must command their attention
as a measure which has agitated the public mind
as no other has, and I venture to think that
there will be no peace in the country until the
Scheme has been accepted by the Government.
 Mrs- Annie Besant.
With recommend this booklet to the
pleasure I
Democracy of Great Britain and Ireland, as a
succinct and accurate compendium of the demand
of India for Self-Government within the Empire.
The need for acquiescence in this demand is
pressing, for —not to speak of
the birthright of
freedom belonging to every Nation the Im- —
perial Parliament has neither the time nor the
knowledge to deal properly with Indian affairs.
It leaves matters entirely to " the man on the
spot," and takes his own account of his proceed-
ings, although, as in Mr. Chamberlain's cise, he
may state to Parliament the exact opposite of the
facts. India wants to manage her own affairs,
for she has competent men, full knowledge of
conditions, and time to discharge her public
business. The control of Parliament, exercised
for one day by " a beggarly array of empty
benches " at the fag-end of a session, has become
a farce and she needs men who will attend to
her business as the legislative members of other
Nations attend to theirs.
The vital point of the Congress- League Scheme
is the control of the purse by the Legislative
Council : this is not responsible government but
itmakes responsible government inevitable. By
the control of the purse by the House of Com-
mons England won her freedom, and a similar
result will follow here.
I especially recommend to the English reader
the section of " the Reconstitution of the Indian
Councils," as it will show him why the Minto-
 XVI

Morley reforms have proved to be infructious,.

and will explain the Hon. Mr. V. K. Rama-
nujachariar's contemptuous statement that the
Council meeting* were "a farce". Out of 104
resolutions proposed in Indian Councils by Indian
members, in the Budget debates of 1917, not one
was accepted. Under such conditions does the
Indian member work. One admires the persever-
ance and courage of the men who devote their
time and their brilliant abilities to this thankless
task, and sees alike in their capacity and in their
failure to serve their country another argument
for Home Rule.
 WHAT INDIA WANTS
AUTONOMY WITHIN THE EMPIRE.

SELF-GOVERXMEXT : THE OBJECTIVE.

2w HAT Self-Government is to be India's ideal

Tmi and the goal which Indians should aspire to
' has been affirmed over and over again and
quite voluntarily in various Royal Proclamations
and the utterances of British statesmen and famous
Anglo-Indian administrators. A century ago, the
Marquis of Hastings wrote in his Private Journal

(May, 17th, 1818):

A time not very remote will arrive when Englmd will,
on sound principles of policy, wish to relinquish the
domination which she has gradually and unintentionally
assumed orer this country, and from which she cannot at
present recede. In that hour it would bethe proudest
boast and most delightful reflection that she had used her
sovereignty towards enlightening her temporary subjects,
so as to enable the native communities to walk along in
the paths of justice, and to maintain with probity to-
wards their benefactors that commercial intei course in
which we should then find a solid interest. (P. 361-362,
Panini Office Edition). Quoted in " Toicards Home
Rnle."
Sir Thomas Munro, whose name is still a house-
hold word all over India and whose passionate
love for its people is still being commemorated
 the Madras Presidency in
in some parts of
of the earliest to give
songs and ballads, was one
definite expression to the measures which Eng-
welfare of the people
land should promote for the
of India.
he
In a minute, dated December 31, 1824,
wrote :

on the natives the

It is not enough that we confer
of iu«t laws and of moderate taxation, unless we
benefits
but under a foreign
endeavour to raise their character;
which tend to
Government there are so many causes
that it is not easy to prevent it from sinking.
depress it,

Itfsanold observation that he

who loses his liberty
half his virtue. This is true of nations as well as
loses
of individuals. To
have no property scarcely degrades
one case than in the other to have property at
more in
disposal of a foreign Government in which we have
The
«o share The enslaved nation loses the privileges of a
those of a free man it loses
nation as the slave does
;

itself, of making its own laws

of
Jhe privilege of taxing
admmistrat.on or in the
having any share in their
country. .... It » not
general government of the
national sovereign, but subjec-
the arbitrary power of a
destroys national character
tion to a foreign one, that
spirit. When a people cease
and extinguishes national
to have a national
character to maintain, they lote the
both in public and in
mainspring of whatever is laudable
sinks with the public
private life, and the private
19th, ISO)
character.-(/ndian Spectator, February
so keen about
But the noble Scotchman was
people that he
the great future of the Indian
insisted that everything should be done to pro-

mote their welfare even if it were to result in the

over India. Anticipating
loss of England's control
the famous pronouncement of Macaulay, Sir
Thomas Muuro declared :

would be more desirable tbat we should be expel-

It
led from the country altogether than that the result of
our system of government should be such an abasement
of a whole people.
Then again as pointed out by the venerable
Indian publicist, Dadabhai Xaoroji :

At a time when the Indians were in their educational

and political infancy, when they did not and could not
understand what their political condition then was or
was to be in the future, when they had not uttered any
complaints, nor demanded any rights or any definite
policy towards themselves, the British nation, of their
own accord and pleasure, merely from their own sense of
their duty towards the millions of India and to the
world, deliberately declared before the world what their
policy should be towards the people of India. Nor did
the British people do this in any ignorance or want of
forethought or without the consideration of all possible
consequences of their action. Never was there a debate
in both Houses of Parliament more complete and clear,
more exhaustive, more deliberately looked at from all
points of view, and more calculated for the development
of statesmanlike policy and practical good sense. The
—
most crucial point of view that of political danger or
of even the possible loss of India to Britain — was faced
with true English manliness; and the British nation,
through their Parliament, then settled, adopted, and pro-
claimed to the world what their policy was to be viz. —
the policy of justice and of the advancement of
humanity,

THE CHARTER ACT, 1833.

The historic debate referred to is that which
took place in the House of Commons and in the
Lords in discussing the Charter Act of 1833.
 Sir Robert Peel said :

Sure I am at least that we must approach

the consider-
ation of it with a deep feeling, with a strong sense of the
responsibility we shall incur, with a strong sense of the
moral obligation which imposes it upon us as a duty to
promote the improvement of the country and the welfare
and well-being of its inhabitants, so far as we can consist-
ently with the safety and security of our dominion and
the obligations by which we may be bound

He declared further that it was England's duty

to endeavour while we still keep them under British
rule, to atone to them for the sufferings they endured,
and the wrongs to which they were exposed in being
reduced to tint rule, and to afford them such advantages
and confer on them such benefits as may, in some degree,
console them for the loss of their independence. These,
sir, are considerations which, whatever may be the
anxiety to extend British conquest, and to maintain the
rights of British subjects, must indisputably be enter-
tained in a British Parliament.

Mr. "Wynn thus stated his conviction :

He had been convinced, ever since he was first con-

nected with the affairs of India, that the only principle
on which that Empire could justly or wisely or advant-
ageously be administered was that of admitting the
Natives to a participation in the government, and
allowing them to hold every office the duties of which
they were competent to discharge.
Mr. Charles Grant rejoiced over the main
principle of the Bill and observed :

If one circumstance more than another could give him

satisfaction it was that the main principle of this Bill
had received the approbation of the Bouse, and that the
House was now legislating for India and the people of
India on the great and just principle that in doing so the
intercuts of the people of India should be principally
consulted, and that all other interests of wealth, of
commerce, and of revenue, BhouJd be as nothing compared
with the paramount obligation imposed upon the Legis-
lature of promoting the welfare and prosperity of that
great Empire which Providence had placed in our handst

The Marquis of Lansdowne, speaking on the

same subject in the House of he:
He was sure that their Lordnhip9 would feel, as he
indeed felt, that their only justification before God and
Providence for the great and unprecedented dominion
which tbev exercised in India was in the happiness
which they communicated to the subjects under their
rule, and in proving to the world at large, and to the
inhabitant* of Hindustan, that the inheritance of Akbar
('he wisest and most beneficent of Mahomed an pri-.
had not fallen into unworthy or degenerate hands. , . .

His Lordship, after announcing the policy in-

tended to be adopted, concluded :

He was confident that the streng h of the Government

would be increased by th« happiness of the people over
whom it presided, and by the attachment of those nations
to it.
Xo educated Indian can ever forget the famous
pronouncement made by Lord Macaulay in the
House of Commons on this occasion and the
magnificent peroration containing his great pro-
phecy about the future of India :

Are we tokeep the people of India ignorant in order

that we may beep them submissive ? Or do we think
that we can give them knowledge without awakening
ambition ? Or do we mean to awaken ambition and to
provide it with no legitimate vent 1 Who will answer
any of these questions in the affirmative ? Yet every one
of them must be answered in the affirmative, by every
person who maintains that we ought permanently to
exclude the natives from high office. I have no fears. The
path of duty is plain before us and it is also the path
:

of wisdom, of national prosperity, of national honour.

 6

The destinies of our Indian Empire are covered with

thick darkness. It is difficult to form any conjecture
as to the fate reserved for a State which resembles no
other in history, and which forms by itself a separate
class of political phenomena. The laws which regulate
its growth and it* decay are still unknown to us. It
may be that the public mind of India may expand under
our system till it has outgrown that system that by good
;

government we may educate our subjects into a capacity

for better government; that, having become instructed
in European knowledge, they may, in some future age r
demand European institutions. Whether such a day
will ever come I know not. But never will I attempt
to avert or to retard it. Whenever it comes, it will be
the proudest day in English history. To have found a
great people sunk in the lowest depths of slavery and
superstition, to have so ruled them as to have made them
desirous and capable of all the privileges of citizens,
would indeed be a title to glory all our own. The
sceptre may pass away from us. Unforeseen accidents
may derange our most profound schemes of policy.
Victory may be inconstant to our arms. But there are
triumphs which are followed by no reverse. There is
an empire exempt from all natural causes of decay.
Those triumphs are the pacific triumphs of reason over
barbarism; that empire is the imperishable empire of
our arts and our morals, our literature and our laws.

This eloquent plea of Macaulay waa in favour

of " that wise, that benevolent, and that noble
clause "87, of the Charter Act of 1833, which
declared " that no native of the said teii'itories nor
any natural bom subject of His Majesty resident
tfierein, shall, by reason only of his religion, place
of birth, descent, colour or any of thein, be disabled
from, holding any place, office, or employment under

tlie Company."
 The Court of Directors, in forwarding the Act of
1833 to the East India Company, accompanied
the same with a remarkable despatch in which
they observed regarding clause 87 :

It is provided that no person by reason of his birth,

creed, or colour, shall be disqualified from holding any
office in our service
that this important enactment should be
It is fitting
understood in order that its full spirit and intention
may be transfused through our whole system of adminis-
tration.

But the meaning of the enactment we take to be that

there shall be no governing ua-e in British India that ;

whatever other tests of qualification may be adopted,,

distinctions of race or religion shall not be of the
number. That no subject of the King, whether of Indian
or British or mixed descent, shall be excluded either
from the posts usually conferred on our uncovenanted
servants in India, or from the covenanted service itself*
provided he be otherwise eligible consistently with the
rules and agreeably to the conditions observed and
exacted in the one case and in the other.

ACT OF 1853.

It will thus be seen that the question cf India's

future was discussed thoroughly in all its bear-

ings, " political, imperial, and social," and clause
87 enacted by the British Parliament —a clause
" worthy of the righteousness, justice, and noble
instincts of the British people in the true British
spirit." When in 1853, once again, the revision
of the Company's Charter came up in the
C ommons, in discussing its provisions many
 members bewailed that the important provision
of the Act of 1833 had not been given effect to.

The opportunity, therefore, was fully availed of

to " emphatically insist " that the British people

and the British Parliament should be no party to

the "unfaithfulness" of reducing a Parliament-
ary enactment to a " dead letter," a" sham and
a delusion."
Listen to the outburst of Mr. John Bright.
Speaking on June 3rd, 1853, he said :

Another subject requiring close attention on the part

of Parliament was the "employment of the Natives of
India ie the service of the Government. The right hon.
Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay), proposing the
India Bill of 1833 had dwelt on one of its clauses, which
provided that neither colour nor caste nor religion nor
place of birth should be a bar to the employment of
persons by the Government ; whereas, fs a natter of fact'
from that time to this, no person in India had been so
employed who might not have been equally employed
before that clause was enacted; and from the statement
of the right hon. gentleman, the President of the Board
of Control, that it was proposed to keep up the Cove-
nanted Service system, it was clear that this most objec-
tionable and most offensive state of things was to con-

tinue. Mr. Cameron, a gentleman thoroughly verted in

the subject, mm fourth Member of Council in India,
President of the Indian Law Commission, and of the
Council of Education for Bengal— what did he say on
.this point ? He said : The Statute of 1833 made the
Natives of India eligible to all under the Com-
offices

any. But during the twenty years ttlat have since

elapsed not one of the Natives has been appointed to
any offices except such as they were eligible to before the
Statute.'

Mr. J. G. Philliruore sounded a note of warning

which is worth recalling :

He also feared that the Bill would prore delusive, and

that although it professed to do justice to the Natives
the '* spirit of monopoly would st'll blight the hopes and
break the spirits of the I udian people. While such a
state of things continued, India would be attached to
this country by no bond of affection, but would be re-
1
'

tained by the power of the Arrav and the terror of the

8 word. He implored of the Committee "not to allow such
an Empire ti be poverntd in the miserable spirit of
monopoly and exclusion."

Five years later, in moving for leave to

bring in the (first) Bill for the better Government
of India, Viscount Palmerston observed
It is indeed remarkable that those regions, iu which
science and art may be said to have first dawned upon
mankind, should now be mbjeet to the rule of a people
inhabiting islands which at a time, when these eastern
regions enjoyed as huh a civilization and as great pros-
perity as that age could offer, were in a state of u:ter
barbarism,
and he wound up his great speech with the follow-

ing significant warning

1 trust that Parliament will feel that great power is
not given to nations without corresponding duties to be
performed We have, by an almost miraculous train of
•events, been entrusted with the care of the destinies of
—
150 or 160 millions of men with the government, direct-
 10

ly or indirectly, of a vastempire larger in extent thau

the whole face of Europe, putting the Russian empire
out of the question. That is a task which involves great
responsibility. Do not imagine that it is the intention
of Providence that England should possess that vast
empire, and that we should have in our hand the desti-
nies of that vast multitude of men, simply that we may
send out to India the sons of gentlemen or of the mid-
dling classes to make a decent fortune to live on. That
power has been entrusted to us for other and better
purposes and, without pointing to anything particular^
;

I think it is the duty of this nation to use it in such a

manner as to promote, as far as they can, the instruc-

tion, the enlightenment, and the civilization of those
great populations which are now subject to our rule.
ROYAL PROCLAMATIONS.
Such have been the noble efforts made
in the British Parliament from time to time
to ensure that under the administration of

the East India Company, the interests of the

people were properly safeguarded and nothing
done to check the growth of their legitimate

ambition or their political advancement.

When at the end of the great Mutiny
the rule (many call it the misrule) of the
Company was put an end to, and the Gov-
ernment of India transferred directly to the
Crown, and the Proclamation of 1858 issued

to the Princes and Peoples of India, the joy of the

people knew no bounds, for the event marked the
turning point in the history of British rule in India
and the famous Proclamation of Queen Victoria
 11

gave further solemnity to the sacred character of

the promise contained in the Charter Act of
1833. " We hold ourselves" proclaimed the noble
Queen, " bound to the natives of our Indian terri-

tories by the same obligations of duty ichich bind us

to all our other subjects, and these obligations by the

blessing of Almighty God we shall faithfully and

conscientiously ftdfil ;
" and it is interesting at this
distance of time to recall to our memory how the
good Queen directed her Minister to issue the great
Proclamation, bearing in mind "that it is a female
Sovereign who speaks to more than a hundred
millions of her eastern people on assuming the direct
government over them and, after a bloody war giving
them pledges ichich her future reign is to redeem.''

And in explaining the principles of her Govern-

ment Her Majesty was justly anxious that the
document besides " breathing a feeling of
generosity, benevolence and religious toleration,"
must also " point out the privileges ichich the
Indians icill receive in being placed on an equality
with the subjects of the British Crown."

On the 1st of January 1877, at the great Delhi

Assemblage held to proclaim the assumption of the
title of Empress of India by Queen Victoria, Lord
Lytton, the then Viceroy, said :
 12
•

and
But you, the natives of India, whatever your race
share
whatever your creed, have a recognised claim to
according to
largely with your English fellow-subjects,
of the
your capacity for the task, in the administration
the high-
country you inhabit. This claim is founded on
est justice. It has been repeatedly
affirmed by British
the Im-
and Indian statesmen and by the legislation of
perial Parliament. It is recognised by the
government
consistent witn
of India as binding on its honour and
all the aims of its policy.
his
Three months later the same Viceroy, in
role as Chancellor of the Calcutta University,

"the Proclamation of the Queen

observed that
contained solemn pledges spontaneously given,

and founded upon the highest justice."

In 1887, in reply to an address of congratula-
tion voted by the Municipal Corporation of the

City of Bombay on the occasion of the Jubilee, the

Queen Empress said :

" It has always been and
my earnest desire that the
will continue to be
principles of that Proclamation should be
unswerv-

ingly maintained."
Attention may also be drawn to two other
notable royal pronouncements. On the occa-

sion of the fiftieth anniversary of the transfer of

the Government of India to the Crown, King

Edward VII in his Proclamation to the Princes

and Peoples of India, which was read by EI. B. the

Viceroy (the late Earl Mmto) in Durbar, at

Jodhpur, on the 2nd November, 1908, said :—

 13

Steps are being continuously taken towards obliterat-

ing distinctions of race as the test for access to posts of
public authority and power. In this path I confidently
expect and intend tbe progress henceforward to bo
steadfast and sure, as education spreads, experience
ripens and the lessons of responsibility are well learned
by the keen intelligence and apt capabilities of India.
From the first, the principle of representative institu-
tions began to be gradually introduced, and the time has
come when, in the judgment of my Viceroy and
Governor-General and others of my counsellors, that
principle may be prudently extended. Important classes
among you, representing ideas that have been fostered
and encouraged by British rule, claim equality of citi-
zenship, and a greater share in legislation and govern-
ment. The politic satisfaction of such a claim will
strengthen, not impair, existing authority and power.

Almost the first act of H. M. King George V.,

on ascending the Throne, was to send the follow-
ing message to his Indian subjects :

Queen of revered memory, addressed her

Victoria,
Indian subjects and the heads of Feudatory States when
she assumed the direct government in 1858, and her
august son, my father, of honoured and beloved name,
commemorated the same most notable event in his
Address to you some fifty years later. These are the
Charters of the noble and benignant spirit of Imperial
rule, and by that spirit in all my time to come 1 will
faithfully abide.

To use His Majesty's own words, it was his wish

not only " to strengthen the old ties but to
create new ones, and so, please God, secure a
better understanding and a closer union between
the Mother-country and her Indian Empire, to
break down prejudice, to dispel misapprehension,
and to foster sympathy and brotherhood." His
 14

Imperial Majesty's visit to India and the solemn

ceremony of His Coronation at Delhi, were, to use
the words of the official historian, " really ar

emphatic announcement, an announcement the

India is an equal and integral part of the Britisl

Empire"
The event was one of tremendous importance in the
history of the Empire. Political aspirations were lifted
to a higher plane, patriotism was broadened and intensi-
fied, a new pride arose in the heritage of the Empire, and
with it a stronger feeling of mutual respect and better
social relationship between the natives of India and the
natives of England, to all of whom the King was com-
mon, irrespective of religion, race or colour.
India is now assured, without a shadow of doubt, of
its part in the great Imperial Commonwealth and of the
inherent sympathy and high intentions of the rule which
Their Majesties personify. It knows without doubt
that it is no longer a mere subordinate and conquered
land, but that it is bound by ties of the closest affection
and heartfelt allegiance to a monarch who, amid all the
multifarious interests and absorbing activities of his
great position, has ever watched its welfare with the
deepest interest and sought to give it an equal place in
the dominions of the Empire a Sovereign, too, who
;

lives for unity, in the certain knowledge that the

brotherhood of his world-wide dominion can only be for
the benefit of its members and for the blessing and
advantage of untold millions of the human raoe. (The
Historical Rec07-d of the Imperial Visit to India,
p. 17, 19-20.)

It will thus be seen that while Queen Victoria

was anxious that the Proclamation issued in
her own name to the Princes and Peoples of
India should " point out the privileges which
 15

the Indians will receive in being placed on an

equality with the subjects of the British Crown,
her son and her grandson solemnly con-

firmed the ideal set by her to the people of India.

VIEWS OF BRITISH cV AXGLO-IXDIAN STATESMEN*.
The noble policy laid down by the British Parlia-

ment and sanctified by the Proclamation of Queen

Victoria, pledged to be followed by her successors,
has been from time to time reiterated by a succes-
sion of great British statesmen and Anglo-Indian
administrators.
Who does not remember the pronouncement
of that great and noble Englishman, the Rt.
Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, who toiled for

the people of India for thirty long years in vari-

ous capacities ? In his evidence before the Com-
mittee of the House of Commons in 1833 he urged
among other things that the first object of the
rulers must be " to raise the natives by education

and public trust to a level with their present

rulers." Seventeen years later he wrote :

conceive that the administration of all the depart-

I
ments of a great country by a small number of foreign
visitors, in a state of isolation produced by a difference
in religion, ideas, and manners, which cuts them off
from all intimate communion with the people, can never
be contemplated as a permanent state of things. I
conceive also that the progress of education among the
natives renders such a scheme impracticable, even if it
 16

were otherwise free from objection. It might, perhaps,

natives m
have once been possible to have retained the
a subordinate condition (at the expense of national
their spirit
justice and honour) by studiously repressing
and discouraging their progress in knowledge; but
we
all mental
are now doing our best to raise them in
qualities to a level with ourselves, and to instil into
them
policy which
the liberal opinions in government and
vain to
have long prevailed in this country, and it is
to rule them on principles only suited to
a
endeavour
slavish and ignorant population.
speak-
Sir Stafford Northcote (Lord Iddesleigh),

ing in the House of Commons in 1867 as

Secretary of State for India, said :

labour
The Rnglish Government must necessarily
under great disadvantages, and we should
endeavour
Native Gov-
a« far as possible to develop the system of
ernment, to bring out Native talent and statesmanship,
was
and to enlist in the cause of Government all thatmore
be
great and, good in them. Nothing could
wondc f..| than our Empire in India but we ought
;

to consider on what conditions we hold it

and how our
the Mogul
predecessors held it. The greatness of
pursued
Empire depended or. the liberal policy that was
fail successors
by men like the great Emperor Akbar and
availi.it; thomsMvos of Hindu talent
and assistance, and
people
identifvi..^ themselves as far as possible with the
of the country. They ought to take a lesson from auoli
circumstances. Ifth-y were to do /heir duty low
obtain-
India they could only discharge that duly by
ing assistance and counsel of all who are
gnat ana
good in that country. It would be absurd in them
to
statesmanship
say that there was not a large fund of
must
and ability in the Indian character. They really
speak of
not be too proud. They were always ready to
superior to any-
the English Government as so infinitely
thing in the way of Indian Government. But if the
Natives of India were disposed to be equally critical,
it

would be portsible for them to find out weak places in

the harness of the English administration.
 17

Sir John Malcolm, another famous Anglo-

Indian, respected and revered like Mountstuart
Elphinstone, sounded the note of warning when he-

said :

We are not warranted by the history of India, nor

indeed by that of any other nation in the world, in
reckoning upon the possibility of preserving an Empire
of such a magnitude by a system which excludes, as ours
does, the natives from every station of high rank and
honourable ambition. ... If we do not use the
knowledge which we impart, it will be employed against
us If these plans are not associated with the
creation of duties that will employ the minds which we
enlighten, we shall only prepare elements that will
hasten the destruction of our Empire. The moral evil
to us does not thus stand alone. It carries with it its
Nemesis, the seeds of the destruction of the Empire
itself.

