Current Topics

THE VICEROY'S ORDINANCE

It is the habit of Government to create a new grievance on the eve of every dole of Reform. The Public Safety Bill–now really the Public Safety Ordinance–furnishes that grievance. Ten years ago, it was the Rowlatt Committee, the Rowlatt Bill and the Rowlatt Act that heralded the advent of the Montford era. In 1908-10, it was the Seditious Meetings Act, the Press Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act which came as the precursors of the Minto-Morley Reforms. Under each of these, jail-loads of prisoners were taken and interned or externed, confined to solitary, simple or rigorous imprisonment. As the new era dawned, Viceregal pardons or Royal amnesties came into being, and the new sorrows of the nation, in which had been submerged the older and deeper ones, were assuaged by the liberation of shoals of prisoners. It is to effect a similar feat of psychology that the Public Safety Bill was introduced, and as if by an Act of Fate, passed not into an Act of the Legislature, but as an Ordinance under the extraordinary powers of the Viceroy. It is time that India coordinated the activities of the Government at Delhi and Simla, and saw through the deeper purposes the bureaucracy had in view in promulgating these uncommon measures. Nothing stays the hand of a Viceroy, neither Presidential rulings nor public opinion. We now see why Lord Morley predicted that India's rule must be absolute and personal, so far as his imagination could pierce. Beneath all the veneer and polish, beneath the paints and washes that glisten on the surface of the political edifice, there is a rot in the structure, a cracking of walls and a sinking of foundations, which is clearly visible. In effect, the so-called edifice of Responsible Government which it is pretended is being reared, is a mere make-believe and a downright fraud. Swaraj cannot be granted by England. It must be established by India.

GANDHIJI IN ANDHRA

Gandhiji's visit to the Andhradesa is a historic chapter in the annals of the Province. Once again, public enthusiasm is roused to the pitch of 1921. Money has poured down in torrents. Villages have vied with each other to do honour to the uncrowned King of India. His

movements have taken place with the unerring precision of a Viceregal programme, except when he, in his superabundant generosity, has relaxed his own limits of time and space. Although the visit has proved that the heart of rural India is sound, it is the English-educated folks and the foreign-cloth merchants that have been apathetic–and for obvious reasons. The former feel that their whole life–with its ambitions and prospects –is bound up with Government, and do not feel like participating in a revolutionary movement. Khaddar may not be revolutionary, though in one sense it is, but it is the precursor of a revolution–peaceful and non-violent, it may be, nonetheless a revolution. Left to themselves and freed from the shackles of the urban population, of urban interests, and of urban calculations, the people of the villages have during this tour given proofs of their sincerity, earnestness and readiness to serve and sacrifice. And if such an estimate of rural character is correct, Swaraj cannot be a distant vision. It must be, as it doubtless is, in sight, if it is not actually running towards us.

S. P.

THE KALASALA: A SAD MEMORY

But the sight of certain places and institutions must have awakened sad memories in Gandhiji's mind during his Andhra tour. Chirala is bereft of Andhraratna, Ellore of Annapurna Devi, Pallipadu of Digumarti Hanumaatha Rao, and Masulipatam of Kopalle Hanumantha Rao. And saddest thought of all, the Kalasala reared by a life of noble self-abnegation has lapsed into co-operation with Government, after accepting a little over thirty thousand rupees from the Congress. In Gandhiji's words, the life-work of Hanumantha Rao is "likely to be swept away into the sea", for his institution is no longer the "oasis in an educational desert" that it once was. Gandhiji's love for the Kalasala is as intense as ever, but he does not find it possible to devote time and attention to the work of clearing this veritable Augean stable. But we ask in all humility if it was not worth his while to have given a whole fortnight out of his Andhra tour to this vexed problem. He could have convened a meeting of all the donors and well-wishers of the institution, and once again set its feet on the path of true progress. That would perhaps have meant a few thousand rupees less for the khadi fund, but the cause of nationalism would have gained incalculable strength. While institutions like the ‘Kashi Vidyapith’ are holding aloft the banner of national education, the Kalasala has made an abject surrender. And that too, at the instance and on the specific recommendation of one of the leading lights of the Non-co-operation movement in Andhra. To most of the Andhra ‘leaders’, the Andhra University was a much more important institution than the Kalasala, and the location of the University Headquarters absorbed their attention to the exclusion of all else.

After all, every nation gets or keeps the institutions that it deserves. The Andhra ‘leaders’ as well as the rank and file, have proved by their criminal apathy that they deserved no better than that their Jatheeya Kalasala should cease to be either Jatheeya (national), or a Kalasala (abode of culture). The Kalasala of Hanumantha Rao's dreams is dead; but will there be a resurrection?

K.R.

THE BUTLER REPORT

The Butler Committee has laboured long and brought forth a monster. All the concentrated affluence of ‘princely India’ was brought to play its luxurious part in the game, and the costliest counsel–Sir Leslie Scott–represented their cause. A sedulous and successful propaganda was carried on to exclude and avoid the representations of the subjects of the States, on the plea that the terms of reference did not permit of such a procedure. That the Report was bound to be reactionary in its recommendations, was a foregone conclusion, and all the best efforts of the States Subjects Delegation headed by the indefatigable Mr. M. Ramachandra Rao, could not prevent the ‘Chinese wall’ as Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru so picturesquely put it, being erected between British and Indian India.

The summary of the Butler Committee Report so far available reveals the British mind in all its crudity. The growing tendency on the part of the Paramount Power to make its hold on the Princes firmer is visible, If the Butler recommendations were brought into force, the Political Department will be under the direct and immediate control and supervision of the Viceroy, who will exercise his functions as the delegate of the King-Emperor in sole authority, undivided and supreme, superseding the present arrangement by which the Governor-General in Council is the highest functionary in this Department. In the words of Dewan Bahadur M. Ramachandra Rao;

"the effect of the proposal is that India as a whole can never have a common constitution. In putting forward the proposal, the Indian Princes have done a great disservice to the country. The only way of undoing the mischief is for the Indian Princes, the people of the States and of British India, to come together in a conference and settle their differences."

In addition to this, the proposal to pack the Political Department with recruits from British Universities makes the whole situation grievously suspicious. Have the Princes bargained for this humiliation? To quote, the same high authority on constitutional matters:

"An autocratic Viceroy, uncontrolled by the Executive Council of the Governor-General . . . . will be the arbiter of their destinies in future . . . . The position of the Princes will, I imagine, be distinctly worse under the proposed changes."

If the Princes have any respect for the feelings of their subjects who pulsate with a new life in this democratic age, and if they fully realise the implications of the recommendations with the tightening grip of the Imperialist, the retrogressive recommendators of the Butler Committee ought to be repudiated by them.

M. V. R.