Sir John Lawrence in 1864 said :

The people of India are quite capable of administer-

ing their own affairs, and the municipal feeling is deeply
rooted in them. The village communities, e*eh of which-
is a little republic, are the most abiding of Indian insti-
tutions. Holding the position we do in India, every
view of duty and poiicy should induce us to leave as
much as passible of the business of the country to be
done by the people.

And Mr. Gladstone, M who loved Liberty in his

old age even more fully than he loved her in his
youth," declared :

I hold that the capital agent in determining finally

the question whether our power in India is or is not to-
continue, will be the will of the two hundred and forty
millions of people who inhabit India. The question who*
shall have Supreme Rule in India is, by the laws of
right, an Indian question and those laws of right are
;

2
 18

from day to day growing into laws of fact. Our title to

be there depends on a first condition, that our being
there is profitable to the Indian nations and on a ;

second condition, that we can make them see and under-

stand it to be profitable.
Sir William Wilson Hunter pointed out
I do not believe that a people numbering one-sixth of
the whole inhabitants of the globe, and whose aspira-
tions have been nourished from their earliest youth on
the strong food of English liberty, can be permanently
denied a voice in the government of the country.

Lord Salisbury has said :

But it would be a great evil if the result of our

dominion was that the Natives of India who were
capable of government should he absolutely and
hopelessly excluded from such a career.

This is what Lord Harrington said in 1883 :

It is not wise to educate the people of India, to intro-

duce among them your civilisation and your progress
and your literature, and at the same time to tell them
that they shall never have any chance of taking any
part or share in the administration of the affairs of their
country, except by getting rid, in the first instance, of
their European rulers. Surely it would not be wise to
tell a patriotic native of India of that.

Sir Richard Temple, an Anglo-Indian never

regarded as a friend of India, expressed his

opinion :

For all that it must he remembered that the elective

principle is essential to that political training which
<«vpry stable government (like that of the British in India)
must desire to see possessed by its subjects. . Public . .

spirit cannot be created without entrusting the people

with a p<irt of their own public business, a part limited
«t lirat, but increasing as their fitness shall grow. Even
 19

if political risks shoald accrue, they !m^t be borae in

pjrfortsi ig th9 duty which the British Government owes
to th3 people of India, la that country, a trustful
policy w'll be found a wise one, and that which is sound
in ir*l!f will prove to be the safest politically.

The only true and just position which Great

Britain ought to adopt towards India was clearly
perceived and frankly acknowledged by one of the
greatest of Indian Viceroys — Lord Ripon — who,
in addressing the University of Bombay, in 1894,
expressed himself as follows :

I am very strongly impressed wito the conviction

that the spread of education, and especially of Western
culture, carried on as it is under the auspices or this and
the other Indian universities, imposes new and special
difficulties upon the Government of this countrv. It
seems to me, I mu9t confers, that it is little short of folly
that we should throw open to increasing numbers the
rich stores of Western learning; that we should
inspire them with European ideas, and bring them into
the closest eoosact with English thought and thea that
;

we should, as it were, pay no heed to the growth of

those aspirations which wa have ourselves called forth.
To my mind one of the most important, if it be also one
of the most difficult, problems of the Indian Government
in these days is, how to afford such satisfaction to those
aspirations and to those ambitions as may render the
men who are animated by them the hearty advocates and
the loyal supporters of the British Government.

A few years later, Lord Cromer, who was Lord

Ripon's Finance Minister and one of the most
reputed of Britain's Pro-Consuls, placed on
record the following opinion :

It is only what ought to be expected by every thought-

ful mm, that, after fifty years of free press and thirty
 20

with European ideas

Tears of expanding education,
side, and old indigen-
flowing into the country on every
breaking down
ous customs, habits, and prejudices
in the thoughts, the
changes should be taking place
intelligent and educated
desires and the aims of the
Govern-
men of' the country, which no wise and cautiousthey must
which
ment can afford to disregard, and to
administration if they do
gradually adapt their system of
forces which they have
not wish to see it shattered by
they have failed
themselves called into being, but which
to guide and control.
was the pronouncement
More notable still

made to the Elphinstonians of Bombay by Sir

William Lee-Warner :—
It is no narrow
principle of a paternal Government
of the ruler which sent forth the
or a rule for the benefit
Roman with this poet's sailing orders,
Tu
'
regere imperio populos Komave memento,
as aiding the central autho-
or which fostered differences
Its aim is less to govern than
rity Divide et impera.
capacity and to teach selt-
to call forth the progressive
ower ranks of
eoyemment. It desires to lift up the
ES and the subject to the pedestal
•Humanity,' and
of toe ruler.
'Heaven's light our guide, are its
in your Magna
watchwords, and they are embodied
C/iar<«, the Queen's
Proclamation, issued by the ruler
defied and restored by
whose authority had just been ideas of
the sword . ... There are three supreme
the family, the nation and humamty. The
mankind,
of the first the
Hindu and the Greek ruler thought British nation
Empire the second but the
Roman of ;

1
as its ruling idea.
accepts the last and highest
. . . .

Sre to point out to you that

from God's nature the
the grand idea of humanity
British nation has learnt
legislation and administration of India
and that the
Queen bears testimony to Her Majesty s deHre
under the
before all those
^recognize a progressive future as
protection of the weak,
committed to her care. The
and a common
quality in the eye of the law, justice,
participation in the benefits and
when the time comes.
 •21

m the task of good government {are at least the aims

which the British Government sets before it.
And if further evidence were needed to show
«how truly noble was the ideal of the older gene-
ration of Anglo-Indian administrators, we have
only to recall to our memory the famous letter

addressed to the late Mr. Gokhale, in 1905, by

Mr. Hodgson Pratt :

wU
" Fifty yeara ago,"' writes Mr. Pratt, in those days
was a member of the Bengal Civil Service, " while India
was still under the Government of the East India Com-
pany, it was considered both just and v.ise to introduce
measares for national education on a liberal scale, with
adequate provision of schools, colleges, and universities.
This eveut was hailed with lively satisfaction by the
native population as heralding a new era of social pro-
gress, and as satisfying the active intelligence of the
Hindus. Now it must be observed that the character of
the teaching thus inaugurated by .Englishmen would
necessarily reflect the ideals which have for centuries
prevailed among them. In other words, Indian youths
would be brought up to admire our doctrines of political
liberty, popular rights, aud national independence : nor
could it ever have been supposed that these lessons would
fall upon deaf ears and cold hearts. On the contrary,
the inevitable result of such teaching was clearly per-
ceived by the Government of those days, and was regard-
ed in a generous spirit. In support of this assertion I
may mention that at the time of the inauguration of
these measures I accompanied the then Lieutenant-
Governor of Bengal (Sir Frederick Halliday) on one of
his winter tours through the province. Naturally, he
called the attention of those who attended the public
meetings held by him to the new education policy, and
he always took occasion to declare that the schools
would promote one of the leading purposes of British
rule, which teas to prepare the people for aelf-govem-
iiient. It certainly was not supposed that at any subse-
 22

quent time a policy would be adopted, which would dis-

appoint the legitimate hopes thus created."

ENGLISH EDUCATION AND INDIAN ASPIRATIONS.

With such a lofty ideal of the political destiny
of India placed before them, fed upon the writings
of Milton and Burke and Mill, with theii

minds fully stored with the great history of thf

struggles for constitutional freedom and liberty

in England and other Western countries, and above
all ever inspired by the higher ideals of Englisl :
life and character, is it a matter for wonder,

or in any way unnatural, that educated India

has been steadily gazing at the goal of Self-Govern-
ment ? The leaven had begun to work; the national-

consciousness of the people began first to mani-

fest itself when systematic attempts were made

to defeat, to nullify, to render into a farce and

a sham Clause 87 of the Charter Act of 1833.
Requests and remonstrances for the fulfilment of
the pledge contained therein proved vain, and
great was the outcry not only in l.engnl but

throughout the country when a deliberate attempt

was made to frame a law that candidates for

the Indian Civil Service should not be more than

19 to 21 years of age at the time of examination,
a peiiod specially chosen to make it impossible for

young Indians to go over to England and success-

 23

fully compete there. Referring to the still unful-

filled and unredeemed Clause 87 of the Charter
Act of 1833, Lord Lytton had observed in a con-
fidential minute :

No sooner was the Act passed than the Government

began to devise means for practically evading the ful-
filment of it We all know that these claims
and expectations never can or will be fulfilled. We
have had to choose between prohibiting them and
cheating them, and we have chosen the least straight-
forward course.
He added :

Since I am writing confidentially, 1 do not hesitate

to say that both the Governments of England and of
India appear to me up to the present moment unable
to answer satisfactorily the charge of having taken
every means in their power of breaking to the heart
the words of promise they had uttered to the ear.

Speaking on the same subject in the House

of Lords on March 11, 1869, the Duke of Argyll
avowed frankly :

With regard, however, to the employment of natives

in the government of their country, in the Covenanted
Service, formerly of the Company and now of the
Crown, must say that we have not fulfilled our
I

duty, or the promi§es and engagements which we

have made.
LORD LYTTOX'S POLICY.
The first effective obstruction to Indians
 24

being placed " on an equality with the sub-

jects of the British Crown," as promised by
Queen Victoria was thus accomplished. The
Vernacular Press Act of Lord Lytton and
the remission of the Indian cotton duties

to propitiate the greed of Lancashire roused

the feelings of the people to a still greater
degree. Political agitation, quite on English
lines, naturally followed and educated Indians,
though few in numbers, began to talk of

liberty and self-government. And as out of

evil cometh good, fortunately for India, it

proved the beginning of the new national

awakening which has been destined to play
no mean part in the political development
of the country. This national feeling still

further gained in solidarity by the great

religio-social movements like the Brahmo Samaj,
the Arya Samaj, the Theosophical Society,

the Ramakrishna Mission and other organisations.

INDIA UNDER LORD K1P0N.
While India was thus in a state of ferment, religi-

ous, social and political, fortunately for it, on the

heels of the exceedingly unpopular Viceroy Lord
Lytton, came Lord Ripon. That noble Viceroy,
whose honoured name will ever be writ large in
 25

the pages of Indian history, freed the Vernacular

Press from the fefcters to which it had been sub-
jected and realising the sacred character of the
promises and pledges that had been made to the
people of India by Her Majesty and her duly
constituted representatives, formulated boldly his
policy of Local Self-Government and thereby
sought in true British spirit to lay the founda-
tions of representative institutions in India.

But he was not content with doing that only.

He made also a brave and honourable attempt to
amend the criminal law of the country so a
place the European and the Indian on an equal
footing in the matter of trials and thus tried to
redeem another sacred promise of Her Majesty.
Anglo-India, official and non-official, combined
together to thwart the Viceroy in his noble efforts
and we have it on authority that a very serious
attempt was made with the connivance of the officials

to forcibly deport Lord Ripon out of the country.

But though his attempt to make the Ilbert Bill

the law of the land failed and a compromise was

effected by which the principle of the Bill was
abandoned, Lord Ripon 's regime gave a new
impetus to the political life of the country.
The unique demonstrations held all over
 26

the country to bid him farewell may justly

be termed a landmark in Indian history. When
Lord Ripon left the shores of India the country was
not in its normal mood. The tension between the

Indian and European communities caused by th(

Ilbert Bill agitation was still being felt and whei
the diplomatic Lord Dufferin assumed tht

Yiceroyalty " the fire was still smouldering."

The cry of political liberty and political equality

raised during the reactionary regime of Lord

Lytton and re-enforced in volume and vigour
by the Anglo-Indian opposition to Lord Ripon's
benevolent attempts to raise the status and privi-
leges of Indians gained more and more strength
in the early years of Lord Duflerin's administra-
tion and, we have it on indisputable authority,
that the discontent that was smouldering w&e
likely to produce danger, " tremendous in the im-
mediate future."

THE FOUNDATION OP TUB CONGRESS.

It was just at this juncture that a distinguished

Indian Civilian who loved the people of India as

well as his sovereign realised that the time was

come to gather the forces that were then in

operation and direct them into one channel. In
the words of Allan Octavian Hume, whose memory
 27

will ever be cherished by the millions of this land

with gratitude,
no choice was left to those who gave the primary
impetus to the movement. The ferment, the creation of
Western ideas, education, invention and appliances, was
at work with a rapidly increasing intensity, and it be-
came of paramount importance to find for its products
an overt and constitutional channel for discharge,
instead of leavicg them to fester as they had already
commenced to do, under the surface.
Thus was laid the foundation of the great

Indian National Congress. The movement

expressly intended
to foster a wider altruism and a more genuine public
spirit,by concentrating the most strenuous efforts on
great national problems, and diminishing the absorption
in local or purely selfish interests —
to educate all who
took part in it, not merely in the arts of public speaking
and debate, developing the faculty of thinking out clearly
opinions, and expressing them lucidly to others, not
merely in habits of accuracy and research, but also in the
practice of self-control, moderation and willingness to
—
give and take to ed ucate them in fact into what has been
described as a genuine Parliamentary frame of mind— to
familiarize the country with the methods and working of
representative institutions on a large scale, and thus, as
this familiarity grew, to demonstrate to the Government
and people of England that India was already ripe for
some measure of those institutions to which the entire
intelligence of the country so earnestly aspires*

The notification under which in 1885 the first

session of the Indian National Congress was called

into existence clearly stated that one of the objects
of the future assembly was " indirectly to form the

* Page 6."). Life of Allan Octavian Hume. by 8ir

William Wedderburn. G. A. Natesan & Co., Madras.
 28

germ of an Indian parliament which, if properly

conducted, will constitute in a few years an un-
dnswerable reply to the assertion that '{India is

still wholly %mdt for any form of representative

institutions"
In the second Congress the question cf repre-
sentative institutions for India was again debated
and the Congress recorded its " fixed conviction

that the introduction of representative institutions

will prove one of the most important practical
steps towards the amelioration of the condition of

the people."
Thenceforward the question of representative

institutions was discussed in some shape or other,

at almost every session of the Congress, and in

the words of one of the great orators of the

Congress
We unfurl the banner of the Congress, and upon it
are written, in characters of glittering gold, which none
may efface, the great words of this Resolution 4 Repre- :

sentative Institutions for India.'

When themovement entered the second decide

of its life more emphatic expression was given to
the hopes and aspirations of the people " to r
ihe dream of a united and federated India."
THE CUllZOXTAN REGIME.
After this period the Congress had to enter on
 29

a new stage of its activities. Lord Curzon came

out as Viceroy of India with a flourish of trum-
pets about his love of India and his sympathy
with its aims and aspirations. But the first year

of his reign was marked by the reactionary policy

of the Calcutta Municipal Act and an uneasy
feeling crept into the minds of many people.

But the faith of the Congress was not yet

shaken. It received with great enthusiasm a
letter from Mr. W. S. Caine who had laboured
not a little for the good of the people of India, in

which he said of the Indian people :

My belief in their future as a great self-governing

portion of the British Empire, and my conviction of
their natural capacity for self-government deepens
and strengthens every year.
The President of the Congress, Mr. Romesh
Chunder Dutt, who had just then retired from
the Indian Civil Service after a long and
honourable record of useful work and had
acquired a reputation as a great scholar and
historian, appealed to the authorities to remember
that India, while loyal to the British rule sought
«' a large measure of self-government " and a
" position among the modern nations of the
earth."

One more year of the Curzonian regime and

we find echoes of the cry :
 30

But the times have changed, and the alien Govern-

ment now ruling over us has entirely different ideas
and constitutions. The English Government, though
democratic at home, is imperialistic and bureaucratic
here.
It is a significant commentary on Lord Curzon's
statesmanship that he began his policy of reaction
and repression and his many attempts to smother
the growing ambitions of the people of India just
at a time when a small Asiatic power had inflicted a

crushing blow on Russia —the Colossus of Europe.

When the news of the fall of Port Arthur was

flashed forth, everywhere the feeling was that
the world had witnessed the birth of a

powerful Asiatic nation in a day. " The child of

the world's age had proved to be its most re-

markable offspring." Triumphant Japan stood

"revealed in the full glare of a new light

no longer in leading strings but capable

of being, and fully determined to be, a do-

minant factor in Eastern Asia —a power to be
reckoned with in any future political combination
affecting the countries which faced the rising
sun." The immediate and inevitable effect

of the Japanese victory was to rouse the national

self-respect of all the Eastern peoples and the

strong belief in the capacities of Orientals to

successfully adopt and work modern political

 31

institutions. The great leviathan China, roused

to activity by the splendour of her neighbour, be-

gan moving in the direction of a liberal Govern-

ment. In Persia, the Shah decided on the forma-
tion of a National Council to deliberate on all im-
portant affairs of State. While an absolute
monarch like the Shah was progressing with the
spirit of the times, nearer home, on the borders
of India, the Amir of Afghanistan called into
existence a " consultative assembly " with a view
to enable the people to associate themselves with
the work of the Government. In India, however,
Lord Curzon sitting safely in the citadel of
Bureaucracy began talking derisively of the
educated classes of India. He tried to
arrest the progress of education, " to set back the
dial of local self-government," to interpret the
Queen's Proclamation in a " pettifogging spirit
and, in the words of Dr. R. B. Ghose, to sacrifice
the interests of the Indian people in order to
conciliate English exploiters and administrators
and " to humiliate^not only His Majesty's Indian
subjects but also the great ruling Chie:
Above all by his attempt to break up the unity

* Page 38. Fresideuital Addre&s, Surat Congress-

Speech's and Writings of Dr. Rash Behari Ghose
G, A. Natesan & Co., Madras.
 32

and the solidarity of the Bengalee speaking-

people, he " set Bengal in a blaze."

As the Hon. Mr. Gokhale pointed out :

" To Lord Curzon India was a country where

the Englishman was to monopolize for all time
all power and talk all the while of duty. The
Indian's only business was to be governed, and it

was a sacrilege on his part to have any other

aspiration. In his scheme of things there was nc

room for the educated classes of the country

and having failed to amuse them for any length

of time by an empty show of taking them into his

confidence, he prodceeded in the end to repress

them."*
Ho created in the Indian mind a profound
feeling of distrust and everything he did

was calculated to convince the people more than

ever that he was determined to prevent the

onward march of the Indian people and
keep them away, if not altogether divert them,

from the path of Self-Government. Mr. Henry

Nevinson, who made a tour in India during the
period of Lord Curzon's Viceroyalty and who-

availed himself of every opportunity to study the

* Page 809. Presidential Address, Benares Congress :

Speeches of Oopal Krishna Gokhale. G, A. NateBan &
Co., Madras.
 33

genesis of the Indian unrest, points out in his

remarkable book on the " Xew Spirit ia India " :

" Although no hard-and-fast line can be drawn in

history, the arrival of Lord Curzon as Viceroy on
December 30, 1898 marks a fully strong and
natural division." No doubt between the year of
the assumption of the direct Government of India
by the Queen and the period commencing with
the Viceroyalty of Lord Curzon, there was a con-
stant attempt on the part of the bureaucracy to
go backwards. But there were occasionally noble
efforts made to move forwards also. Lord Curzon
however it was who " set back the hand of
the clock" and adopted a complete reaction-
ary and retrograde The support that
policy.

he had from the Bureaucracy and the Con-

servative press at Home " gave a rude shock to
the popular mind and the discontent which had
long been brewing in the country burst into
a tlame." And so in 1905 ever)' body saw clearly
••
the beginning of the extraordinary ferment in
Indian public life which has continued unabated
to this day. Every responsible Indian politician
warned the authorities of the serious consequences

that were resulting from their reckless attitude

and of the growing numbers of a class of people
 34

""
who have lost all confidence in the good faith of
Government and have persuaded themselves that
England means to treat India as a mere pawn in
her military and diplomatic enterprises, a close

preserve for the classes and a happy hunting

ground for the white adventurer." "In the
general wreck of moderation and faith that
followed," boycott of everything foreign was
preached to the people and Swaraj held up as the
goal of Indian aspirations. Quite " a radical and
serious change had come over the spirit of the
people." It was at this juncture that the Congress
met in the sacred city of Benares under the presi-

dency of one of the greatest Indians of modern

times, Gopal Krishna Gokhale. In vain did he
make an appeal in his presidential address to the

authorities to give a right turn to the feeling of

the people and make it a source of strength and

not of weakness to the Empire :

What the country needs at this moment above every-

thing else is a Government, national in spirit, even
—
though it may be foreign in personnel a Government
that will enable 0.1 to feel that our interests are the first
consideration with it, and that our wishes and opinions
arc to it a matter of some account.
Hut Lord Curzon pursued his policy of reac-

tion and repression. The patience of the people

tv.is trie! sorely.
 35

It looked as if the New Party had completely

triumphed. What they were anxious for was re-
pression, persecution and prosecution, all calculated
to make the people lose faith in British rule ; and
Sir Bampfylde Fuller, apt pupil of Lord Curzon,
and some of his officers were constantly supplying
arguments to the advocates of the doctrine ''of
Swaraj. "When the Congress met in Calcutta in 1 906

""it was barely saved from a wreck by the reverence-

compelling presence of Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji."
MR. DADABHAl's IDEAL OF SWARAJ.
Dadabhai who throughout his life had been
pleading for British Spirit and British Justice
and denouncing everything icn-British was
emphatic in his claim that Indians should be
in India what Englishmen were in their country.
According to him there was only one remedy
for the unrest and for the economic evil which ws s

at the root of Indian poverty. " The whole matter

can be comprised in one word, Self-Government, or

Swaraj, like that of the United Kingdom or the
Colonies." As to when a beginning should be
made to enable the people to automatically
develop full Self-Government, he gave the un-
hesitating answer :
" Xot only has the time fulh/

arriced, but it had arrived long past."

 36

Under his presidency the Congress passed the

following Resolution :

That this Congress is of opinion that the system of

Government obtaining in the Self-Governing British
Colonies should be extended to India, and that, as steps
leading to it, it urges that the following reforms should
be immediately carried out:
(a) All examinations held in England only should be
simultaneously held in India and in England, and that
all higher appointments which are made in India should
be by competitive examination only.
(ft) The adequate representation of Indians in the
Council of the Secretary of State and the Executive
Councils of the Viceroy, and of the Governors of Mad-
ras and Bombay.
(c) The expansion of the Supreme and Provincial
Legislative Councils, allowing a larger and truly effec-
tive representation of the people and a larger control
over the financial and executive administration of the
country.
(rf) The powers of Local and Municipal bodies should
be extended and official control over them should not
be more than what is exercised by the Local Govern-
ment Board in England over similar bodies.

Here is the message of India's Grand Old Man

Self-Government is the only and chief remedy. In
Self-Government lie our hope, strength and greatness.
... 1 do not know what good fortune may be in store
for me during the short period that may be left to me
and if I can leave a word of affection and devotion for
iv iountry and countrymen I say: Be united, persovere,
and achieve Self-Government, so that the millions now
perishing by poverty, famine and plague, and the scores
of millions that arc starving on scanty subsistence may
be Havfrd, and India may once more occupy her proud
position of yore among the greatest and civilised Nations
of the World.*

* Page i'G. Presidential Address, Calcutta Congress

J)adabhai Aaoroji's Speeches and Writings.
 37

<e\i -Government like that of the Ur.:

Kingdom or that of the Colonies, hat

India should demand and for achieving it, she
should strive her best. The whole country
ringing with that cry and that was the only cry
for the time being.

Some prominent members of the new party

became every day more clamorous and tried to

form a political programme of their own in some

respects inconsistent with the traditional aims and
methods of the Congress movement. Nothing
short of the adoption of a universal boycott
and of Swaraj or unrestricted Setf-Goveran
would satisfy them. And if certain estre:

had been driven to the position of proclaiming

complete Swaraj, the excuse they could

urge was that they had been forced to do
by the extremely repressive measures
adopted by the bureaucracy. E:.r\ged by
official persecution in various forms, and dis-

trusting the motives of the many moderate leaders

who appealed to the members of the new
party not to lose faith in constitutional methods
of agitation nor in the higher purposes of
British rule as enunciated by successive sovereigns
and their accredited statesmen and administrators
 38

they made a desperate attempt to capture the

Congress and adopt resolutions which might
alter the course and policy the Congress
had hitherto adopted. But thoughtful India
publicists who had for )
r
ears been workin
constitutionally towards the objective of Self

Government on Colonial lines rallied their force?

and the result was the unfortunate, yet memorable
e
struggle at Surat. The time was come to defi
nitely lay down in writing the objective of th
Congress movement and the Convention at Sura:
which was attended by over 900 delegates defi-

nitely accepted it as the fundamental creed ^of the

movement :

-Th"»t the attainment by India of Self-Government

similar to that enjoyed by the Self-Governing members
of the British Empire, and participation by her in
the rights and responsibilities of the Empire on equal
terms with those members is the goal of our political
aspirations.

The creed of the Congress had once for :ill been

settled and its constitution carefully drawn upjbut
the work of the moderates was by do means
rendered easy and smooth. About this time it

was fairly well-known that Lord Minto who

found himself in a sea of troubles had, with the
sagacity of the statesman, seen the necessity for
«o me immediate changes and reforms in the
 39

administration of the State and in no wise

deterred by outbursts of anarchical crimes

and outrages had strongly pressed on the
attention of Lord Morley, the Secretary of State
for India, the need for taking some immediate
steps in the direction of associating the people
with the government of the country. Of Lord
Morley himself great expectations had been
raised, and though he had been forced to give his
sanction to some repressive laws and unjust
deportations yet responsible Indian politicians
looked up to him, " the reverent student of

Burke, the disciple of Mill, the friend and bio-

grapher of Gladstone," to courageously apply his
liberal principles to the administration of India.
Eminent Indians like Dr. Rash Behari Ghose
rejoiced that Mr. Morley was engaged
••
in digging the grave of the bureaucracy w;
indeed "we can almost hear the thud of the
spade and the music, yes, the music of the knell.'
Dr. Ghose counselled »his countrymen to be of
good cheer. " For lo ! the winter is almost past,
the rain is over and gone, and the flowers begin
to appear on the earth." The famous Minto-
Morley Reforms were announced. "The clouds
which had darkened the political sky " for a long
 40

time and which every one had watched "so long

with fear and trembling had after all begun to
dissolve in rain." Thanks to Lords Morley and Minto,
the golden moment had been seized, and a new and
a long wished-for policy of conciliation had been
adopted. When, therefore, the Congress which in
the previous year had broken up at Surat reassem-
bled at Madras, there was a general wave of satisfac-
tion that an important chapter had been opened in
the history of the relations between Great Britain
and India. The Px^esident of the Congress rejoiced
that the people of India will now be associated
with the Government in the daily and hourly adminis-
tration of their affairs. A great step forward has thus
been taken in the grant of representative government
for which the Cougress had been crying for years. In
a word we shall now have something like a constitu-
tional government in the place of an autocratic and ir-
responsible administration.
He looked forward also to a time " lolten an
exultant President oft/te Indian National Con
vnll be able to annoance to a united jteojAe-,

amid universal r«joiciny, the e.ctension to India of

the Colonial type of Government."

INDIAN REFORMS AND THK lUHKAroUAl Y

But the joy of the people was destined to be

short-lived. The task of framing the regulations
to give efTect to the reform proposals was

e n trusted to the bureaucracy, and as if to be reven-

 41

ged on the public which had fought for the reforms,

it virtually manacled and wrecked them. The

method and manner in which the regulations and

rules had been framed and worked which have

virtually made the non-official members in the
Legislative Councils impotent and driven many of
them to despair will be described more fully when
dealing with the problem of the reconstitution of

the Indian Councils. Lord Minto, the noble

Viceroy who did his best for India in the most
trying situation was succeeded by Lord Hardinge
and the Congress which met at Calcutta in 1911,
" met in the full joy of the reunited Bengalees
whose long suffering had been crowned with
triumph, and who had heard the Partition

•of Bengal annulled by the King Emperor's

own lips in the great Coronation Durbar
at Delhi." More important still was the publi-

cation of the Despatch and the correspondence

that passed between the Government of India
and the Secretary of State on the administrative
changes announced by H. M. The King Em-
peror and the recognition of the necessity of

complete provincial autonomy.

PROVINCIAL AUTONOMY.
The memorable passage in the Despatch laid
 42

down in clear and emphatic terms the ideal to be

followed :

It is certain that, in the course of time, the just

demands of Indians for a large share in the government
of the country will have to be satisfied, anc* the question
will be how this devolution of power can be concedec
without impairing the supreme authority of the Governor-
General in Council. The only possible solution of the
difficulty would appear to be gradually to give the pre
vinces a larger measure of self-government, until at last
India would consist of a number of administrations,
autonomous in all provincial affairs, with the Govern-
ment of India above them all, and possessing power to
interfere in cases of misgovernment, but ordinarily
restricting their functions to matters of Imperial concern.

The real significance of this passage was thus

commented upon on February 28, 1913, in a
remarkable speech delivered at Cambridge by Mr.
Montagu, then Under-Secretary of State for
India :

Where the difference lies is in this, that we have en-

deavoured to look ahead, to co-ordinate our changes in
Bengal with the general lines of our future policy ^in
India, which is stated now for the first time in the
Government of India's Despatch that had been published
as a Parliamentary Paper. That statement shows the
goal, the aim towards which we propose to work not
immediately, not in a hurry, but gradually.
We cannot drift on for ever without stating a policy.
A new generation, a new school of thought fostered by
our education and new European training has grown up,
and it axles, What are you going to do with us ?'
* . ,

We have never answered that, and we have put off

answering them for so long. At lant, and not too soon,
a Viceroy has had the courage to state the trend of
British policy in India and the lines on which we propose
to advance.
 43

Lord Crewe, pulled behind by the reactionaries,.

Lords Lansdowne and Curzon, no doubt tried to

repudiate the hopes raised by the " exuberant lan-
guage " of the Government* of India. But neither
his Lordship nor any of his successors could stay the
march of India and the great ideal of provincial
autonomy boldly enunciated in an official despatch
and firmly planted in the hearts of a people, an
ideal which must inevitably tend to Self- Govern-

ment for India could not certainly be smothered

even by the hand of a Secretary of State for India
hixdu- Moslem Entente.
The official recognition of the principle of
provincial autonomy was certainly a bright star
helping the people to march onwards. But this

was not all. There was visible on the political

horizon another bright star which promised a

great future for the country. For years attempts
had been sedulously made by the enemies
of Indian progress to separate Hindus and
Mussalmans and to make the Mussalman
community believe that their interests were dis-

tinct and separate from those of the Hindus

and that it was not to their interest that

they should join hands with their Hindu

brethren in political agitation. Several leading
 44

Mahomedans and some L

of the truest and
the noblest English friends of India like

Sir William Wedderburn had been endeavour-

ing for years to make the Mussalmans realise
the imperative necessity there was for their work-
ing in amity with the Hindus for the common
good of the country where they will be brought
together in loving and brotherly service for the
motherland. Thanks to the good offices of

distinguished leaders of both the communi-

ties like the late lamented Mr. Gokhale and
H. H. the Aga Khan, the efforts to reconcile

their differences met with happy response and all

India rejoiced when the Moslem League at its

session in 1911 also adopted the ideal of Self-

Government for India. The Congress of 191,'!

placed on record its warm appreciation of the

adoption by the All-India Moslem League of

the ideal of Self-Government for India within

the British Empire. It was happier still to

express its complete concurrence in the belief the

Moslem League had so emphatically declared

at its last sessions that the political future
of the country depends on the harmonious work-
ing and co-operation of the various communities.
Thenceforward Hindus and Mahomedans bemm
 45

to concentrate their attention on the one united

ideal for them:
"the India of the future will be a stronger, nobler,
greater, higher, aye, and a brighter India than was real-
ised by Asoka in the plenitude of his power, a better
India than was revealed to Akbar in the wildest of his
visions."

INDIA AND THE WAR.

When the 29th session of the Congress met at

Madras it was five months after the present great

world war had commenced — a war in which Great
Britain had joined and quite justly, to keep her
solemn word with Belgium and above all to pre-

vent the ruthless destruction of the rights of

smaller nationalities ; and the princes and people
of India naturally rallied their forces to help the
Empire in its great struggle for liberty and the
cause of civilization. It was certain the
war " will knock off the last weights of mediaeval
domination of one man over many, of one race
over another " and no man can " bar the
imponderable influences of an expanding world."
The alacrity with which India had profferred
help by sending her troops to the battlefields in
Flanders and other places and the magnificent help
rendered in various shapes to the Empire at a
period of great crisis had touched the hearts of
the English people and even politicians who
 46

used to speak disparagingly of in the past

shown their stony hearts to the people oi
India acknowledged in exuberant language
India's timely services, avowed that the old angle of
vision had changed and that Great Britain should
no longer think of India as a Dependency but as a
joint and equal partner in the great heritage of

the British Empire. The Hon. Babu Bhupendra-

nath Basu, whose duty it was to voice the
aspirations of his countrymen, declared that what
India wanted was neither subordination nor sepa-
ration but " a joint partnership on equal terms."
The resolution on the subject, passed at the
Congress, ran as follows:
That in view of the profound and avowed
loyalty that the people of India have manifested
in the prosent crisis, this Congress appeals to the
Government to deepen and perpatuate it, and make it
an enduring and valuable asset of the Empire, by remov-
ing all invidious distinctions here, and abroad, between
His Majesty's Indian, and other subjects, by redeeming
the plelge* of Provincial autonomy contained in the
Despatch of the 25th August 1911, and by taking such
measures as may be necessary for the recognition of
India as a component part of a federate I E npiro, in the
full and the free enjoyment of the rights belonging
to that status.

The great war afforded India an opportu-

nity to demonstrate " the courage, bravery
and tenacity of her troops even when pitted

against the best organised armies of the world

 47

and also the capacity of her sons of all

clans and nationalities to rise as one people

under the stimulus of over-powering emotion."
In the words of Mr. Austen Chamberlain,
M the people of India, sepoys and Maharajas,
villagers and highly educated public men, have
given their support because they are deeply con-
vinced that in this war the British Empire is

fighting in a just and righteous cause. The

Indian people have a high sense of right and
wrong. They saw that in this war the Allies
were in the right, and they regarded the cause
of the Allies as the cause of India."
But " the real jnnerness of the striking mani-
festation of loyalty was," as correctly described

by Mr. Charles Roberts, If, P., the Under Secre-

tary of State for India, " to be found in the
desire of the Indian peoples that Indian soldiers
should take part in the war side by side with
their British comrades."
The most striking and historic event of the
war, an event calculated to produce consequences
of a far-reaching character was, therefore, the
participation of India in the world war of the
Empire. En announcing the news' of the despatch
of the Indian troops to France, H. E. Lord
 48

Hardinge, whose name will ever be held dear by

India, observed :

There is nothing like comradeship in arms and joint

participation in the dangers and hardships of war to
level distinctions, inspire mutual respect, and foster
friendship. I cannot help feeling that as a conse
quence better relations will be promoted amongst tl
component parts of the British Empire. Many misunder
standings will be removed and outstanding grievance
will be settled in an amicable and generous manner. It
this serine, out of evil good may come to India, and tl
is the desire of us all.

Lord Hardinge's expectation was not in vaii

The Indian troops which fought side by side with

the troops from Canada, Australia, New Zealand

and South Africa distinguished themselves by
their gallant behaviour and splendid heroism
and some of them were recommended for

the coveted distinction of the Victoria Cross

In the words of Mr. Asquith " the battlefielc

of France and Flanders bore undying tribute

their bravery and devotion." Mr. Asquith proud-

ly stated "he did not think that in all the moving
exhibitions of national and Imperial patriotism
which the war had evoked there was any which
had more touched and rightly touched, the feel-

ings of this House and the country than the

message sent by the Viceroy of India announcing
the magnificent response which the Princes and
people of that country havo made to our need.''
 49

Mr. Bonar Law was more enthusiastic still.

He said :

"This assistance from India also was coming, not

from force but from good- will, and he believed
that it was coming because, on the whole, every
one who left this country to take part in the
Government of India, from the Viceroy to the
humblest official, was inspired by the tradition
that it was his duty, not to exploit India for the
benefit of this country, but to rule it for the
good of the people of India."
Among the numerous touching and grateful
appreciations of British statesmen nothing had
stirred the hearts and raised the hopes of the
Indian people more than the notable statement
of Mr. Bonar Law (at a great meeting at the Guild-
hall, held on May 18, 1915, under the presidencv
of the Lord Mayor.) " The Dominions of the
British Empire had not been created by the war-
but the conditions had been changed by the war,
and it was his hope, and if it was taken up in
earnest while the metal was still glowing red hot
from the furnace of war, he believed it could be
done, that as a result of it we might see a Parlia-
ment of the British Empire, in which every part
of thatEmpire, in proportion to its resources and
itsnumbers, would share in the duty and the
honour of ruling the British Empire."
4
 50

Lord Crewe who spoke at the same meeting, in

endorsing Mr. Bonar Law's sentiments regarding
the future, uttered these remarkable words:
4,
I would like also to think that the associa-
tion of India and of the Colonies at such a gather-
ing aa this is a significant sign of the essentia
comprehension which, as the years roll on, would,
as I firmly believe, sweep away all those obstacles
of distance, of creed, or of race which seem to
interfere with the complete union of the different
members of the great Impei'ial Confederation —
union which would hinge upon the free activities

of each, and which would be firmly based upon a

common belief in the progress of the whole." At
the same meeting Mr. Asquith referred publicly, in
speaking of the services of India, to the greatness
of the " Empire which knows no distinction of
race or class where all alike are subjects of the
King Emperor and are joint and equal custodians

of common interest and fortunes." Lord Haldane

made pointed mention of the fact that India had
freely given of her lives and treasure in humanity's

great cause and " hence things cannot be left as

•they are." The mighty struggle had made every
one " realise our oneness, 'so producing relations
between India and England which did not exist
 51

before. Our victory would be a victory to the

Empire as a whole and could not fail to raise it

(India) to a higher level."

More hopeful still was the message which
Mr. William Archer gave to the British demo-
cracy regarding its obligations to India :

M It now with us to help her forward,

rests
honestly, diligently, and with deliberate, intel-
ligent purpose, on the path which shall lead her
out of tutelage, and up to the eminent place to
which her innate capacities entitle her in the
economy of the Empire and of the world."*

All India was proud to learn that Great Britain

had been impressed profoundly by " the spectacle
of a whole nation, fjom prince to peasant, rallying
to her side and placing its resources and services
unreservedly at her disposal. In the exuberance of
of her (Great Britain's) gratitude, India was
assured of her title to self-rule being recognised
and to her being lifted from a position of
dependency to that of partnership in the Imperial
scheme." Some time elapsed and there arose a
suspicion that British enthusiasm bad cooled
down. Mr. Asquith had spoken of " the

refashioning of the fabric of the Empire ''

and
» For the utterances of " British statesmen on India
and the War" refer to pages 241 to 250. Appendix III.
T?u Indian Demands.
 52

all over England the proposal that the ministers

of the Dominions should be admitted into the

Councils of the Empire had been received witl

great approval. The Prime Ministers of Canadf
and Australia had even been invited to attend the

meetings of the Cabinet. The responsible minister

who in answer to a question in the House of
Commons had denied representation to India to the
Economic Conference held at Paris, promptly sent
Mr. Hughes of Australia to attend its sittings

with Lord Crewe and Mr. Bonar Law. " In all

the discussions very little reference to India was

found, and what there was of it was not alto-

gether hope-inspiring. The ^Secretary of State

for India had hardly had a cheering or comfort-
ing word to utter during the whole of the sixteen
months he had occupied the position of what
Sir William Wedderburn once described as the
seat of the Grand Moghul at Westminster. Ho
had found time to put through Parliament two
such uncalled for and retrograde measures as the
Indian Civil Service Act and the Government of
India Act, and the Prime Minister had spared
Parliamentary time for their passage through
both Houses in all their stages ; but the annual
debate on Indian aflairs had been suspended
 53

and there had been no comprehensive, authorita-

tive statement on the policy of His Majesty's
Government in relation to India."
INDIA AND THE EMPIRES RECONSTRUCTION.
It would be idle to conceal the fact that an
uneasy feeling began to creep into the minds of
the Indian people and responsible politicians felt

that when the Colonies were trying to get a proper

place for themselves in the new fabric of the

Empire, India's claims to equality of status and

a share of the privileges of the Empire were likely

to be neglected. There was also a well-grounded

fear, that the Colonies also would obtain a voice
in the administration of India and the idea of
more masters for India was positively revolting to
her sense of self-respect, and especially at a time
when she was justly and anxiously looking for-

ward to taking her proper place in the Empire.

These circumstances gave a fresh impetus to India's
demand for Self-Government and an insistent
demand for a declaration of the policy of the
State in regard to her political future. About the
same period Mrs. Besant who had long been work-
ing for India's uplift in various directions focussed
her energies upon the problem of Home Rule for
India and urged upon India as Mr. Bonar
 54

Law urged upon the Colonies to press her claim &

for autonomy with boldness, persistence and in-

creasing vigour. By her forceful contributions

the Press,, her inspiring eloquence and by hei
hrochures and pamphlets she made the country froi

one end to the other ring with the cry of Homt

Rule. The attitude adopted by some of the Pro-

vincial Governments towards her served but to give

fresh stimulus to the cause she was advocating. A

profound sense of the great danger to the Empire
caused by the sudden outburst of the war had
softened the rigour of the extremist school of
thought, and its adherents, anxious to render every
assistance they could to the cause of the Allies,,
threw in their lot once more with the Indian Na-
tional Congress and its avowed aims. "When,,
therefore, the 30th session of the Indian National
Congress commenced its memorable session in

Bombay under the presidency of Sir S. P. Sinha,.

who had been for some time in the inner
counsels of the Government, he but gave
expression to the prevailing feeling not only
of the delegates assembled there but of the
country as well when he proclaimed once
again that the only satisfactory form of Self-
Government, to which India aspires, cannot be
 55

anything short of what President Lincoln so

pithily described as " Government of the people.

by the people, for the people." In his presidential

address he made an earnest appeal to the British

nation to show its approval " of the goal to which

we aspire." The Congress took a further step
forward when it passed the following resolution:
That this Congress is of opinion that the time has
arrived to introduce further and substantial measures
of reform towards the attainment of Self-Governmeot
as defined in Article I of its Constitution, namely,
reforming and liberalising the sv«tem of Government in
this country so as to secure to the people an effective
control over it.
But more noteworthy still was the direction
given to the All-India Congress Committee
to confer with the Committee that may be appointed
by the All-India Moslem League for the same purpose
and to take such further measures as may be necessary ;

the said Committee to submit its report on or

before the 1st of September 1916 to the General
Secretaries, who shall circulate it to the different
Provincial Congress Committees as early as possible.

THE CONGRESS AND MOSLEM LEAGUE SCHEME.

Accordingly the All-India Congress Committee
invited proposals from the various provincial Con-
gress Committees, considered all the suggestions and
prepared a scheme at its meeting held at Allahabad
on the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th April 1916. In Novem-
ber a joint Conference of the All India Congress
Committee and the Moslem League deliberated over
 56

the scheme for over two full day?, and discussed

it again at Lucknow on the 25th, 26th and 27tl
December. The scheme was once again consid-

ered in the Subjects Committee of the

Lucknow Congress and finally adopted unani-

mously amidst great rejoicings by the sessions of

the Congress and of the Moslem League held about

the same time in the historic city of Lucknow.
The Resolution adopted at the Congress was

follows :

(a) That having regard to the faot that the great

communities of India are the inheritors of ancient civili-
sations and have shown great capacity for government
and administration, and to the progress in education and
public spirit made by them during a century of British
Rule, and further having regard to the fact that the
present system of Government does not satisfy the
legitimate aspirations of the people and has become un-
*uited to the existing conditions and requirements, the
Congress is of opinion that the time has come when His
Majesty the King-Emperor should issue a Proclamation
announcing that it is the aim and intention of the British
policy to confer Self-Government on India at an early date,

(6) That this Congress demands that a definite step

should be taken towards Self-Government by granting'
the reforms contained in the scheme prepared bv tl>e All-
India Congress Committee in concert with tbe Reform
Committee appointed by the All-India Muslim Loague.
(c) That, in the reconstruction of the Empire, India
shall be lifted from the position of a Dependency to
that of an equal partner in the Empire with the Self-
Governing Dominions.
THE MEMORANDUM OF THE NINETEEN.
While the Congress and the Moslem League
Committees were preparing their scheme of
reforms it transpired that the Government of
India was contemplating a Despatch to the Secre-
tary of State on the question of the reforms ai.d
changes to be made in the constitution of the
Government of India. It was then that nineteen
of the elected members of the Viceroy's Council

felt it their duty to give a reasoned statement of

India's views and aspirations and presenting it in
a document in their name. This is how the
memorandum of the nineteen came to be pre-
sented and the scheme adopted unanimously by
the Congress and the Moslem League was settled
upon and those that suggest that novel and revo-
lutionary proposals have been sprung upon the
authorities by the Indian people at a time when the
Empire is in the throes of a tremendous struggle are

consciously or unconsciously misrepresenting the

motives and actions of the Indian leaders. Many
of the reforms advocated are as old as the Congress

itself and self-government has been the objective

from the beginning. " Generations of British
statesman have repeatedly laid down that policy,
solemn declax\ations of successive Sovereigns have

graciously endorsed it, and Acts of Parliament

have given it legislative sanction."
 58

To use the words of Sir S. P. Sinha " Autono- :

my within the Empire has been the accepted

political faith of the Congress."
I appeal to the British nation to declare their ungrudg-
ing approval of the goal to which we aspire, to declare
their inflexible resolution to equip India for her journey
to that goal and to furnish her escort on the long and
weary road. Such a declaration will be the most distin-
guished way of marking their appreciation of India's
—
services and sacrifices her loyalty and her devotion to
the Empire. Such a declaration will touch the heart and
appeal to the imagination of the people far more than
any mere specific political reforms.
The country is therefore fully justified in

demanding a declaration of policy from

Government in this respect. Of the immense
political and moral value such a course would
carry with it, very little need be said. The
Rt. Rey. Dr. Whitehead, the Lord Bishop of
Madras, who has served in and known the different
parts of India and who has had abundant oppor-
tunities to study at first hand the conditions of
India and the aspirations of its leaders, has sug-
gested the very same course in a recent contribu-
tion to the Nineteenth Century and After
I oannot help thinking that in the same way the
l>ritish Government would enormously strengthen its
position in India if it were to make the self-government
of India as an integral part of the British Empire its
avowed object and ideal, encouraging educated Indians
definitely to look forward to this ideal and shaping its
own policy consistently with a view to this one great
 59

end. The Government would then practically adopt the

platform of the Nationalist Party. There would be no
differences between them as to the end at which they are
aiming, and though there would naturallv be much differ-
ence of opinion, not only between Englishmen and
Indians, but also between Indians and Indians and
Englishmen and Englishmen with regard to the particular
steps that might wisely be taken at any particular time,
still both alike would be working for a common ideal.
The difference that this would make in the relations
between the Government and the educated Indians as a
body, as represented by the National Congress, would be
immense. It would alter the whole of the political situ-
ation and would do more than anything else to allay the
unrest which has been such a disquieting feature of
Indian politics during the last fifty years, and it would
give a consistency to our work and policy which at the
present moment they do not possess.

His Lordship also rightly pointed out

The danger of the present situation consists largely in

the fact that, with notable exceptions, Englishmen in
India are not only opposed to the feelings and senti-
ments of educated Indians, but also to the inevitable
tendency of their work and policy. We
need to realise
that we cannot now base the Government of India upon
any other foundation than that of the will of the Indian
peoples, that we are here as servants of the Indian
people and not as their masters, that a foreign bureau-
cracy can only be regarded as a temporary form of
Government, and that our ultimate aim and object must
be to enable India to become a self-governing part of
the British Empire, and to develop her own civilization
upon her own lines.

More emphatic still was the pronouncement of

the Metropolitan of India. In the course of a
remarkable Sermon preached at the St. Paul's
Cathedral, Calcutta, on August 4th, the Third'
 60

War Anniversary Day, the Christian divine

uttered a much needed warning :

We have become the paramount power in India by

series of conquests in which we have used Indian soldiers
I
and had Indian allies. We have remained the paramount
power in India because the Indian peoples needed our
protection against foreign foes and against internal dis-
order. We must now look at our paramount position in
the light of our own war-ideals. The British rule in
India must aim at giving India opportunities of self-
development according to the natural bent of its peoples.
With this in view, the first object of its rulers must be to
train Indians in Self-Government. If we turn away
from any such application of our principles to this
country, it is but hypocrisy to come before God with the
plea that our cause is the cause of liberty.

But the Congress will not be content with a

mere declaration of the policy of the Government
in regard to Self-Government. The authorities

must, as a first step in that direction, take early

measures for the introduction of such changes and
reforms as are directly calculated to achieve the
high purpose in view.

THE RECONSTITUTION OF THE COUNCILS.

The first great step necessary is the reconsti-
tution of the Indian Councils, the Legislative
and Executive Councils of the Viceroy and of the

Provincial Governments. And only if this is done

" hope may come where despair holds sway, and
faith where doubt spreads its darkening shadow."
 61

THE HISTORY OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNXTLS.

The history^ of the Imperial and Provincial

Legislative Councils is thus briefly told:

Before the creation of one regular legislature for British

India by the Charter Act of 1833, the Governments of
Madras and Bombay as well as the Governor-General-in-
Council of Bengal had such powers to make laws and re-
gulations for their respective territories and thus
separate bodies of Regulations had grown up in the three
presidencies. The legislative powers were not distin-
guished from the executive and the two were lodged in
the same hands
This confusion was put an end to by the Act of 1833,
which vested the legislative power of the Indian Govern-
ment exclusively in the Governor-General-in-Counciland
under which Macaulay was appointed in the following
year to be the first legislative councillor on the Governor-
General's Council, that body being thus increased by the
addition of a fourth ordinary member, who had no power
to sit or vote except at meetings for the purpose of
making laws and regulations. The laws made by this
Council were, subject to their not being disallowed by
the Court of Directors, to have effect as Acts of
Parliament. A clear distinction between the executive
and the legislative body is here recognised for the
first time, and the Act of 1833 may be regarded as the
first land-mark in the history of the Indian Legislative
Councils.

The second land-mark was erected by the Charter

Act of 1853, by which the fourth or legislative member of
the Governor-General's Council was placed on the same
footing with the ordinary members of the Council by
being given a right to sit or vote at executive meetings.
The Council was at the same time enlarged for legis-
lative purposes by the addition of six members the
:

Chief Justice of Bengal, another judge and four of the

Company's servants of ten years' standing appointed by
the Governments of Bengal, Madras, Bombay and the
 62

North- Western Provinces. The Governor -General's

Council, thus enlarged for the purpose of legislation, had,
in this way, twelve members the Governor-General, the
:

Commander-in-Chief, four ordinary members of the

Council, the Chief Justice of Bengal, apuisne judge and
four representative members from the four provinces.
The sittings of the Legislative Council were made public
and their proceedings were officially published. This
Legislative Council, however, evinced an inconvenient
degree of independence and a tendency to interfere with
the executive, and the defect was remedied eight years
later.*

Though the authority of the East India

Company was transferred to the Crown in 1858,

the constitution of the Indian Government re-

mained unchanged.
No native of the country had any share in the
deliberations of the Council even when Legislative
measures were discussed. No wonder, then, that
many a serious mistake was made, some of

the blunders resulting in terrible consequences.

It is interesting to recall at this moment

the observations in the famous pamphlet on " The
Causes of the Indian Mutiny" written by the late
Sir Syed Ahmed. That distinguished Mussalman
patriot and publicist wrote as follows in

1858:—
The original cause of the outbreak was the non-
admission of a native as a member into the Legislative
Council

* " Indian Administration" by Prof. V. G. Kale.

 63

Most men, I believe, agree in thinking that it it

highly conducive to the welfare and prosperity of
Government indeed it is essential to its stability that
;

the people should have a voice in its Councils. It is

from the voice of the people only that Government can
learn whether its projects are likely to be well received.
The voice of the people can alone check errors in the
bud, and warn us of the dangers before they burst
upon and destroy us
The evils which resulted to India from the non-ad-
mission of natives into the Legislative Council of India
were various.

The necessity for a reform of the Indian

Councils was keenly felt, and steps were soon
taken to achieve that end.
By the Indian Councils Act of 1861, the power
of legislation was restored to the Presidencies of
Madras and Bombay, and a Legislative Council
was appointed for Bengal, while the Governor-
General in Council retained legislative authority
over the whole of India. It enacted :

For the better exercise of the power of making

laws and regulations vested in the Governor-General -in-
Council, the Governor General shall nominate, in addi-
tion to the ordinary and extraordinary members above
mentioned and to such Lieutenant-Governor in the case
aforesaid, such persons, not less than six nor more
than twelve in number as to him may seem expedient, to
be members of Council for the purpose of making laws
and regulations only and such persons shall not be
;

entitled to sit or vote at any meeting of the Council,

except at meetings held for such purpose; provided that
not less than one-half of the persons bo nominated shall
be non-official persons, that is, persons who, at the date
of such nomination, shall not be in the Civil or
 64

Military service of tha Crown in India and that the seat

in a Council of any non-official member accepting
office under the Crown in India shall be vacated on
such acceptance.
Sir Charles Wood, speaking in the House of
Commons, on June 6, 1861, in explaining the
provisions of the Bill, pointed out the difficulties

that faced them in legislating for a country like

India :

Wo have to legislate for different races, with different

languages, religions, manners, and customs, ranging
from the bigoted Mahomedan, who considers that we
have usurped his legitimate position as the ruler of
India, to the timid Hindoo, who, though bowing to
every conqueror, is bigotedly attached to his caste, his
religion, his laws, and his customs, which have descended
to him uninterruptedly for countless generations. But,
added to that, we have English settlers in India differing
in almost every respect from the Native population
active, energetic, enterprising, with all the pride of race
and conquest, presuming on their superior powers, and
looking down in many respects, and. I am afraid violating
in others, and prejudices of the Native
the feelings
population with whom, nevertheless, they must be
subject to laws passed by the legislative body in India.
He added :

I believe greater advantages will result from admitting

the Native Chiefs to oo-operate with us for legislative
purposes they will no longer feel, as they have hitherto
;

done, that they are excluded from the management of

affairs in their own country, and nothing, I am persuad-
ed, will tend more to conciliate to our rule the minds of
Natives of high rank. I have no intention of doing
anything to make this Council a debating society. I
wish, to quote an expression of 8ir Lawrence Peel, to
render them a body for making laws. The Council of
the Governor-General, with these additional members,
will have power to pass laws and regulations affecting
 65

the whole of India and will have a supreme and con-

current power with the minor legislative bodies which I
propose to establish in the Presidencies and in other
parts of India.

According to the Act of 1861, financial discus-

sion was possible only when the Finance Minister
proposed a new tax, and the few Indians who were
admitted to the Council were nominated members
chosen by the Government themselves. Such
an unsatisfactory state of things might have
been tolerated in the years immediately follow-
ing the Mutiny, but could not possibly be con-
tinued without criticism. Great strides had been
made in many respects and intelligent Indian
public opinion, though not so powerful and volu-
minous as it has become in later times, had even
then made itself felt on the authorities. " The
fuller development and consolidation of those
=entimcsnts of national unity that had their
origin " in Lord Ripon's ever memorable reign,
expressed themselves in unmistakable terms.

REFORM OP THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCILS.

The question of the reform and expansion of

the Supreme and Local Legislative Councils, by the
addition of a considerable proportion of elected
members, formed the subject of an important
resolution at the very first session of the Indian
 66

^National Congress held in Bombay in 1885. At

the second Congress it was debated with renewed
vigour ; Dr. Rajendra Lai Mitra, the renowned
Oriental scholar, uttered the very remarkable words:
We live not under a National Government, but
under a foreign bureaucracy our foreign rulers are
;

foreigners by birth, religion, language, habits, by every-

thing that divides humanity into different sections.
They cannot possibly dive into our hearts they cannot ;

ascertain our wants, our feelings, our aspirations. They

may try their best, and I have no reason to doubt that
many of our Governors have tried hard to ascertain our
feelings and our wants but owing to their peculiar
;

position, they have failed to ascertain them.

At the fifth Congress the question was again

taken up and a skeleton scheme for the reform
and reconstitution of the councils was duly adopt-
ed, and the President of the Congress was
authorised to submit the same to Mr. Charles
Bradlaugh, M. P. with the request that he
would cause a Bill to be drafted on the lines

indicated therein and introduce the same in

the House of Commons. Charles Bradlaugh,

that noble friend of humanity, true to the

promise he had made to the people of India in

Congress assembled, introduced the Bill entitled

" An Act to Amend the India Councils Act

of 1861." The next Congress, which met at
Calcutta prayed the Houses of Parliament to

pass Mr. Bradlaugh's Bill into law.

 67

The introduction of Mr. Bradlaugh's Bill " at

once dispelled the fit of profound cogitation in

which gentlemen at the head of Indian affairs had

lost themselves and from which they could not
spontaneously recover. Lord Cross' Indian Councils
Bill promptly saw the light of day in the House
of Lords. It was, as Mr. (Sir) P. M. Mehta
rightly observed, " the official recognition of the
raison d? etre of the Congress and the first of its

labours." *

The Indian Councils Act of 1892 was an attempt

to concede the principle of representation to the
Councils by election. Mr. (now Lord) Curzon, in
explaining the provisions of the Bill in the House
of Commons, observed that the object of the Bill

was to
widen the basis and expand the functions of the
Government of India, to give further opportunities than
at present existed to the non-official and native element
in Indian society to take part in the work of govern-
ment, and in that way to lend official recognition to that
remarkable development both in political interest and
capacity which had been visible among the higher classes
of Indian society since the Government was taken over
by the Crown in 1858.
Lord Lansdowne, in explaining the policy of
the Bill, observed :.

We hope, however,that we have succeeded in giving

to our proposal a form sufficiently definite to secure a
satisfactory advance in the representation of the people
 68

in our Legislative Councils, and to give effect to the

principle of selection as far as possible on tbe advice of
such sections of the community as are likely to be
capable of assisting us in that manner.

The Bill;r admittedly contained the elective

principle, and it was during the debate on this

occasion that Mr. Gladstone observed that the

question of the introduction of the elective

element into the Government of India was " one

•of vital importance." " What we want is,"

he said, " to get at the real heart and mind,

the most upright sentiments, and the most
enlightened thoughts of the people of India" and
he therefore looked forward " not merely to a
nominal but to a real living rejrresentation oftlie

people of India." But unfortunately the Act

itself did not? " in terms concede to the people

the right of electing their own representatives to

the Council," and the task of making rules and
regulations was left to the Viceroy ; and they
were of a most unsatisfactory character. No
wonder that the Congress of 1 893 had with regret
to put on record the fact " that, alike in the
rules of the Government of India and in the

practice of most of the Local Governments,

notably in that of the]' Government of Bombay,

material alterations are necessary if real effect is
 69

to be given to the spirit of this Act." The most

trenchant criticism of the rules and regula-

tions framed by the Viceroy was that made at

that Congress by Mr. G. K. Gokhale who said :

Gentlemen, in regard to these Rales [framed for the

Presidency of Bombay to give effect to the Act], I will
not say that they have been deliberately so framed as to
defeat the object of the Act of 1892, but I will say this,
that if the officer who drafted them had been asked to
sit down with the deliberate purpose of framing a
scheme to defeat that object, he could not have done
better.

It is noteworthy that, writing in 1894, two

years after the Act of 1892 Sir George Chesney
while remarking that it was " thus the first be-
ginning of what may possibly hereafter develop
into some thing of the nature of Parliamentary
institutions as obtaining in other parts of the
world" said :
" the step taken may not be a wide
one ; the mode of regulating nominations i

with the Executive Government ; the bodies to

which this partial nomination has been entrusted
are themselves elected on a very narrow and
exclusive franchise."
At the 20th Congress held at Bombay under the
Presidency of Sir Henry Cotton, the demand was
made that " the people of this country should be
allowed a larger voice in the administration and
control of their affairs," and besides seeking an
 70

enlargement of both the Supreme and Provincial

Legislative Councils, and an increase of non-
official members therein, it rightly claimed V the
right to divide the Council on all the financ
matters coming before them — the head of the

Government jwssessing the power of veto."

THE MINTO-MORLEY REFORMS.

The agitation for a better and a more effective

representation of thft people in the Legislative

•Councils grew more and more pronounced ; the
discontent against the method and manner in which
the rules and regulations under the Statute were
4*
framed, worked, and continued for a period of
sixteen \ears in spite of protests from the

public," grew intense ; added to this was the

indignation and deep disgust and disappointment
caused by the reactionary regime of Lord Curzon.
The situation in every respect caused grave
anxiety to the responsible leaders of the people.
Lord Minto, who inherited the highly embarrass-
ing legacy of the troubles and difficulties of Lord
Curzon's regime, " recognised " before he had been
many months in the land " frankly and publicly

that new aspirations were stirring in the hearts of

the people, that they were part of a larger move-
ment common to the whole East, and that it was
 71

necessary to satisfy them to a reasonable extent

by giving them a larger share in the administra-
tion of affairs."
Lord Minto heartily acknowledged the loyalty of
the masses of the people of India, and he was not
prepared " to suppress the new but not unnatural
aspirations without examination." To use his own
figure of speech " you cannot sit for ever on a
safety valve, no matter how sound the boiler may
be." He recognised that " ere long he would
have to deal with a mass of accumulated popular
discontent —a discontent which was difficult to
#
•define, but which many moderate and loyal
Indians believed to be due to the disregard on the
part of their rulers of their (the Indians) just
hopes." According to his Lordship, much of the
discontent "was justifiable and was directly due to
a dawning belief that further opportunities must
be afforded for the official representation of Indian
public opinion and a greater share be grant-
ed to Indians in the government of their country."
The first year of his office had not closed before
the new Viceroy drew a note for circulation among
his colleagues, in the course of which he said :

The growth of educationwhich British rule has done

so much to encourage is bearing fruit. Important
classes of the population are learning to realise their
 72 . .

own position, to estimate for themselves their own

intellectual capacities and to compare their claims for
an equality of citizenship with those of the ruling race,
whilst the directing influences of political life at home
are simultaneously in full accord with the advance of
politicalthought in India . But we, the Government
.

of India, cannot shut our eyes to present conditions.

The political atmosphere is full of change. Questions
are before us which we cannot afford to ignore and
which we must attempt to answer, and to me it would
appear all-important that the initiative should emanate
from us that the Government of India should not be
;

put in the position of appearing to have its hands forced

by agitation in this country or by pressure from home ;

that we should be the first to recognise surrounding con-

ditions and to place before His Majesty's Government
the opinion which personal experience and a close touch
with the every-day life of India entitle us to hold.
This is the true genesis of the Minto-Morley
reforms. In their famous despatch to the Secre-
tary of State, dated the 1st October, 1908, Lord
Minto's Government urged :

The advance in general education that has taken place

since 1892 has added to the complexity of tho problem
by bringing to the front classes which were then back-
ward, and by making them more keenly conscious of
their individual interests and more disposed to claim
separate representation by means of special electorates.
In framing the greatly enlarged scheme of reform, which
is explained below, we have given careful consideration
to the views of all classes, and we desire to acknowledge
the value of opinions which have been submitted by the
educated members of all communities who, though their
number is relatively small, deservedly occupy a special
position by reason of their intellectual attainments and
the attention they have given to public questions.
Referring to the proposed increase in the
numbers and the reconstitution of the Legislative
Councils, the despatch stated :
 73

We have every hope that the confidence we are willing

:o place in the intelligence and public spirit of the non-
jfficial members will be justified, and that increased
responsibility will bring with it the requisite forbearance.

It may reasonably be anticipated that in the newly-

ionstituted Councils only as many officials need be
appointed as will be sufficient, in conjunction with three

;heir legislative

We are
.....
>r four noo-offieials, to enable the Government to carry
measures.
of opinion that the time has come when there
ihould be further facilities for debate. We
think that
aembers should have opportunities for placing their
news on public questions before the Government, and
we impressed with the benefits which both the
are
Government and the educated public would derive from
the well-ordered discussion of administrative subjects in
the Legislative Councils, either on a reference from the
head of the Government, or at the instance of a private
member. Such discussions would give the Government
an opportunity of making their view of a question
known, and of explaining the reasons which had led them
to adopt a particular line of action. Wetherefore pro-
pose that power should be given by statute for members
to move resolutions on matters of general public impor-
tance, subject to the checks to which we shall presently
refer. So far as the educated public are concerned,
there can be little doubt that the right to move resolu-
tions on such questions, and to argue these in a regular
debate, will be welcomed as a very great concession :

that it will be resorted to freely and that it will tend to

;

i nd non-official members.

We
.....
bring about more intimate relations between the official

are clearly of opinion that it is advisable that the

Councils should be afforded increased facilities for ex-
pressing their views upon the budget, and that these
facilities should be given at a sufficiently early stage to
enable the Government to take advantage of any advice
that may be tendered, and to adopt and give effect to
Buch suggestions as may be found practicable.
Both in the Imperial and the Provincial Councils,
they will place the representives of all classes of the
 74

population in a position to take a more effective part in

shaping the policy of the Government, and to exert a
real influence upon the actual work of administration. .

The enlargement of the Legislative Councils, and the

extension of their functions to the discussion of adminis-
trative questions, are the widest, most deep-reaching and
most substantial features of the scheme which we now
put forward. ,

Regarding the scheme as a whole, we consider our-

selves justified in claiming for it that it will really and
effectively associate the people of India with the Govern-
ment in the work not only of occasional legislation but
of actual every-day administration. ,

Lord Morley, the Secretary of State for India,

replied to this despatch in his remarkable communi-
cation, dated 27th November, 1908. He recognis-
ed the just observation of Lord Minto, " that the

•principle to be borne in mind is that election by the

wishes of tlie people is the ultimate object to be

secured, whatever may be the actual machinery

adopted for giving effect to it."

The Rt. Hon. Mr. Asquith, speaking on April

1, 1909, on the order for the second reading oi

the Indian Councils Kill, pointed out

t is most desirable in the circumstances to give to th (
people of India the feeling that these legislative council 8
are not mere automatons, the wires of which are pulle"
by the official hierarchy. It is of very great importance
from that point of view that the non-official element
should bo in the ascendant, subject to proper safeguards*
In that way you obtain some kind of security that the
legislation which Anally passes through the mill of the
council reflects the opinion of the community :
 75

Xo account of the origin of the Min to- Morley

reforms will be complete which does not refer to
the part played by Mr. Gokhale in bringing them
to a successful fruition. By his telling speeches

not only in the Viceregal Council in India but

ilso to influential audiences in England and by
ais interviews with Lord Morley and his colleagues,
Mr. Gokhale made the Government of the day
realise the justice of the demands of the Indian
people. It is now an open secret that almost all the

reforms which Mr. Gokhale advocated and jotted

down at the instance of Lord Morley on the famous
sheet of note-paper* were ultimately granted.
The whole country welcomed the reforms with
great expectation and joy, and the 23rd Indian
National Congress which met at Madras after the
unfortunate split at Surat gave expression "to the
deep and general satisfaction with which the re-
form proposals formulated in Lord Morley's Des-
patch had been received throughout the country."
It recorded also its sense of the high statesman-
ship which had dictated the action of the Govern-
ment in the matter, and its sincere and grateful
thanks to Lord Morley and Lord Minto, who had
laboured hard to originate and promote the

* Vide Page 200. " Morley's Indian Speeches."

 76

reforms. But the expectation and joy of the people

were destined to be short-lived. For a second

time, as India's misfortune would have it, th
important task of framing the rules and regula
tions relating to the nomination and election o
members of the enlarged Councils was left to th;
tender mercies of the Indian bureaucracy. The
Congress which in the previous year had recorded
in glowing terms its high appreciation of the princi-

ples of the reform scheme had, in the next year»

after seeing the rules and regulations that had

been framed, to place on record, among other
things, its strong sense of disapproval of
the wide, arbitrary and unreasonable disqualification
and restrictions for candidates seeking election to the
Councils ;

the general distrust of the educated classes that runs

through the whole course of the regulations
and the unsatisfactory composition of the non-official
majorities in the Provincial Councils, rendering them
ineffective and unreal for all practical purposes.

It fell to Mr. Gokhale's lot to give strong ex-

pression to the injustice done to the principle
underlying the Indian Councils Act of 1892, by the
narrow and illiberal rules and regulations framed
by the Indian bureaucracy to defeat the very
objects aimed at. In 1 909, it was Mr. Surendra-
nath Banerjea's painful duty to burst forth a&

follows in open Congress :

 77

It is no exaggeration to say that the Rules and Re-

gulations have practically wrecked the Reform Scheme
as originally conceived with a beneficence of purpose
and a statesmanlike grasp that did honour to all that are
associated with it . Who wrecked the scheme ? Who
. .

converted that promising experiment into a dismal

failure ? The responsibility rests upon the shoulders of
the bureaucracy is the bureaucracy having its
revenge upon us for the part we have played in securing
these concessions ?

Deep was the disappointment and great the

indignation caused, but Mr. Banerjea counselled
his countrymen not to abandon hope. He said :

Let us see to it that, in the depths of our desperation,

we do not forget the immemorial traditions of our race,
or renounce the unalterable faith which is ours in the
ultimate triumph of constitutional and righteous means
for the attainment of national regeneration.

But the hope was in vain ; the manner in which

the rules and regulations have been worked, and
the unsympathetic attitude adopted by the bureau-
cracy in dealing with the resolutions of the non-
official members, have made almostevery one of them
confess to a feeling of helplessness. Almost every
member of the Provincial and Imperial Councils
has a sad tale to tell. It is pathetic to read the
following tale unfolded in the pages of The Indian
Beview (March 1917) by Mr. Xyapati Subba Rao
Pantulu, a distinguished Indian publicist, who
"had been for years a member of the Madras Legis-
lative Council, then became a Member of the Im-
 78

perial Legislative Council, and now is Joint General

Secretary of the Indian National Congress :

The deep disappointment caused by the regulations

writ
and the narrow interpretation put upon them, is
Legislative
large in the pages of proceedings of the
Council and in the columns of the Indian Press. . . .

The constitution of the Provincial Councils has been so

manipulated that even where an elected majority is given
Council, and
the official continues to dominate over the
the non-official majority has, in practice,
beoome a
minority

As the scheme is at present worked, nothing can be

will of the
carried in our Provincial Councils against the
officials who, in combination with the
elected European
members and nominated non-official Indians, specially
prestige of the
selected to keep up the power and
or
Government, lord it over them, and make the position
the eloced representatives of the people helpless.
The elected members not infrequently try to save
their face by accepting the suggestions
or amend-
or
ments of the Government and proceed to vote
call for a division, though certain of defeat, to
secure a moral victory and show to the public
the perversity of the attitude of the
Government who
sometimes
would not, by the weight of numbers and
allow
by the influence of the head of the Government,
themselves.
even a recommendation to be made to
of
Important schemes of expenditure are shut out
is under
discussion on the ground that the subject
with
correspondence, and the powers of the Council
regard to the framing of the Budget are nil.
A feeling
of helplessness is felt by the elected
members of. every
step, and they are placed entirely at the
mercy of the
Government.

The Hon. Pundit Madan Mohan Malaviya,

who had served for years in the United

Provinces Legislative Council and is now its

 79

representative in . the Imperial Legislative

Council who is" held in universal esteem

by his countrymen and whose sincerity of

purpose and moderation of language have won for

him the admiration of even his official opponents,

declared not long ago that "the conclusion is

forced on our mind that those who have tht

power are unwilling to part with that power"

and he added that " unless we have a potent
and determining voice in the administration

of our country's affairs, there is not much

hope for that progress which it is the birthright

of every civilized people to achieve."

As regards the various Provincial Councils, in

the Madras Legislative Council, the hardships of
the rules and regulations passed under the Indian
Councils Act of 1909, have been felt more keenly
than in any other province. Some of the inter-

pellations have been disallowed ; some of the

resolutions intended to be moved have been with-
held ; and the resolutions allowed to be discussed
have been nearly always defeated, with the help
of the standing phalanx of officials supported
by the votes of several of the nominated members.
On April 3rd, 1917, a resolution was moved
in the Madras Legislative Council that, " it
 80

be a recommendation to the Government that

it should appoint non-official presidents of
district boards in a few districts where suit-

able persons can be found." The Indian membei

of the Executive Council, who is in charge of tht
portfolio of the Local and Municipal Depart-
ment, had to undertake on behalf of his colleagues
the unenviable task of opposing such a moderate
proposal ; while he admitted that the principle
was sound, he had yet to repeat the perpetual cry
of the bureaucracy that, " the time is not yet" for
the reform. The result was, as in many such cases,
the resolution was lost by 20 against 19, the major-
ity including the Governor, His Excellency Lord
Pentland, himself and two of the elected non-

official representatives.

The worst evil . of the present system is best

illustrated by the manner in which the Madras
Legislative Council recently dealt with
a recommendation made to the Government,
that an enquiry be held into the economic
condition of some typical villages. As was
expected, even this modest demand was oppos-
ed by the member in charge ; but fearing that the
motion might be passed, a nominated member, an
Anglo-Indian gentleman, came to the rescue of
 81

the Government and moved "that the meeting do

pass to the next business." Such a simple request
for an inquiry affecting the well-being of the
millions of the poor who live in the villages was
shut out effectually by a subterfuge and with the
help of the solid official votes.

No wonder that the non-official members of the

Madras Legislative Council have realised the help-
lessness of the situation. The Hon. Rao Bahadur
V. K. Ramanujachariar, who was for years in the

service of the Government, and occupied the res-

ponsible post of Secretary to the Board of Revenue,

in referring to the treatment meted out to him
and his colleagues in the Council by the Govern-
ment and representatives, said
its official :

We see shackles placed on our representations iu

regard to many points in which we are much interested.
The Government have a practical majority in this
Council our resolutions are mere recommendations and
;

there is no danger of Government being turned out of

office. Why then this unwillingness to make us realise
that we are engaged in the same work as Government
are ? If our arguments are weak, they carry their own
condemnation if strong, they must be useful and help
;

disposal ot business. A regard for our representation

can only enhance the prestige of Government-. I wish
to point out that their cumulative effect is to discourage
ua in our attempt to work with Government in their
every -day administration which is the basis of the Morley-
Minto Reforms.
Here is the tale of woe of another member, the
Hon. Rao Bahadur M. Ramachandra Rao who has
6
 82

had varied experience as Chairman of an important

Municipality, as Vice-President of a Taluq

Board and as a member of almost every

important select Committee of the Legisla-

tive Council in which he has been serving for over

three consecutive terms, and whose sobriety and
moderation won for him, at the hands of a mem-
appella-
ber of the Government, the honourable
"
tion of the " Madras Gokhale :

only
In 1912, ten resolutions were brought forward ;

of about
one proposing a diversion of expenditure
Government.
Rs. 50,000 was found acceptable to the
forward.
In 1913, thirty-one resolutions were brought
In
None of them was agreeable to the Government.
which
1914 similarly there were twenty resolutions
raised various points of financial administration but not
there
even one was carried in this Council. In 1915,
could be
were twenty-three resolutions, not a single one
resolutions,
carried. In 1916, there were twentj-two
result of the
not a single one having been accepted. The
near to ua
recent discussion held a few days ago is so
as to our
that I need not remind my hon. colleagues
achievements. We have done our best to
persuade the
Government to adopt a different financial policy, but we
have not as yot succeeded in our attempt.
The working of the Legislative Council of the
yet
Province of Bengal seems to be no better, and
of being presided
it had the advantage till recently
adminis-
over by a noble-minded and sympathetic
Carmichae). In welcoming the
trator like Lord
his successor, Lord Ronaldshay, the
other day
Hon Mr.
.
Fazl-ul-Huq said :
 83

We are in theory the [chosen representatives of the

people, but in shaping the policy of the administration,
our voice in the councils of Government is of hardly
more weight and value than that of the man in the
moon.
Let us remember that this complaint comes
from a Province, where the good Lord Carmichael
had given his Council " an actual non-official

majority." It is one more illustration of the evils

of the present system. The Bengalee, in describing

the recent Budget debate in the Bengal Legislative
Council, wrote in its issue of the 6th April, 1917:
The prevailing note of the non-official Indian members
is one of pessimism ; and we fear that it is not confined
to the Bengal Legislative Council. Throughout the
country, in every province with a Legislative Council,
the feeling of the non-official Indian members is that the
measure of their performance is wholly inadequate to the
—
measure of their efforts there is much cry, but there is
little wool. In the position in which they now are in —
the position of minority even when there is a non-official
—
majority they feel that they can do very little, and there
is a growing sense in the country, that these legislative
assemblies are mere academic bodies which have to wait
upon the pleasure of the Government for carrying out
the popular behests.
Discussion of the financial statement of the
Provinces is by far the most important work of
the Legislative Councils. The non-official mem-
bers of our Councils naturally devote considerable
attention to this branch of their work, and yet we
hear complaints from province after province that
their labours in that direction are in vain. Hera
 84

is the" criticism of the Bengalee (8th April, 1917)

in regard to the recent Budget discussion in th
Bengal Council:
fewer than 34 resolutions were moved on th:
No
Budget in the session that has just closed, and with one
exception they were all rejected or withdrawn, some of
them receiving the unanimous support of the non-official
Indian members. The main drift of these resolutions
was to transfer money from the police to sanitation and
education, the two great needs of all civilized commu-
nities. If accepted, they would not have upset the Bud-
get—there was nothing revolutionary about them. But
the Government had made up its mind, and apparently
it seemed to involve loss of prestige for the
Government
to change its mind, even in small matters under th©
pressure of public opinion.

But the complaint of the non-official members

of the Bengal Council does not stop here.
It appears that, in 1916, Uovernment had promised to
supply non-official members with copies of Departmental
Budgets. In pursuance of this promise, the Hon'ble
Babu Akhil Chundcr Datta had asked for the Depart-
mental Budgets for the last two years. He was told in
reply that copies were not available. Apart from the
violation of the pledge of the Government, is it fair, we
ask, to invite hon'ble members to discuss the Budget
without giving them the amplest materials ? The dis-
cuBBion is thus deprived of those living elements which
contribute to its reality it becomes superficial, and more
;

or less a sham, and the Government is responsible for

this result.

""The two resolutions moved during the-

fate of

course of the recent Budget debate in the Bengal

Council proves that no improvement in the exist-
ing state of things can ever take^ place unless the
 85

people's representatives have an effective control

of finance.
The these two resolutions suggested that the
first of
starting p»y of district muniffs be rained. This
measure, the Government were saying till recently,
could not be introduced because the Public Services
Commission had the matter in hand. But the report
having now been published, the Qovernment stated
recently that they were considering the Commission's
suggestions pending which they were unwilling to give
effect to the proposal. The other resolution referred
to the increase of the staff in the co-operative
department, a measure of urgent necessity advocated by
Sir Daniel Hamilton at the last Bengal Co-operative
Conference and supported by the Conference itself.

The tale from the Central Provinces seems to

be no better. Presiding) at the second session of

the Conference (held at Yeotmal in the first

week of April 1917,) the Hon. Mr. X. K. Kelkar

emphatically declared :

Unless the composition of the Councils themselves

thoroughly overhauled, a good deal of the advan-
is first
tage which mi?ht ba expected from the criticism of these
Councils would, I am afraid, be mostly of an illusory
character.

The tendency on the part of the officials to res-

and usefulness of the work of their
trict the scope

non- official colleagues seems like a contagion to

spread from province to province. Here is the
statement of the Hon. Mr. V. J. Patel, made at
the last meeting of the Bombay Legislative

Council :
—" I see nothing but distrust on tha
 86

part of the Government of non-official members,

whom they have under the Rules to take on
Committees."

On the result of the labours of the non -official

members of the Council of the Lieutenant-Gover-

nor of the United Provinces, we have the state-

ment of the late Pundit Bishen Narayan Dhar

Nearly every resolution moved by the non-official
Indian members of the United Provinces Council has been
—
rejected and rejected by overwhelming majorities for, ;

besides some of the elected members, the nominated

members were always ready to support the Government.

At the last meeting of the United Provinces

Council, the Hon Mr. Chintamani moved a reso-
lution for the reduction of expenditure under civil

works — provincial, by Rs. 75,000, adding this

amount to the provision made for secondary

schools —general. The resolution was of course
rejected, but His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor,
who had threatened to disallow the resolution,
allowed it to be discussed, but during the course
of the debate remarked :

Under rule 13, said his Honour, resolutions should be

directly relevant to some entry in the revised Financial
Statement. The present resolution was no doubt direct-
ly relevant to the large total expenditure under civil
works — provincial, but his Honour was not quite sure
whether it should have been permitted without reference
to more detailed items. On that point, however, hi*
 87

Honour desired to make no final pronouncement but the

matter would receive consideration. The second part of
the resolution was also open to similar criticism. The
hon. mover wished to add the amount to the provision
made for secondary schools, general. It was not stated
whether it should be added to the head education or
under civil works, provincial, and the Council was left
to conjecture what the hon. member's meaning was.

This sort of restriction was never contemplated

by the Minto-Morley reforms ; indeed, suggestions
of a reduction of expenditure in civil works have
now become very common, and nobody has till
now considered it necessary to object to this pro-
cedure, that head of expenditure being able to
bear any amount of reduction.

The following table (published in the Hindu of

Madras) gives the number of financial resolutions

moved in the various Councils during the Budget
debates (April 1917) and explains their ultimate
fate :
 88

It will thus be seen that out of a total of 104

resolutions moved, there was not even one
which the bureaucracy ^in its wisdom deemed fit to

accept. Commenting on this extraordinary state of

things, the Hindu rightly observes :

Of course, abundance of oral sympathy was exhibited,

but we refuse to take the distressing fact of not even
one resolution having been adopted as a comment on the
political sagacityand practical statesmanship of non-
officialmembers. On the contrary, the result exhibits a
deplorable lack, on the p*rt of officials, of appreciation
of the public point of view of questions brought for ward,
uncommon imperviousneHS to non-official suggestions,
and a mistaken faith in its own infallibility on the part
of the Executive Government.

It is again most unfortunate that, of late, a

tendency has been exhibited in more than one pro-

vince to make an arbitrary use of the power of dis-

allowing resolutions. The question of the annual

exodus to the hills was allowed to be discussed in the
Viceroy's Council and also in the United Provin-
ces Legislative Council, and yet His Excellency
Lord Pentland, the Governor of Madras, disallow-
ed the discussion of this very same question.
It has also been sought to curtail and meddle in
a narrow spirit, with the right of interpellation,
from which much was expected. Accord-
ing to the English practice, " it is imperative that

Parliament shall be duly informed of everything

that may be necessary to explain the policy and
 89

3roceedings of Government in any part of the

Empire, and the fullest information is communi-

jated by Government to both Houses from time
to time upon all matters of public interest," and
when information is sought to be withheld, it is

anly when " public interests will suffer by their dis-

closure." But if any attempt were made by the Gov-

ernment to abuse this privilege the aggrieved mem-
ber "can move the adjournment of the House, or
move a resolution, asking the Minister to furnish
the information." But as has been truly observed :

The powersof interpellation given to members of the

Legislatures in India proceed on the reverse principle
that the Government is not bound to give any informa-
tion except such as it deems necessary to give in the
public interest.

The great claim of the Minto-Morley reforms

was that they were designed " to entrust to the
Indian peoples a greater share in legislation and
Government," and " to really and effectively

associate the people of India in the work, not only

of occasional legislation, but of actual every-day
administration."
But Indian officialdom, high and low, seems to
fight shy of an increased number of meetings of
the Legislative Council. The Hon. Pandit M.
M. Malaviya's resolution in the Imperial Council
for more meetings of that body was opposed
 90

strongly by the officials, and the reason given by one-

of the official members was "either he (the Member

of the Executive Council) must do double work,
treble work or even more, or else you must
multiply the number of Executive Members."
If, despite the addition of Secretaries and Deputy
Secretaries to the Government of India, further

addition to the numbers be deemed necessary, it

might certainly be made with advantage ; the

statement, even if it were true, that the burden of

the officials would be increased, cannot be a reason
for denying the people's representatives more fre-

quent opportunities to ventilate public grievan-

ces. Surely the Civil Service exists for the

service of the people and not the people for the

convenience of that service. In the Madras-
Legislative Council a recommendation made by a
non-official member that not less than eight
meetings of the Local Council should be summon-
ed in a year was stoutly opposed. The opposition,

of course, was expected. But it is interesting

to know the reasons given by H. E. Lord Pent-

land, the head of the Province :

The Legislative Council was not an expensive toy. It

was not merely a debating assembly. It was an assem-
bly which had for its purpose the assistance of them alt
in considering questions connected with the administra-
 91

tion of the country, and it ought to be directed to alt

practical purposes for that assistance.

Not content with this, His Excellency thought

it fit to state in open Council :

Every question needlessly framed, every resolution

brought up which had no substance in it, took up time,
which meant public money :

and this is the homily administered to the non-

official members of the Madras Legislative Coun-
cil, several of whom are busy professional men,
who have been for years systematically making a
sacrifice of their time and money in devoting
themselves to public work.
THE BUREAUCRACY AND THE REFORMS.
The plain truth is that Lord Morley's re-

form scheme became law because Lord Minto

realised the true character of the situation and
insisted upon it. The Indian bureaucracy
never welcomed it ; for the matter of that,,

they have never countenanced any measure of

reform which made an inroad on their rights

and privileges. The situation was truly and

effectively described by Pandit Bishen Narayan
Dhar in his presidential address to the Indian
National Congress held at Calcutta in 1911 :

The first Government

draft scheme published by the
of India was their (bureaucracy) handiwork and was at
once condemned by the Indian public. Lord Morley
 92

transformed it into a more liberal and popular scheme.

The point, however, is .that the policy of reform did not
originate with them. On the contrary it was opposed by
them. v

The bureaucracy, which had been accustomed to

govern with all its prestige and power, was un-

willing to part with any portion of it and

share any of their rights with the representatives
of the people. That this was the actual state of
affairs could be substantiated by the fact that

Sir Edward Baker, the Lieutenant-Governor

of Bengal, in his speech at the Bengal Council
meeting, had to make the following special

appeal to the Civil Service :

I hold that a solemn duty rests upon the officers of

Government in all branches, and more particularly upon
the officers of the Civil Service, so to comport them-
selves in the inception and working of the new measures
as to make the task of the people and their leaders easy.
It is incumbent upon them loyally to accept
the princi-
ple that these measures involve— the surrender of some
portion of the authority and control which they now
exercise, and some modifications of the methods of
administration. If that ta8k is approached in a grudg-
ing or reluctant spirit, we shall be sowing the seeds of
failure, and shall forfeit our claim to receive the friendly
co-operation of the representatives of the people. We
must bo prepared to support, defend, and carry through
the adminintrative policy, and in a certain degree even
the executive acts of the Government in the Council, in
muoh the same way as is now prescribed in regard to
measures of legislation and we must further bo pre-
;

pared to discharge this taBk without the aid of a stand-

ing majority behind us. We will have to resort to the
more diffioult arts of persuasion and conciliation, in the
plaoe of the easier methods of autocracy. This is no
 93

a mall demand to make on the resources of a service

whose training and traditions have hitherto led its mem-
bers rather to work for the people, than through the
people or their representatives. But I am nevertheless
confident that the demand will not be made in vain. For
more than a hundred years, in the time of the Company
and under the rule of the Crown, the Indian Civil Ser-
vice has never failed to respond to whatever call has
been made upon it or to adapt itself to the changing
environment of the time. 1 feel no doubt that officers
will be found who possess the natural gifts, the loyalty,
the imagination, and the force of character which will
be requisite for the conduct of the administration under
the more advanced form of government to which we are
about to succeed.
Can anyone, who has watched the course of
events in the country since the Minto-Morley re-
forms, truly say that there has been any percepti-
ble change in the attitude of the bureaucracy to
non-official public opinion ? Indeed, there are some
who go so far as to aver that even the war, which is

supposed to have materially changed the angle of

vision, has effected little or no change in the official

attitude in India. Sir Edward Baker's appeal to the

Civil Service " to resort to the more difficult arts

of persuasion and conciliation, in the place of the

easier methods of autocracy," has been, generally

speaking, an appeal made in vain. Not only has

a systematic attempt been made to disregard and
defeat the resolutions brought forward by
the non-official representatives of the people,
but time after time the Civil Service officials
 94

have added insult to injui'y by making the pre-

posterous claim that they are truer represent
atives of the people —the toiling masses — and that
they take better care of their interests

and welfare than the educated non-officials.

Everyone knows that the distinction sought to be
made is as mischievous as it is " unreal and ridi-
culous." Everybody knows that many an English
official, " standing in a proud and sometimes con-

temptuous isolation which prevents him from

ever acquiring a real hold over the facts of native

life," and with his unmanageable jaw "which never

helps him to acquire anything distinctly approach-

ing to a living knowledge of the language of

the people," often " betrays the most startling
inability to enter into and comprehend the

simplest facts of native life and native thought."*

It is absurd that a foreign bureaucracy, for the
most part ignorant of the language of the people

and unacquainted with the feelings and thoughts of

the people, their ways of life, their ambitions and
aspirations, should pose as their friend and as inti-

mately acquainted with them and deny to their

educated brethren, who are born of the people, are
bred up among the people, and live among the peo-

* From a speech of the late Sir P. M. Mehta.

 95

pie, the right to speak for them. The Anglo- Indian

frame of mind has been well described by Sir Auck-
land Colvin, when he says :
M The English mind in

India has been tempted to stand still, arrested by

the contemplation of the fruits of its efforts in
former times and by the symmetry of the shrine,
the pride of its own creation in which it lingers to
offer incense to its past successful labours," and
the Civil Service makes it a grievance when it is

criticised, failing to realise that the days of the

benevolent and unquestioned autocrat are over.
What is particularly annoying to the officials

in the present situation is well portrayed by

Mr. J. A. Spender, of the Westminster Gazette, in

his remarkable book, The Indian Scene, written

soon after his visit to India' during the time of
the Delhi Durbar :

Every step that the Government takes has to be

argued and justified to the Legislative Councils, the
native press, the bazaar, the increasing number of young
Indians who have imbibed Western ideas. To many of
—
the older officials excellent men whose services can
scarcely be exaggerated— the process seems equally
disagreeable and undignified. It was not in their con-
tract that they should have to come out of their
sanctums and enter into argument with glib Babus, who
will perhaps beat them at the word game. Their ideal
was that of the silent efficient with no capacity for
public speaking. Anglo-India works with the pen and
piles up mountains of memoranda (many of which go
for ever unread), and it has a corresponding contempt
 96

hia tongue, for the

for the man who is effective with
Parliamentarian, the platform orator, the
Congress
incapacity
speaker. So far is this driven that positive
for public speaking seems to be counted
a virtue and ;

freely
among the more conservative the opinion is
expressed that the Service is ceasing to be
an occupa-
tion for gentlemen and scholars.

state of things cannot

Hence the present
any longer without causing grave
continue
injury to the interests of the people and of

the Government itself. The nineteen non-official

of the Viceroy's Council state

but the
members
" the people or
bare fact when they observe that
little asso-
their representatives are practically as
ciated with the real government of their country

as they were before the reforms."

REFORMS URGED BY CONGRESS MOSLEM LEAGUE.
«fc

Their memorandum and the scheme of reforms,

unanimously adopted by the Congress and the ,

Moslem League, rightly l*y down that in

the Imperial and Provincial Legislative Councils

four-fifths of the members should be elected.

Both the documents point to the urgent need

there is having a substantial majority of
for

elected representatives in the Imperial and Pro- ,

vincial Councils for " the one general objection

;
I

which applies to all the Councils is, that the non-

official majority is composed of both elected and

 97

nominated members which, as the Councils are-

now constituted, means a standing and, indeed, an

overwhelming official majority in every one of
them," and Lord Morley certainly never dreamt
of this sort of non-official majority when he
granted us the concession. His intention was
to give us a substantial non-official majprity,
As proof of this, we would point out
that in the speech he delivered in the House of
Lords, on December 17, 1908, on the proposed
constitutional reforms justifying the proposal to

do away with the standing official majorities in

the Provincial Legislative Councils, Lord Morley

observed :

But anybody can see how directly, how palpably, how

injuriously, an arrangement of this kind tends to weaken
and, I think I may say, even to deaden the sense, both of
trust and responsibility in the non-official members of
these Councils. Anybody can see how the system tends
to throw the non-official member into an attitude of
peevish, sulky, permanent opposition and, therefore, has
an injurious effect on the minds and characters of mem-
bers of these Legislative Councils.

Almost every non-official Indian member who

has sat in the reformed Councils is of opinion that

the so-called non-official majority in the Provincial

Councils as " a delusion and a snare," and it is

somewhat significant to note that when the Bill was-

discussed in the House of Lords and in the House
7
 98

of Commons, Lord Ampthill stated that the non-

official majority was not an actual one but only
seeming, but Earl Percy went so far as to say, " it

was a sham."
ELECTED MAJORITY IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCILS.
If any improvement is to be effected in the
existing state of things, the non-officials must
have a substantial elected majority in the
Councils. The increase in the numbers suggested
for both the Councils is certainly not too large
considering the great strides the country has made
in recent years and the vast and varied interests
to be effectively represented.
The scheme also formulates reasonable proposals
for obtaining " not merely a nominal but a living
representation " of the people in the Councils of
the country on as broad a franchise as possible,

giving at the same time every facility for the

representation of important minorities.

COUNCIL TO ELECT ITS OWN PRESIDENT.

Besides possessing a substantial non-official

elected majority, every Council must have the

right of electing its own President. For it is

essential that discussion should be free and un-

fettered, and every Member of the Council should
be made to feel that when he is in the Council
 99

he is there to speak out his mind freely and un-

reservedly on the questions that come before
it for deliberation. As things are, the perma-
nent officials insist upon their time-honoured
privilege of deciding what is good for the people,
while the legitimate claim of the non-officials to

represent the grievances, the wants and aspirations

of their own countrymen is disregarded and even
scouted. Even Governors of Provinces, though
Britishers fresh from England, fall into the hands
of the bureaucracy ; and things are often present-
>ed to them by the official hierarchy in such a light
that they are induced to stand by their
colleagues, to partake in the discussion in the
spirit of partisans, and often use their
influence to secure a majority on their side, and
so we have the sad phenomenon of officialdom

having the upper hand in Lord Morley's reformed

Legislative Councils, when the intentions of the
scheme were to secure just the opposite
effect. Debates and discussions carried on
under such disheartening conditions cannot
in the nature of things be of any real value.
KESOLUTIOXS TO BIXD THE EXECUTIVE.
But a mere increase in the numbers of these

Councils will certainly not make for any appreci-

 100

improvement. It is a matter of despair

able
to the representatives of the people to devote

their time and talents to a study of the

problems of administration and move resolu-

of them
tions in the Councils, only to have the bulk
carried, not
thrown out and the few, even if

to be binding on the executive. The non-officials

cannot have their heart in the work when, as

the
they have known to their cost, it is in
power of the permanent officials to brush them
aside and refuse to act upon them at all. The
following complaint was made by the Hon.
Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya— and what he
resolutions proposed in the Imperial
says of

Council applies with even greater force to those

of the Provinces
:

We have moved resolution after resolution in the

Imperial Council and, except when the Government has
seen it fit to accept a resolution moved by us, every
one of them has been rejected. We feel that this is an
intolerable situation. We are certain we are not less
interested and less honestly anxious for the welfare of
our own country and countrymen, than our esteemed
European friends of the Executive Council are. It is
they who decide whether a resolution passed by
the
Legislative Council shall be accepted or shall not be
accepted. If I may tell you in confidence, often it is not
the Executive Government as a whole, which
decides it.
If is often the secretary of the
department or the mem-
ber or both of them that decide whether a resolution
ahull be accepted or not. It does not go even to the

Executive Council. Whatever decision is arrived at by

 101

the secretary and the member is accepted by the rest of

the Executive Council. That is the state of affairs, and
the result is, that our most earnest endeavours to push
forward the reform in domestic matters in various ways
are frustrated.
The Congress- Moslem League Scheme, therefore
provides that a resolution passed by the Legis-
lative Council should be binding on the Executive
Government, and with a view to effectively

guard against action on any hasty or ill-

conceived decision, the power of veto is vested in

the Governor-in-Council. If, however, this same
resolution, after an interval of not less than one
year, be again brought forward before the Council,
discussed and carried by a majority, it must be
given effect to, because it will then be the twice
considered and mature decision of that body.
HALF OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL TO CONSIST OF
INDIANS.

If then, the decisions of the Legislative Council

are to be binding on the Executive and its behests
enforced, it follows logically that the members
should command the confidence of the Legislature ;

but having regard to our existing condi-

tions, the Congress and the League Scheme
will, for the present, be content with a re-
form which will secure that at least one-

half of the members of the Executive Council

 102

shall consist of Indians to be elected by the elected!

members of the Provincial Legislative Council.

The experiment of the admission of two Indians
in the. Council of the Secretary of State for
India, the inclusion of an Indian member in the
Executive Councils of the Viceroy and the Pro-
vincial Governments has proved a success, an un-
qualified success, and we have this on the autho-
rity of Lord Morley, Mr. Charles Koberts, Lord
Minto, Lord Hardinge, Lord Carmichael, and
Lord Pentland.
Referring to the services rendered by the two
Indian members of his Council, Lord Morley
said :

Those apprehensions regarding this new experiment

have been utterly dissipated. The concord between
the two Indian members of the Council and their collea-
gues has been unbroken, their work has been excellent*
and you will readily believe me when I say that the
advantage to me of being able to ask one of those two
gentlemen to come and fell mo something about an
Indian question from an Indian point of view is enor-
mous. 1 find in it a chanco of getting Ihe Indian angle
of vision, and I feel sometimes as if I was actually in the
streets of Calcutta.

Speaking at a banquet in honour of Sir K. G.

Gupta, Mr. Charles Roberts, the then Under-
Secretary of State for India, said :

It(the appointment of Indians to the India Coun ci^

was not an experiment to-day. It was an undoubt e
success accepted as a matter of course. That India n
 103

should be on the Council was not merely desirable. It

was, he believed, indispensable for the right government
of India.

Lord Minto, speaking at the United Service

Club, in 1910, gave the following testimony to the
services rendered by Sir S. P. Sinha in his

Council :

I cannot let this opportunity pass without bearing

testimony to the able assistance he has rendered to the
Government of India and thanking him for the absolute
fairness and broad-minded patriotism which h»s always
characterised the advice I have so often sought from
him.

Lord Hardinge paid eloquent tributes of praise

to Sir Syed Ali Imam more than once :

As a member of I my
repeat, the presence
Council,
of Sir Ali Imam
has been an asset of the utmost value,
and it was a source of unmitigated satisfaction to
me the other day to pay him the greatest compliment at
my disposal by appointing him Vice-President of my
Council,

At a memorial meeting held at Madras in

honour of the late Mr. "V. Krishnaswami Aiyar,

Sir Murray flammick said :
—
I learnt to admire his genius, his extraordinary
quickness, and, above all, his intense anxiety to be just to
all men and to do what he thought best for the welfare
and advancement of his country.
Sir John Atkinson said at the same meeting :

He had no administrative experience when he joined

the Government. As he himself said to me a day or two
after that event he was only a learner. But what a
learner It was astonishing
! how rapidly he mastered
 104

not only the methods of the Secretariat procedure but

the substance and intricacies of all the many compli-
cated questions submitted to him.
Only on February 27, 1917, on the eve of
the retirement of Sir P. S. Sivaswami Aiyar
from the Madras Executive Council, the Govern-
ment of Madras published the following apprecia-
tion of his services :

H. E. the Governor in Council desires to place on

record his warm appreciation of the valuable services
which the Ilon'ble Sir P. S Sivaswamy Iyer has render-
ed to the State during the term of his office. Sir P. S.
Sivaswamy Aiyar's intimate knowledge of the needs and
aspirations of the people of India and his distinguished
legal Attainments have been of the greatest assistance to
His Excellency in Council, while his high sense of duty
and genial disposition have secured for him the respect
and affection of all.

As late as March 17, His Excellency Lord

Carmichael, replying to the farewell address pre-
sented by the Central Mahomedan Association,

paid a tribute to Sir Syed Shams-ul-Huda :

Throughout the last two and a half years, when

the action of Turkey had sorely tried the feelings of so
many Mahomedans, feelings with which I have the pro-
foundest sympathy, Sir Shams-ul-Huda had been of
immeasurable value to me.
The case for the necessity for at least

one-half of the number of Members of the Exe-

cutive Councils being Indians is easily made out.

The Government which recognised the wisdom

and justice of admitting an Indian into the Exe-
 105

cutive Councils of the Viceroy and the Provincial

rulers could certainly, with advantage to itself and
the people, add one more toeach of them. It would
be idle to conceal the fact that the Indian mem-
ber '

in every Council often finds himself in a

minority while his two colleagues, the permanent

officials, the representatives of the Civil Service,

with their vested interests, rights and privileges

constitute what amounts to a standing majority
against him. If there should be two Indian mem-
bers, to match the two civilians, the Governor of
the Province will be obliged to go fully into every
question and take upon himself the responsibility
of deciding those questions where his Indian and
civilian colleagues happen to differ. Such a
system will certainly help the administration
better than the one now in vogue
according to which, when the civilian members
agree on a question and so form a practical majo-
rity, the head of the Province almost invariably
accepts their decision as a matter of course.
The impotence of the Indian member is greatly
aggravated in the case of the Viceroy's Executive
Council. Sir AH Imam made this plain when he
declared that but for the countenance and support
that it was his exceptional good fortune to enjoy
 106

at the hands of the Viceroy, his position might

have easily become intolerable. Even assuming
that the same good fortune attends the present
occupant of the place, which there is in fact much
reason to doubt, it will be obviously due to
accidental and personal causes and can not
afford a guarantee that the Indian view of vital
questions has an adequate chance of asserting
itself. A touch of humiliation is added to the
impotence caused by the situation by the extra-
ordinary power given to "a Secretary, almost in-

variably a civilian, of referring such orders of a

member of Council as he may not approve of, to

the opinion of the Viceroy or, in the case of Pro-

vincial Governments, to any other Member —

power which may be so exercised as to reduce the
Indian Member in all important matters to a mere
figurehead.
( IVIL SERVANTS AND TUE EXECUTIVE COUNCILS.
The proper arrangement would be to
exclude the Civil Service element altogether from
the Executive Councils of the Viceroy and the
headships of Local Administrations. For it

is well known that none of them is at present

master in his own household, and their

cabinet " is unduly dominated by a group

 107

of permanent officials who enter the Executive

Councils automatically, imbued with the
spirit of the great centralised departments over
which they have been accustomed to preside."
For Viceroys and Governors, fresh from home,
with every desire to liberalise their administration,

find themselves hopelessly unable to give effect to

the policy which they would like to follow, if left

to themselves. All over the civilised world the

permanent official is excluded from a place in the

cabinet of his country. It would certainly be no

injustice to ask the Indian Civil Servant,
following the example of other countries, " to close

his official career as the trusted and authoritative

head of his department without aspiring to politi-

cal governance."*

Everywhere else the services have simply to

carry out the policy of the Government and dis-

charge efficiently the duties they are called upon

to do; but in India the Civil Service not only
dominates the every-day administration of the
country but dictates and enforces its own
policy. As has been truly remarked, " In India
the term Service is a misnomer ; for the Service

* SirWilliam Wedderburn. Quoted in full in page

46. Indian Demands.
 108

and the State are interchangeable, or, more

correctly speaking, the one is entirely lost in the
other,"* and if the popular will is at all to prevail

in the Councils of the Provinces, it should be a

condition precedent that if the Civil Service ele-

ment could not altogether be excluded from them,
the Indian element should at least be equal in
number to it.

If the suggestion of the Congress and

the Moslem League, that members of the

Indian Civil Service should not ordinarily be

appointed to the Executive Councils, be accepted,

it will enable the Viceroy and the Local Gover-
nors "to nominate the members of his own
Executive Council from among men, British and
Indian, of ripe experience in public affairs."

CONTROL OVER THE BUDGET.

You may have a Legislative Council with a sub-
stantial non-official majority; your resolutions
may even be made binding on the Executive you ;

may provide that one-half of the members of the

Council should be Indians. But if the Legislative

Councils have no control over the Budget, and the

Executive has the right of disposing of your

* Page 336, " Indian National Evolution " by Amvica

Cbaran Mazumdar.
 109

monies, you will have made no real advance

in the reform of the Legislative Councils.

It is certainly not an unreasonable demand

that the representatives of the people should
have control over the people's money, for that is

the one means of compelling the Executive to

carry out the will of the people. Students of the
English constitution need hardly be reminded
that from the time of Edward I, when the first

Parliament was formed, the power of the purse

has been in the hands of the House of Commons.
It was that weapon which ultimately enabled
England to obtain the well ordered freedom which
she now so deservedly enjoys.

The well known writer on public finance, Mr.

H. C. Adams, observes, " Money is the vital
principle of the body politic. He who controls
the finances of the State controls the nation's
policy. Constitutionalism is the idea, budgets
are the means, by which that idea is realised."
This is the true description of the relation that

should subsist between finance and constitutional

Government. " One of the fundamental princi-
ples of every State that either recognises constitu-

tional limitations or purports to develop a consti-

tutional form of government, is the vesting of

 110

some measure of control of the public purse in

the representatives of the people." This control is

which is
usually exercised through the Budget,
Legislature,
presented by the Executive to the
people use
wherein the representatives of the
their efforts " to ensure that care and economy
the finances of the nation." Our
are secured in
Councils, constituted as at present,
have no con-

trol over the national purse.

In the Despatch which the Government of India sent
in October 1911, they took
to the Secretary of State
as a °on>t.tation.l
care to insist upon one proposition
fact, namely, that the
power of passing the B.idget i*
Council, but ,n the Execu-
vested not in the Legislative
and not the former that
tive and that it Uche latter
the Budget. There can
decides any question arising on
law, there is no power^.n
be no doubt that, under the
claim, to meddle with the
the Legislative Council to in
Financial Statement of the Governor-General
If the constitutional
proposition enunciated
Council.
accepted literally, it
bv the Government of India were
Council has no control
would mean that the Legislative
or the.incurring of
over either the raising of revenue
Constitution.
SJSnditare.-4. «. Aiyangar's "Indian
claim no right to
Our representatives can
nor even the
determine the sources of revenue
only make a re-
annual expenditure. They can
'

the Executive in the form of

a
commendation to
certain expenditure need or need
resolution that
not be incurred. But the fate which generally
members has
awaits resolutions by non-official
already been described.
 Ill

And it is no wonder that several of the non-

official legislative [councillors seem to think that
their labours in discussing the financial statement
are more or less a farce. The Hon. Mr. Abdul
Rasul, speaking at the Bengal Legislative Council
on the 3rd of April, spoke as follows :

He wished to say a few words about the futility of the

Budget debate. After all they were not allowed to vote
on the Budget. They were allowed to make long
speeches, and hoo. members of the Executive Council
replied to them. Those speeches usually referred to
matters which had been fully debated on the financial
statement. What was the use of repeating those argu-
ments again and again ? He would suggest that the pro-
cedure should be amended, and that on the day fixed for
the Budget debate, there should be no debate at all.
After all they had to accept the Budget, and what was
the use of all these discussions ? Instead of that debate
he thought there should be a longer time between the
introduction of the financial statement and the day on
which they could move resolutions, so that they could
not only speak but vote and show their strength. It was
true that those resolutions were usually defeated, and
often because the European members thought that in
season aud out of season they must support the Govern-
ment.
In the same Council, the Hon. Mr. Fazl-ul-Huq
began his Budget speech with the following inter-
esting observation, the humour of which will be
appreciated :

I know of a deputy magistrate who was so fully con-

vinced of the infallibility of bis judicial wisdom, that he
used to write out his judgments beforehand, and then
amuse himself by calling upon pleaders and mukhtears to
argue the caee. The practice of calling upon the non-
 112

unchange-
officialmembers of this Council to discuss an
able and unalterable Budget
seems to be as much
justified as that followed by
this deputy magistrate.

The Hon. Mr. Ambika Charan Mazumdar

made a similar complaint but in much stronger

terms, and as follows

it is
:

sickening to contemplate that no less

My Lord.it is were moved by non-official
than thirty-four resolutions with the soli-
members on the financial statement but ;

small resolution for which the

tary exception of one
thanked, they were all
Hon'ble Mr. Hornell must be
stubbornly resisted and rejected by Government. In
negatived by tbe bare easting vote
Jwo cases thev were
Surely this ought to
oHhe vice-president in the chair.
backbone of even the most
be sufficient to break the Council with of
Sbduraie optimist in Your Excellency's
of those who, either pa,d or unpaid,
course the exception
hold a brief for the
Government.
Patel, of the Bombay
The Hon. Mr. V. J.
whole case in a
Legislative Council, put the
nutshell when he observed :—
all is said and done, what is the amount
My Lord, after
members possess over
ol control 'that we
non-official
of Government ?
»e
fh<> financial proposals
. . .

privilege of
non-official members have merely the
and moving resolutions.
Crin^ng forwavd proposals encroached upon, then
small privilege is thus
It this srnau
If F
»
Morlev-Minto Reform Scheme is
no wonder the Morlej despatches of
these Financial
bTh Mo ey and MinVo on whichtell
Lord" this Council
?? ,
e8 a e d and I can confidently
aaa rn
based
ra i ;pTrU pervading
throughout these docu-
fbat th e°libe
ments is lacking in practice.
to have the control
The justice of India's claim
finances was recognized
by Sir William
of its
Hunter, when he said :
 113

cannot believe that a people numbering one-sixth of

I
the whole inhabitants of the globe, and whose aspira-
tions have been nourished from their earliest youth on
the strong food of English liberty, can be permanently
denied a voice in the government of their country. I
do not believe that races. ..... into whom we have
instilled the maxim of " No taxation without representa-
tion " as a fundamental right of a people, can be perma-
nently excluded from a share in the management of their
finances.

FISCAL INDEPENDENCE.

The power to raise revenue of course includes

what is known as fiscal independence, but this
requires special mention in the case of India, owing
to the free trade policy enforced on her by the
British suzerain authority. Our contention has
been that this free-trade policy is ruinous to the
industrial and economic welfare of our people and
is maintained for the benefit of the British manu-
facturer and merchant. The imposition of a
duty of 71 per cent, on imported cotton
goods recently by the Government of India is the
first breach in the free-trade wall and will, it is

hoped, lead ere long to the recognition of the right

of India, as in the case of the self-governing domi-
nions, to regulate her tariff in her own interests
so as to develop her resources for her own
advantage. Eloquent pleas were made in this
behalf in the recent session of the Imperial Legis-
8
 114

lative Council during the Budget debate. One of

these, that of the Hon. Mr. Srinivasa Sastri, may

be transcribed in this place :

is the im-
One great feature of this Budget, my lord,
port dutv on cotton. For the first time
we are teehng
removed, and we are
that a great injustice has been
direction will be
hoping that further steps in the same
This is in
taken for the general relief of the tax-payer.
has been the pole-
the direction of fiscal autonomy which
aspiration in thiB
star of commercial and economic
that we are sub-
country for two generations. We feel
that we cannot deve-
servient economically to outsiders,
lop our resources to the full to our
own advantage, and
as on this occasion we rejoice that
we ha ve ta n „£!
]
.

calamity indeed if this step

f<! ^
first step, so it would be a
owing to the pressure of Lancashire.
had to be retraced
has fully dis-
The debate in the House of Commons
against which we desire
closed the existence of a danger
a matter of particu-
to forearm ourselves. It is, my lord,
of State has seized
lar gratification that the Secretary
it in forcible language
the essence of the point and put
impost on cotton
which we cannot improve upon. The
is a political neces-
goods is a social necessity for India, it
industrial necessity for India.
sity for India, it is an
1
{he spirit of
am glad to acknowledge that 1 have noticed Indians but
tier and indignation with which not merelythe report of
read
even Englishmen in this country have
of Commons.
the proceedings in the House
is, under the in-
They feel that even when bare justice
necessity of war, done to India, there are a
exorable
selfishness drives them
oTass of people in England whose
untimely word of protest As I said it has
to raise an
,

justice-I take the leave of the Council to go

been bare the immense
it is now, »^r
another stepP and affirm that
'ar^ift we have made to Englad
•tion that we are for that purpose
and the
^J'™^
bearing, that it «rafter
i

owes to us to «' u " fre *

this an obligation
to so stand

pay out of the

upon
that
our
England
own legs
development. For after all I do not
available
m
and
the matter of fiscal
mind how
hoarded
»™e
wealth of the
 115

country let our accumulations, let our disposable goods

;

be all taken, provided we have the power of creating

wealth again, so that we can use such resources as we
have to the fullest advantage of this country. Fiscal
autonomy, then, has become not merely justice to be
pleaded for, but a necessity that England cannot any
more withhold. 1 wish your Excellency's Government to
make the matter clear as the unanimous wish of this
Council to the representatives of our Government at
Home.
WORK OF THE NON-OFFICIALS.

It speaks volumes in praise of the patience and

public spirit displayed by the non-official mem-
bers of the legislative councils that, under the
most trying and disheartening conditions and
u chafing every time at the restrictions placed
upon their activity and their usefulness,'" they
should have won the praises of Viceroys and
Governors of Provinces for their moderation and
and for the advice they have given
self-restraint

to the Government from time to time. It

-would be wrong to say that non-official criticism

and advice have been without effect on the

policy and administration of the country, but
as it has been repeatedly pointed out " so
high is the expectation which the public enter-
tain now-a-days of the legislative councils, and
so keen is their sense of the impotence of their
representatives from a constitutional point of view
 116

^eafter short of
that nothing can satisfy *&»»
disposing of the
the power of regulating the policy,
finances and controlling the Executive."

SCHEME IN BRIEF.
THE CONGRESS AND LEAGUE
there-
Such a large extent the nature of
is to
the constitution of
forms sought to be made in
Councils by the Congress and the
Legislative
The entire scheme itself may
Moslem Scheme.
thus be briefly summarised :

will govern India through

a
nihe King-Emperor Council, composed of
by an Executive
Vicerov assfsted The
sYx persons, three
Indian and three European
embers will be appointed by the Viceroy,
European n
but need not be chosen
from the Indian Cml Service or
tSor Slrvieo in India. The Indian members
are to
the Viceroy's
rejected by the e^cted members of
Council. The Council of the Secretary of
Legislate
State being abolished,
and he being reduced to the
Colonial Secretary, all control over tho
Status of the
will be exercised by the Legisat^e Council
Executive
to about 150, four-fifths
£ India It will be enlarged
people of the count y „
be elected by the
of whom will
franchise, Mahomedans being entitled to a
a direct
percentage of these seats through separate e ec-
certaTn
members of the Execut ve
torates of their own. The
be ex officio members of the Legislative
Council will
Viceroy will nominate the regaining
Counc I, and the
The
as non-officials
members from officials as well legislation for all India
?«nm5i will enioy the power of
disallowance
^ubiec othTv^oofthe Viceroy and to
certain period. The Council
by the Cro\vn within a
interpellate the Executive in the
wV be competent to
members of Parliament do in England
Tame wa^r which may be vetoed by the
and to pass resolutions
in Council but shall be binding on the Lxe~
Viceroy
 117

cutive Government if reaffirmed substantially after

one year of such veto. The Council will elect
its own Speaker. Its duration like that of the mem-
bers of the Executive Government will be five years.
The Viceroy may dissolve it before its time, but he
must summon another Council within a certain period.
No more than one year should elapse between one
meeting of the Council and another. As to finance,
the Executive Government will frame the proposals for
each year which will be discussed by the Legislative
Council and must be passed in the shape of money
Bills. The expenditure on the army and the navy,
however, shall not be subject to the sanction of the
legislature. The Government of the Provinces is to be
more or less on the same lines. Each Province should
have a Governor appointed directly by the Crown.
Provincial legislation will be subject to the veto of the
Governor and to disallowance by the Governor-Gene-
ral. The financial relations between the Government
of India and the Provincial Governments are not fully
worked out but the general idea is that there should
;

be a division of the revenues into Imperial and Provin-

cial, and that for deficiencies in the Imperial Budget
the Provinces shall be called upon to make contributions
on principles to be settled from time to time.*

The scheme itself " falls short of responsible

government as understood in the Dominions,'' and

the framers of the scheme have deliberately avoid-
ed the full parliamentary system as unsuitable to
the present condition of India. More important
still, under the scheme, the expenditure on the
army and the navy will vest in the Government of
India only. Any impartial critic will therefore

* Self-Govcrnment for India under tte Britifh

Flag, By the Hon. Mr. V. S. Srinivasa Sastri.
 118

see that what India aims at now " would rank

distinctly below the Colonial standard and even
below the Irish." The truth is our scheme is but "a
half-way house," and as pointed out in the Memo-
randum * submitted to the Secretary of State for
India by the Joint Conference of the All-India
Congress Committee and the Council of the
Moslem League :

This scheme does not ask for " full and responsible
8elf-Government " or "complete autonomy for India at
the close of the war," but asks for certain necessary cons-
titutional reforms, in the existing system of the Govern •
nient of India which if carried out would only constitute
a definite step in the direction of self-government for
India within the Empire.

, But that is because politicians have throughout

carefully borne in mind the peculiar conditions-
in which India finds herself at the present day.

INDIA AFTER THE WAR.

It will be nothing short of political folly to

suppose even for a moment that the Indian
people, who have for many long years before the
war been strenuously agitating for these changes r

will in any manner minimise their demands after

the war ; on the other hand, the claims of India

are bound to be larger, incomparably stronger and

* Submitted to the Becretary of State for India on

the 28th July, 1917.
 119

louder for her proper place in the Empire. If any

one has any doubts on this point, he has only to-

recall the extraordinary political state of the

country, the character of the unrest which
preceded the introduction of the Minto-Morley
reforms. If at that time the Indian people
accepted the changes then made in the Govern-
ment of India, it was because the Reforms gave
a clear indication that Indians would be admitted
into the inner counsels of the Empire, and it is

well to remember that the whole country regard-

ed them as only the first instalment of the great
changes that were sooner or later bound to be

made in the government of the country. The

scheme formulated by the nineteen non-official

elected members of the Imperial Legislative

Council and amplified and adopted by the
Congress and the Moslem League, is nothing
but the logical outcome of the working of Lord
Morley's reforms. It contemplates no violent
changes, and there is certainly no breaking with
the past. It claims, in short, the fulfilment of
pledges and promises solemnly made that, "India

should be so governed as to enable the Indian

people to govern themselves according to the-

higher standards of the "West."

 120

There is no use concealing the fact that

'*'
hitherto the policy of England in India has
been, to a very large extent, dominated by a fear
for the security of British rule." India's magni-
ficent conduct in the present war has proved not
only to Great Britain but to her enemies as well
how unjust the suspicion has been, and the war
has brought to Englishmen as a body the
opportunity " to boldlv face the realities of the

situation in India and to base their government

on the will of the people." These reforms are
due to us not as the price of our loyalty, and we
spurn the very suggestion, but as reforms too
long delayed on account of unjust suspicion and
distrust, and on account of the unwillingness of
those who have been in power to part with vested
rights and privileges. Since the Minto-Morley
Reforms much water has flown under the bridge,

and even Lord Morley himself could not have

foreseen the tremendous outburst of loyalty and
enthusiasm which the present war has evoked from
the princes and the people of India for the British
Throne, and for the cause which it is uphold-
ing and for which it is fighting at such heavy cost.
India has given freely of her money and her blood
for the struggle, because she is convinced that in
 121

this war Great Britain is " engaged in a mortal

combat with despotism, to vindicate the principle

of self-government not merely for itself but
also for mankind," and that the failure of Gx*eat
Britain in this titanic struggle means the destruc-
tion of self-government and the annihilation of

the principle of nationality. And that is why the

princes and people of the land are cheerfully

making the sacrifices they do to keep the

cause for which Great Britain stands " invio-
late." Great Britain is " fighting now to the
death against the claim of a single nation or

race to impose its civilisation on the world

and to dominate the other nations of Europe."
"if it is wrong for Germany to attempt to impose

her kultur upon unwilling nations, it is equally

wrong for England to attempt to impose her
government and civilisation upon India against
the will of the Indian people." " We can-
not fight for one net of principles in Europe
and apply another set of principles in Indi

It will not do at this time of the day to

advise the Indian people to keep quiet and

contented, and bid them worship the "gods" that

* The Lord Bishop of Madras in a recent contribution

to the Nineteenth Century and After,
 122

have given them a rule much more efficient than

any Indian rule can be. A good government
does not always mean a popular government, and
Englishmen, who try to think differently for
India, must remember the famous dictum of Sir
Henry Campbell- Bannerman that " good govern-
ment is no substitute for self-government."
What India aspires to is what President
Lincoln described as " government of the people,,
for the people and by the people."
In his Problem of the Commonwealth Mr.
Lionel Curtis claims that " the task of prepar-
ing for freedom the races which cannot as yet
govern themselves is the supreme duty of those
who can. It is the spiritual end for which the-

Commonwealth exists, and material order is

nothing except a means to it." While denying
the suggestion that we are unfit to govern our-
selves we are willing to admit it for the moment
and we, thereforo, ask the British nation to-

declare that Self-Government is to be pur goal

and that it should undertake its high spiritual

t.isk of fitting us for it without any further

delay. In Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand
and in South Africa the grant of Self-Govern-
ment has proved a blessing to the Dominions and'
 123

to, the mother country. And as has been force-

fully pointed out by the Hon. Mr. V. S.

Srinivasa Sastri in his admirable little book on

Self-Government for India under the British Flag,
" the grant of responsible government, wherever
it has been made, has only strengthened the bond
between the suzerain power and the subordinate
but autonomous governments —a lesson which may
well be borne in mind by those prophets of evil
who prognosticate that in India political generosity
will be met with ingratitude."
Strangely enough the prophets of evil are the
very people who hold all the power, who insist on
all the prestige of their office, who cling passion-
ately to its rights, its privileges and its emolu-
ments and yet deny the sons of the soil their
claim to a legitimate share in the government of
the country.
Only very lately Mr. Bernard Houghton, a re-
tired Indian Civilian, placed on record his
opinion :

Few men give up voluntarily powers which they have

long wielded, No men in the world are impartial judges
'

when their interests are concerned.' No bureaucracy will

voluntarily abdicate powers, however irksome to the
common people, which conduce to the convenience of
officials, or which strengthen their grip upon the coun-
try.
 124

There is no use forgetting the fact " that the

conditions which necessitated and justified, an
official autocracy, administered by a privileged class
of foreigners, have long passed away ; that at the
altar of prestige and efficiency " which means
the perfecting of the official machine and com-
"
pleting its dominion over the outside public
too much of valuable sacrifice has already been
made, that the present system perpetuates " a
"
kind of dwarfing or stunting of the Indian race
and compels all of us " to live all the days of
our life in an atmosphere of inferiority,"* a system
which has assigned to us the lot of "hewers of
wood and drawers of water in our own country,''
and has drawn forth the painful statement in the

pages of the Report of a Royal Commission from

the pen of an Indian Member of the Exe-
cutive Council : " t/tat every Indian officer

whether high or low, feels that he is not

serving himself or his country but is an indivi-
dual hired to labour for somebody else."f The late
Sir Henry Cotton who used to recall with

* Mr. Qokhale in his evidence before the Welby

Commission.
t The Hon. Mr. Chaubal in hin Note on the Report of
the Public Services Commission.
 125

commendable pride the fact that, for a hundred

years, his family had been members of the Indian

Civil Service, very rightly observed, " the Indian

Civil Service is moribund and must pass away
after a prolonged period of magnificent work to be

replaced by a more popular system which will per-

petuate its efficiency while avoiding its defects."*

Recent events and more especially the
report of the Mesopotamian Commission have
made it abundantly clear that even the claims of
efficiency can no longer be made on behalf of the
Bureaucracy in India. Mr. Montagu, the present
Secretary of State for India, speaking in the
House of Commons on 12th July 1917, during
the debate on the Report of the Mesopotamian
Commission was not in the least overstating the
case against the present system when he observed :

But I am that your great claim to

positive of this,
continue the illogical system of Government by whieh
you have governed India in the past is that it was effi-
cient. It has been proved to be not efficient. It has
been proved to be net sufficiently elastic to express the
will of the Indian people] to make them into a warring
nation as they wanted to be.
In the course of the same speech which will

ever be counted as an epoch-making utterance

Mr. Montagu gave expression to the feeling that

* From a contribution to the Contemporary Revieic.

 126

has been uppermost in the minds of all thought-

ful critics of the Government of India when he
said :

The Government too wooden, too iron, too

of India is
inelastic, too ante-diluvian, of any use for the
to be
modern purposes we have in view.
I do not believe that
anybody could ever support the Government of India
from the point of view of modern requirements.

You cannot reorganise the Executive Government of

India, remodel the Viceroyalty, and give the Executive
Government more freedom from this House of Commons
and the Secretary of State unless you make it more
responsible to the people of India.

Dr. H. A. L. Fisher, who sat on the Public Ser-

vices Commission and is now an important
member in the present Cabinet has hit the nail

on the head when he says :

The Civil Service of India is irresponsible because,

although ultimately subject to the Parliament of Great
Britain, it is exempt from interference from any popular-
ly constituted body in India and possesses, therefore, a
liberty of action considerably in excess of that enjoyed
by the administrative agents in our self-governing
dominions,
• • •

The is the Government.

Indian Civil Service It may
accept amendments, it may withdraw a measure in face
of criticism which it judges to be well-founded, it may
•profit by the suggestions of non-official members, but it
is master in its own house.

The pre-eminence enjoyed by the Indian Civil Service

in India is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the posi-
tion of the Secretariat. In view of the fact that parlia-
mentary government does no* exist in India it might have
been expected that the Governor or Lieutenant Gover-
 127

Eor of an Indian province would rule with the assistance

of a Cabinet composed of the administrative heads of the
different departments, that the Education Service would
Bupply him with a Minister of Education, the Public
Works Department with a Minister of Public Works,
the Forest or Agriculture Department with a Minister of
Agriculture. This, however, is not the case. These
departments indeed do possess official heads, but they are
not part of the Provincial Government. Their »vork
comes up, in the first place, before a Secretary to Gov-
ernment, who is always a Member of the Indian Civil
Service, and no large proposal can be carried into effect
without the imprimatur of the premier service.

Again the system has developed a very close and jeal-

—
ously guarded doctrine of vested interests the higher
post in each service being regarded as the perquisite of
the service, as a prize against which recruitment has
been made and consequently not to be abolished until
the vested interests of every person recruited against
them have been satisfied. Esprit de corps is no doubt a
valuable feature of public life, and there is no esprit de
corps so strong as that of the Indian Public Services.
The Indians themselves not unnaturally regard these
services as manifestations of the European spirit of
caste.*

It would be difficult to decide as to who has

made the stronger indictment of the present
Bureaucratic system, Mr. Montagu or Dr. Fisher.
It is sufficient for our purpose to point out that the
time has come " to remodel, in the light of mo-
dern experience, this century old and cumbrous
machine " of the Government of India.

* H. A. L. Fisher. "Imperial Administration" pp. 43-52.

* The Empire and the Future.'
 128

As Sir William Wedderburn has observed rightly,.

" the fault is not in the men, whose
average

character and abilities are of a high order,

but in the
antagonistic
system which places them in a position
to popular aspirations ; which gives them autocratic
effective control which stimu-
power without
and penalises independence
lates selfish ambition

of judgment."*
these
Indeed, the system cannot avoid producing
on its members, for, as pointed
deleterious effects
criticism :
out by Bagehot, in a trenchant
that bureaucrats will care
It is an inevitable defect,
Burke put it,
more for routine than for results or, as ;

'that they will think the

substance of business not to be i

Their whole
much more important than the forms of it.'
lives make them do
education and all the habit of their
part ot
so They are brought young into the particular
are attached they are
the public service to which they 1 ;

forms afterwards,
occupied for years in learning its ;

forms to tnfling matters

for years too, in applying these
writer, but the
Thev are, to use the phrase of an old
the clothes, but they do not
tailors of business ; they cut
find the body.' 'Men bo trained must come to think the
but an end-to imagine
routine of business not a means
the elaborate machinery of
which they form a part and
to be a_gr andland
from which they derive their dignity,
achieved result, not a working
and changeable instru-
you yester-
ment very means which best helped
The
likely be those which most impede you to-
a y may very
dav '
to-morrow
ra o r ro w--vou may want to do a different thing
yesterday's work
™nd aTyour accumulation of means for
only does a
Ts but an obstacle to the new work.' 'Not
Life of
Page 128. Bir William Wedderburn
in his

A. O. Hume.'
 129

bureaucracy thus tend to under-government in point of

quality, it tends to over-government in point of quantity.
The trained official hates the rude, untrained public. He
thinks that they are stupid, ignorant, reckless that they —
—
cannot tell their own interest that they should have the
leave of the office before they do anything.' A bureau-
'

cracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official

power, official business, or official members rather than
to leave free the energies of mankind it overdoes the
;

quantity of government as well as impairs its quality.

The members of the Civil Service will certainly

do well to take to heart the sound advice given to

them by a member of their own body, Mr. Bernard
Houghton, who served out his term of thirty years
in Madras and Burma :

Though the Indian Civil Service were manned by

angels from heaven, the incurable defects of a bureau-
cratic Government must prevent their best intentions
and make toem foes to political progress. It must now
stand aside and, in the interest of that country it has
served so long and so truly, make over the dominion to
other hands. Not in dishonour, but in honour, proudly
as ship-builders who deliver to seamen the completed
ship, may they now yield up the direction of India.

What India yearns for is her rightful place in

the Empire and she can only have it in the
proper sense of the term by being permitted to
enjoy the privilege of Self-Government. Let all

Englishmen who seek to interpret India's noble

aspirations, remember the following exhortation
made recently by Sir Francis Younghusband to
an English audience :
 130

" Lay fast hold of this fact that the leaders of

Indian opinion and the great mass and bidk of the
people have not the slightest desire, hope or ambition,
to sever the tie with England. In making their
demands it is not severance but autonomy at which
they aim ; Self-Government, indeed, they want ;
but Self- Government within the Empire, not outside
it."

Let them remember also the striking statement

made by H. H. the Maharaja of Bikanir on the

24th April 1917 in his remarkable speech in

London at the Empire Parliamentary Association.

Our aspiration is also to see our country, under the
guidance of Britain making material advance on consti-
tutional lines in regard to m&tters political and econo-
mical and ultimately to nttain, under the Standard of our
King Emperor, that freedom and autonomy which you
in this country secured long ago for yourselves and
which our more fortunate sister dominions havj also
enjoyed fcr sometime past.
And the Maharaja rightly added that the
problem]] of Self-Government for India though
beset with difficulties " is not such as to be in-
solvable by British statesmanship and British
sympathy and good will."

Thousands and thousands of miles away from

India, the millions of the subjects of Britain
And her Allies now get dinned into their ears
what Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Balfour applaud
and endorse in the sentiments of President Wilson,
 131

u that the unity and peace of mankind can only rest

upon democracy and upon the right of those

submit to authority to have a voice in their

oo:n Government." Sir Robert Borden declares

that the creed in which the British Empire
should be reared is, "perfect autonomy, Self-

Government, and the responsibility of ministers

to their oicn electorate." General Smuts pro-
claims, " What we want is the maximum of freedom
and liberty, the maximum of self-development for
the young nations of the Empire." In England,
day after day the glories of the British Empire
are sung, the Empire whose freedom is said to be

broadening slowly down from precedent to

precedent.
On the 22 nd March, a few days after the recent
Revolution in Russia, Mr. Bonar Law moved the
following Resolution in the House of Commons

which was unanimously adopted.

This House tends the Duma fraternal greeting and
tenders to the Russian people heartfelt congratulations
upon the establishment among them of free institutions,
iu the full confidence that they will lead to notonlj the
rapid and happy progress of the Russian nation, but the
prosecution, with renewed steadfastness and vigour, of
the war against the stronghold of autocratic militarism
which threatens the Liberty of Europe.
Referring to the same event ,-
Mr. Lloyd
George the present Premier, observed that it
 132

marked a world-epoch and was the first great

triumph of the principles for which Great
Britain entered the war i.e., the dethronement
of autocracy and the establishment on a sure
footing of ^opular freedom. Speaking again
on the 12th of April, at the American Luncheon
Club, Mr. Lloyd George made a remarkable pro-
nouncement in the course of which he said :

When
France, in the eighteenth century, sent her sold-
iers to America to
fight for the freedom and indepen-
dence of that land, France was 3lso an autocracy. But
once the Frenchmen were in America, their aim was
freedom, their atmosphere freedom, their inspiration
freedom. They acquired the taste for freedom and took
it home, and France became free. That is the story of
Russia. Russia engaged in this great war for the freedom
of Serbia, Montenegro and Roumania. They were fight-
ing for the freedom of Europe and they wanted to make
their own country free aud have done with it.

Our countrymen who have gone in thousands to

fight in the various theatres of war will surely re-

turn with the self-same love for national freedom

referred to by the Premier and redoubled, if we
may say so, by their own heroic efforts in the
< :iuse of the Empire which is also the cause of

human liberty. In the same speech the Premier

made another very striking observation :

There ere times in history when this world spins so

leisurely along its destined course that it seems for
centuries to be at a standstill. There are also times
 133

when it rushes along at a giddy' pace, covering the

track of centuries in a year. These are such times.
These remarks apply with no less force to

India. The Premier concluded his remarkable

speech'in the following eloquent word-

The freeing of Russia from oppression which has
covered it like a shroud for so long the great decla-
;

ration of President Wilson, coming with the might of

the great nation he represents into the struggle for
liberty — these are the heraldb of dawn. And soon
Frenchmen, Americans, British, Italians, Russians yea
and Serbians, Belgians, Montenegrins and Roumanians
will emerge into the full light of perfect day.

Now all the nations referred to by Mr. Lloyd

George in his famous speech and even the English,
our rulers, were, in the language of Viscount
* ;
Palmerston, in a state of utter barbarism," at the

time when India was at the zenith of her civili-

sation. And are they all to emerge into the light

of perfect day and is India alone to be still groping
in darkness ? •
 THE GOVERNANCE OF INDIA
BY
BABU GOVINDA DOSS.
Babu Govinda Dobs' book on the " Governance of
India" is a very opportune publication. It offers a
constructive scheme of reforms in consonance with the
large body of public opinion in this country. It gives
in no vague or uncertain terms a scheme for the better
governance of India without impairing its efficiency and
satisfying the legitimate aspirations of the Indian people.
The author has brought together most of those sug-
gestions that have been made since the fifties of the
last century for the improvement of the administration
of India by officials and non-officials, Indians and
—
Europeans suggestions which have stood the test of
public criticism. The book is full of original and fruitful
observations, the result of the author's continuous
study and reflection on the subject for over a deeade.
With the help of apt quotations gathered from rare
publications, defects in the system of administration are
driven home and ways shown by which the defects could
be eliminated and the system improved. '' The Gover-
nance of India" is a hand book of living practical
politics, a Vfufr mrcum for active politicians which no
one, official (Jr non-official— interested in the reform of the
Indian administration can afford to neglect. The chapters
dealing with the reform of the India Office, the Imperial
Government, the Native States and the Provincial am!
other Local Governments are full of suggestions at once
fruitful and opportune.

Price Rs. 3. To Subscribers of " F.R," Rs, 2-8.

Q, A. Natesan & Co., 8unkurama Chetty Street, MadraB.

 I

IIMDEX.

A Page
Abdul Rasnl on the futility of the budget debate ... Ill
Act of 1833 ... 3-

Act of 1853 ... 7

Adams on public finance ... 109
Administration by foreigners, Mountstuart
Elphinstone on ... 15
Ahmed, Sir Syed on Legislative Councils ... 63
Anglo-Indian administration, Spender's account of. 96
,, ,. Statesmen on British rule iu India... 15
Archer, (William) on British obligations to India... 5
Argyll, (Duke of) on the employment of natives ... 23
Asiatic awakening ... 30
Asquith on the Indian Council B; of 1909
I ... 74
Asquith's tribute to the Indian troops ... 48
Atkinson (Sir Jhon) on Krishnaswami Aiyar ... 103
Autonomy within the Empire . ... 58
Awakening in Asia ... 30
B
Bagehot (Walter) on bureaucrats ... 128
Baker's (Sir Edward) appeal to the Civil Service... 92
Banerjea (Mr. Surendranath) on the Council
regulations ... 77
Banerjea's views, Hon. Mr. Surendranath ... x
Bannerman (Sir Henry Campbell) on Self-
GoVernment ... 122
"Bengalee'' on financial discussions in the Council. 84
„ „ on the evils of the regulations ... g3
Besant, Mrs. on Home Rule for India ... 55
Besant's views ... xv
Bikanir (H. H. the Maharaja of) on freedom
and autonomy ... 130
„ „ on India's aspirations ... 130
Bishop of Madras on fighting for principles ... 121
Bombay Congress, resolution on Self-Govern-
ment ... 55
Bonar Law on India's assistance ... 49
Borden, (Sir Robert) on the creed of the
British Empire ... 131
 Page.
Bradlaugh's Bill in the Bouse of Commons ... 66
Bright, (John) on the Employment of natives ... 8
British and Anglo-Indians on the object of
British rule in India ... 15
,, domination over India, Lord Salisbury on 18
„ obligations to India, William Archer on ... 51
„ policy in India, Dadabhai Naoroji on the 3
„ rule, higher purposes of ... 37
Budget, control over the ... 108
„ debate, Hon. A. C. Muzumdar on ... 112
., debates, 1917, result of .. 87
„ Hon. Mr. Fazl-ul-Huq on the
unalterable ... Ill
Bureaucracy and the Council reforms ... 26
„ and the reforms ... 91
„ Indian reforms and the ... 40
„ inefficient ... 126
„ its vested interests ... 127
Bureaucrats, Walter Bagehot on the .. 128

Caine's (W. 8.) faith in the future of India ... 26

Carmichael (Lord) on Hon. Mr. Shums-ul-Huda... 104
Chamberlain (Mr.) on Indian's loyalty ... 47
Chandavarkar's views, Sir N. G. ... i

Charter Act, 1833 ... 9

Cbaubal's note on the P. S. C. report ... 124
Chesney on Parliamentary institutions for India ?.. 69
Chintamony (Hon. Mr. C. Y.) and the U. P.
Council ... 86
Civil Servants and the Executive Councils ... 104
„ Service and the Masses 88
„ „ Bernard Houghton's opinion of the 122
„ „ regulations ... 22
„ Sir Edward Baker's appeal to the ... '.»7

„ Sir W. Wedderburn on the ... 104

Colvin (8ir Auckland) on the Civil Service ... 95
Commonwealth, Lionel Curtis on the ... 122
Congress, aim of the ••• 27
„ and council reforms ... 65
„ „ League, reforms urged by ... 97fi
 Page.
'Congress and League Scheme in brief ... 169
„ „ Muslim League Scheme ... 155
„ creed ... 38
„ foundation of the ... 26
„ League Scheme short of responsible
CiOTernment ... 117
„ resolution on Self- Government ... 36
Constitutional methods, faith in
Control over the budget ... 108
Convention at Surat ... 38
Cotton (Sir Henry) on Indian control over the
administration ... 69
Council debates, Lord Pentland on ... 90
,, reforms and the bureaucracy ... To
., ,, „ ., Congress ... 66
„ regulations, Banerjea's protest against
the
„ „ Gokhale on the ... 69
„ „ Subba Rao Paatulu on the ... 78
„ to elect its own
president ... 98
Councils, composition of the .. 85
„ reconstitution of the ... 62
Court of Directors on the Act of 1883 ... 7
Creed of the British Empire, Sir R. Borden on ... 131
„ „ ., Congress ... 38
Crewe (Lord) on Imperial confederation ... 50
Cromer (Lord) on European ideas in India ... 1U
Curtis (Lionel) on the spiritual end of the Common-
wealth ... 122
Curzon (Lord) on Council reform
Curzonian regime ... 28

Dadabhai's ideal of Swaraj ... 22

„ Message ... 36
Democracy, President Wilson on ... 131
Deportations and Lord Morley ... 39
Dhar (Mr. B. N.) on the rejection of Non-]
officials' resolutions ... 86
Dominions and Self-Government ... 122
 IV

E Page.
Educated India and Self-Government ... 22
Education and Indian aspiration, Lord Harting-
ton on ... 18
Edward's (King) Proclamation ... 12
Elected majority in the Legislalive Councils ... 98
Elective Principle, Mr. Gladstone on the ... 68
Elphinstone, Mountstuart on administration by
foreigners ... L">
Empire, Indians in the inner Councils of the ... 119
Empire's reconstruction, India and the ... 53
Employment of Natives, Bright (John) on the ... 8
„ „ Duke of Argyll on the ... 24
England's duty to India, Sir Robert Peel on ... 3
English education and Indian aspirations ... 22
Executive Council. Indians in the ... 101
„ and Civil Servants ... 106
„ Resolutions to bind the ... 99
Exodus question, the ... 88
F
Fazl-ul-Huq(Hon.Mr.)on the unalterable budget... Ill
•, „ on non-official repre-
sentation in Council ... 83
Finance, Sir W. W. Hunter on the management
of Indian ... 113
Financial discussions in Council ... 84
Fiscal autonomy, Hon. V. S. Srinivasa Sastri on ... 114
., independence ... 113
Fisher (Dr.) on the Indian Civil Service ... 126
Foundation of the Congress ... 28
Freedom and liberty, Gen. Smuts on ... 131
G
Gandhi's vietvs, M, K. ... xiv
George's (King) Cornation Durbar Message ... 14
,, „ Message 13
George (Lloyd), at the American Luncheon ... 132
„ (Lloyd), on the freedom of Europe ... 132
Ghose's (Dr.) counsel of hope ... 39
Gladstone (Mr.) on the eleotive principle ... 68
„ on the Indian question ... 17
Gokiiale on council regulations ... 69°
 Page.
Gokhale on Lord Curzon's administration ... 132
„ on the dwarfing of the Indian race ... 124
Gokhale's evidence before the Welby Commission . 124
„ part in the Minto-Morley Scheme ... 75
Government majorities, Hon. Ramanujachariar on. 81
Grant (Mr. Charles), on the interests of the Indian
people ... 4
Gupta, (Sir K. G.) Charles Roberts on ... 102

H
Haldane (Lord) on England and India ... 50
Hammick (Sir MurravJ <> n V. Krishnaswami
Aiyar ... 103
Hardinge (Lord) despatch of ... 42
„ „ on Indian troops in France ... 48
,, „ on Provincial autononmy ... 41
„ „ on Sir Syed AH Imam ... 103
Harnam Singh's views, Raja Sir ... vii
Hartington (Lord) on Education in India ... IS
Hastings, (Marquis of), on the future of India ... 1
Hindu Moslem Entente ... 43
History of the Legislative Councils ... 61
Home Rule, Mrs. Besant on Indian ... 63
Houghton (Bernard) on the bureaucracy ... 129
Houghton's opinion of the Civil Service ... 123
Hunter, (Sir W. W.) on Indian aspirations ... 18
„ on the management of finance... 113
I
Ilbert Bill Controversy ... 25
Imam (Sir Syed Ali), LordHardinge on ... 103
Imperial confederation, Lord Crewe on ... 50
India after the War ... ]18
„ and the Empire's reconstruction ... 53
„ „ England, Lord Haldane on .. 50
„ „ its future, Lord Maeaulay on ... 5
„ „ the Paris Conference ... 52
„ „ the War . ... 45
„ under Lord Ripon .. 24
Indian aspirations, Lord Minto on ,.. 70
„ aspirations Sir W. W. Hunter on ... 19
Indian control of the administration, Sir H.
Cotton on 60
„ Councils Act of 1892 67
1861 63
„ „ Bill of 1909, Asquith on the \
74
„ culture, Lord Palmerston on
„ Empire, the destinies of, Lord Macaulay on
Indians in the Executive Council
„ in the inner Council of the Empire
Indian Member iii the Executive Council
„ Members of the India Council 102
„ reforms and the bureaucracy -h)
„ troops and the Victoria Cross 148
., „ Asquith's tributes to the 48
„ „ Lord Hardiuge on the 49
India's aspirations, the Maharaja of Bikaniron 131
„ fitness for representative institutions 2
„ future, Marquis of Hastings on 8
„ Loyalty, Chamberlain on 40
, right, Gladstone on 87
Interpellation, right of 88
Irresponsible Government, Dr. Fisher on 126

Jejeebhoy's views, Sir Jamsetjee ... ix

Jogendra Singh's views Sirdar
, ... xi
Justifiable discontents in India ... 71
K
Kelkar (Hon. Mr.) on the composition of the
Councils ... 85
Krishnaswami Aiyar, Sir John Atkinson on ... 103
,, Sir Murray Hammiok on
L
Lansdownc (Viscount) on Council Bill of 1892 ... 67
:~~^jf„ on England's justification in India ... 5
Lawrence (Lord) on village communities ... 17
Lee-Warner (Sir William) on Progressive Govern-
ment ... 20
Legislative Councils and Sir Syed Ahmed ... 63
„ „ elected majority in the ... 98
„ „ reform of the ... 65
 VII

Page.
Lincoln (Abraham) on Government of the people . 122
Lloyd George on the freedom of Europe ... 132
Local Self-Government and Lord Ripon ... 25
Lvtton (Lord) on British policy ... 12
„ on the evasion of the Act of 1833 . 23
Lytton's (Lord) policy ... 23
M
Macaulay (Lord) on Clause 87 of Charter Act of
1833 ... 6
„ on the destinieB of the Indian
Empire ... 6
m „ on the future of India ... 5
Madhava Rao's views, Mr. V. P. ... v
Mahomedabad's views, Hon. the Raja Saheb of ... iv
Malcolm (Sir JnhD) on the exclusion of natives
from the government ... 17
Malaviya (Hon. Pundit M. M.) and disappointment
of the council reforms ... 79
Malaviya's views ... v
„ „ on non-official disabilities . 100
Mayne and the Civil Service ... 94
Mazumdar (Hon. A. C.) on Budget debate ... 112
Memorandum of the Joint Conference ... 008
„ „ nineteen ... 56
Metropolitan, the, on Self-Government f»r India... 60
Minto (Lord) on Indian aspirations ... 7o
„ on Sir S. P. Sinha » ... 103
„ „ on the Indian discontent ... 73
Minto-Morley reforms ...39,70
,, ,, Scheme, Gokbale's part in the ... 76
„ „ despatch ... 72
Minto's durbar speech at Jodhpur ... 12
„ (L»rd) note on reforms ... 71
„ ,, on Indian government ... 125
„ ,. on Lord Hardinge's despatch ... 42
Montagu (E. S.) on responsible government ... 126-
Morley (Lord) and deportations ... 39
,, .. digging the grave of the Bureau-
cracy ... 39-
i „ on non-official majority ... 97
 vm
Page.
Morley (Lord) on the two Indian members of the
India Council ... 102
Morley-Minto reforms ... 39
Morley 's (Lord) despatch ... 73
Moslem League and Self-Government ... 44
Munro (Sir, Thomas), on national character ... 2
Munro's declaration ... 3
Mutiny and Sir Syed Ahmed ... 62
N
National awakening in India ... 24
„character. Sir T. Munro on the ... 2
„ Government, Dr. Rajendralal Mitra on ... 66
Naoroji on British policy in India ... 3
Nevinson on the new spirit in India ... 33
New party's programme ... 37
New spirit in India, Nevinson on ... 33
Non-official control of finance, Hon. Mr. Patel on... 112
„ disabilities, Hon. Pundit Malaviya on ... 10(1
„ Majority, the need for ... 97
„ members' complaint in Bengal ... 84
„ representatives, Hon. Mr. Huq on ... 83
Non-officials in Council, Hon. Ramachandra
Rao on ... 82
„ workoftho ... Hfi
Northcote (Sir Stafford), on native
Government ... 10
P
Palmerston on England's duty to India ... 9
„ on Indian Culture ... 8
Paris Conference and India ... 52
Parliamentary institutions, Chesney on ... fi'.t

Partition, annulment of the ... 41

Patel (Hon. Mr.) on non-official control of
finance ... 112
„ on Government's distrust of non-
officials ... 86
Pentland (Lord) on council debates ... '.HI

Peel, (8ir Robert), on the Charter Act of 1833 ... 4

„ on England's duty to India ... 4
jPhillimore ( Mr J. G.) on the spirit of monopoly ... 9
Pratt's advice to the Civil Service ... -
Do letter to Gokhale ... 21
 Page.
Press Act (Vernacular) ... '24
President, the election of, to the Council ... 98
Proclamation of 1858 ... 10
„ King Edward ... 12
Progressive Government for India, Sir W.
Lee V7arner on ... 20
Provincial autonomy, Lord Hardinge on ... 41
Public finance, H. C. Adams on ... 109
R
Raiendralal Mitra, on National Government ... 66
Ramanuj achariar (Hon. V. K.) on Government
Majorities
Ramchandra Rao (Hon, Rao, Badr.) on the futility
of non-offioial debates ... 82
Reconatitution of the Councils ... 60
Reforms, Bureaucracy and the ... 91
„ of tbe Legislative Council ... 65
„ of Lords Morley and Minto ... 39
„ not the price of loyalty ... 120
„ urged by the Congress and League ... 96
Religio-soeial movements in India ... 24
Representative institutions, India's fitness for ... 28
Resolutions to bind the Executive ... .99
Right of interpellation ... 88
Hipon (Lord) on India ... 24
„ on English thought in India ... 19
„ »on Local Self-Government ... 25
Ripon's (Lord) University address ... 19
Roberts (Charles), on K G. Gupta ... 102
', on India's part in the war ... 47
Russian democracy, congratulations to the ... 131
s
Salisbury (Lord) on British domination over India. 18
Scheme, Congress and League ... 116
Self-Government and Educated India ... 22
„ Congress-League Scheme of ... 55
„ „ resolution on ... 36
„ for Inaia, Sir F. Younghusband on 130
„ ,, the Metropolitan on ... 60
„ in the Dominions ... 122
M Moslem League on ... 44
 Page.
Selt-Government, Mr. Pratt on ... 21
„ on colonial lines ... 38
„the objective ... 1
„ within the Empire ... 20
Shams-ul-Huda, (Hon. Mr.; Lord Carmichael on... 104
Sinha (Sir S. P.), Lord Minto on ... 103
„ on autonomy ... 58
„ on Self -Government ... 55
Sivaswami Aiyar (Sir P. S.) Madras Government on 104
Sivaswami Aiyar's views, Sir P. S. ... x
Smuts (Gen.) on freedom and liberty ... 131
Spender's (Harold) account of Anglo-Indian
administration ... 90
Srinivasa Sastri (Hon. V. S.) on Fiscal autonomy. 114
Srinivasa Sastri's views, Hon. Mr. V. S. ... xiii
Subba Rao Pantulu on Council regulations ... 78
Surat Convention ... 38
Swaraj, Dadabhai's ideal
Syed Ahmed (Sir) on the causes of the Mutiny ... 62
T
Temple (Sir Richard,) on the elective principle in
India ... 18
V
Vernacular Press Aot of Lord Lytton ... 25
Victoria Crosp, Indian troops and the ... 48
Victoria's Proclamation ... 11
Village : a little republic ... 17
W
War, India after the ... 118
„ „ and the ... 45
Wedderburn William) on the Civil Service ...
(8ir 107
on men and the system
„ ... 128
Welby Commission, Gokhalo's evidence before the. 124
What India yearns for ... 12!>
Whitehead (Bishop) on the ideal of India ... 59
Wilson (President) on Democracy ... 131
Work of thenon-offioials ... 115
Wood (Mr.) on Provisions of Council Bill of 1861. 64
Wynn on native participation in Government ... 4

First Edition: 3,000 Copies, Oct., 1917. NiUesan&Co.. Madras.

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IND21N NATIONAL EVOLUTION.

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THE INDIAN DEMANDS

A SYMPOSIUM ON THE MEMORANDUM OF THE
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AT THE CONGRESS AND MOSLEM LEAGUE

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SCHEME OF SELF-GOVERNMENT FOR INDIA
ON THEIR
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MB. NATESAN.
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the scheme
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National Con-
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BAMAKRISHNA PAKAMAHAMSA. TUKARAM.
SWA MI Y1VEKANANDA. CHAITAHYA.
SWAM I RAM TIRATH. KABIR.
SWAMI DAYANAND SARASWATI. RAMDAS.
SAINT DNAYESVAR, KAjiAK.
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Qokhale V. Krishnaswaml Aly:\r
O. K.
Dewan C. Rengacharlu
Dr. Rash Beharl Ohose
Rahimtulla Hohamed Sayan
La la Lajpat'Rai
Ravi Varma Mrs. *aro}lnl Saidu
Rablndranaih lagore
JoruJiuU
Isvara Chandra Vldyasagar
K. T. lelang
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Sir Syed Amir All
Romesh ChunJer Dutt
l\awao Mohsinul-Mulk
Ananda Mohan Bose
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H. I he *gha Khan
li.
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Sir Syed Ahmed
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R. Ragunatha Kau. C.S./,
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Views of representative Indians and Anglo Indians.
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WHAT «£ JSP
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,D
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ot
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 MONTAGU'S INDIANSPEECHES.
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Speech on "Indian Affairs"; "Indian Land Policy"

delivered at the Liberal Colonial Club, London full text ;

of his Speech in the House of Commons on the Report of

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Views of representative Indians and Xnglo Indians,
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M
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I INDIAN NATIONAL EVOLUTION.

By The Hon, Amvika Charan Muzumdar.
r

» brief survey of the origin and progress of the Indian

^ National Congress and the growth of Indian Nationalism.

A New and Up-to-date Edition.

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THE INDIAN DEMANDS NINETEEN
A SYMPOSIUM ON THE MEMORANDUM OF THE
CONGRESS AND MOSLEM LEAGUE
AND SPEECHES AT THE
SCHEME OF SELF-GOVERNMENT FOR INDIA
ON THEIR
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MR. NATESAN.
Tt contains the famous Memorandum of the 19 elected
members of the Imperial Legislative Council, the
scheme
National Con-
of reforms jointly adopted by the Indian
speeches
gress and the Moslem League, (together with the
delivered at the Lucknow Sessions on their
scheme of
Post- War
Self-Govern ment for India) the symposium on
reforms which first appeared in the Indian Review, ex-
Services Commis-
tracts from the reports of the Public
Indian adminis-
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trator* and Anglo-Indian Official, and the
Ruling princes
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Karachi.
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of the move-
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Review:
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