Triveni Journal

1927 | 11,233,916 words

Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....

India and the British Commonwealth

Dr. Lanka Sundaram, M.A., Ph.D. (London)

India and the British

Commonwealth 1

(Director of the Indian Institute of International Affairs)

I

A new yeast is now leavening the constitutional and political fabric of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The various Imperial Conferences of the post-War era have introduced a very healthy influence into the relationships between Great Britain and the various units of the Empire. The guardianship of the old Colonial Office (now the Dominions Office) has been gradually relaxed, and with the influx of time the units of the Commonwealth have come to be regarded as distinct national units, with specific duties and rights of their own. The Balfour Report on Inter-Imperial Relations has almost revolutionised the constitutional relationship existing between Great Britain and the Dominions. What this report achieved in the direction of a delimitation of the intra-imperial relations, the Statute of Westminster has codified, so to speak, into the constitutional law of the Commonwealth. Even outside the Empire the Dominions, by virtue of their membership of the League of Nations and their diplomatic representation at foreign capitals, have vindicated their position in the world as no mere appanages of the British Empire, but as nation-States with a distinct personality of their own.

From the political stand-point, the British Commonwealth has shown an even more fundamental and remarkable change. Now that the Colonial Laws Validity Act has been relegated to the scrap heap, as far as the Dominions are concerned, and that the Statute of Westminster has conceded the right of secession from the Empire, a new set of conditions has been introduced into the political relationship between the Mother Country and her former colonies. The Dominions are not now content with a paper definition of their equality of status with Great Britain and with a legal right for independence. The history of the Irish Free State during the past decade is a long series of political incidents which gathered focus and velocity for this fissiparous tendency originally displayed by Canada prior to the Durham Report. Secession from the Commonwealth is a matter of practical politics in the Irish Free State. In the Union of South Africa the stupendous Flag Question and the much-advertised programme of General Hertzog and his co-adjutors for secession from the Empire have demonstrated to the world that the political future of the British Commonwealth is bound to be stormy. Even from distant Australia, the appointment of the Governor-General by the Federal Cabinet without the direct cognizance of the British Government is yet another facet of this separatist tendency in the Commonwealth. Only the continued goodwill and generous statesmanship of the British Government have so far prevented economic and regional nationalism in the Commonwealth from undoing the work of centuries which has created and sustained the most magnificent Empire the world has ever seen. In this, the presence of the Crown as the cementing agency which has brought into being a vast concourse of spontaneous loyalty from all parts of the Empire "over which the sun never sets," has been extremely helpful. In the person of the King there is still an adequate focussing-point for all that is good in British statecraft and economic design.

II

Whatever may be the exact future course of events in the British Commonwealth, there is no doubt that recent developments in the constitutional and political spheres, as indicated above, have had a profound influence upon the possibilities in store for India to become a nation-State. This is not the place for a survey, how-ever fascinating it might be, of the phenomenal progress made by our nationalistic activity during the past fifty years. But it would be unwise for us to refuse to recognise its extended importance during the post-War era. For, national sentiment in any quarter of the Empire is bound to tell upon its continued future stability as an agent for the ordered progress of a substantial portion of the human race. This nationalistic particularism in India has received ample sustenance from sister movements in other parts of the Commonwealth. If Canada, New Zealand, and even Newfoundland have attained Dominion Status, there should be no inherent difficulty and confirmed obstacles for India to achieve the same. If the New South Wales Government could almost pull a deal and repudiate even funded obligations in Great Britain, it should not be impossible for India to acquire a similar right to re-open the question of her public debt to Great Britain and other foreign countries, especially in view of the fact that the debt has been contracted by England on behalf of her ward and at her own discretion. If the Union of South Africa and the Irish Free State could attempt to redraw the design of the Union Jack and secede from the Empire, it should be equally possible, in all equity, for India to pursue a similar course of action. This, in essence, is the reasoning adopted by the most enlightened, vocal and substantial elements in India today, and in this manifestation the influence of the recent history of the Dominions is clearly discernible. When and how these desiderata should be supplied is a matter for future discussion and decision. But the tendency is emphatically clear that India would like to foot the line with sister Dominions in the British Commonwealth on a basis of substantial parity.

The position of India in the British Commonwealth is a medley of incongruous arrangements. Legally the Government of India is still a branch of His Majesty's Government in Great Britain. This is why Professor Morgan and his school of thinking appositely believe that the Government of India resembles, in all essentials, that of a Crown Colony. There is no doubt that the Great Mogul in Whitehall, who is responsible under statute to the British Parliament for the tranquillity, good government and ordered progress of India, can, if he so wills, ride rough-shod over the heads of the authorities at New Delhi and of the people of the country. But actually, there is a gradual general devolution of authority and responsibility upon the administrative machinery in India, so that to reach the point where it can be reduced to a negative quantity is only a question of time.

Again, according to the Interpretation Act of 1889 India is defined to be British India and the six hundred odd Indian States which possess varying degrees of sovereignty and administrative autonomy, some of them possessing even separate currency systems. For all external purposes, the subjects of the Indian States are treated on a basis of equality with those from British India. But from a purely domestic point of view a mild and certainly veiled form of extra-territorial jurisdiction has come to be exercised by the Paramount Power over Princely India. This power is not claimed under law, but has accrued to the Paramount Power from usage and the conventions established at its own dictation by the Political Department of the Government at New Delhi. This heterogeneous mass of Principalities is actually outside the pale of the jurisdiction of the British Parliament which can legislate with finality for British India, and of the League of Nations, even though India is a member thereof and is, as such, bound to come up to the requirements of the international conventions adopted at Geneva from time to time. Thus, the Indian States claim to be distinct international personalities, but in actual practice they are either treated as non-existent or as utterly incapable of being brought into alignment with international activity. This is the attitude taken by the late Lord Birkenhead, as Secretary of State for India, in his communication to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations dated 26th September 1927, in his plea for exemption of Indian India from the obligations undertaken by India when ratifying International Labour Conventions. But, strange to mention, an Indian Prince is always associated with the Indian Delegations to the League Assembly, while in 1930 the Maharajah of Bikaner actually led the Indian Delegation to that year’s Assembly. There is no gainsaying the fact that the position of the Indian States in their relationship to British India, the British Crown and the Parliament, and to the British Commonwealth of Nations and the comity of world States, is full of anomalies and knotty points to unravel which a tremendous amount of patience, goodwill and ability are demanded both from Indian and British statesmanship.

This innate complexity of India's internal situation has rendered any definition of her position in the British Commonwealth extremely difficult. When a constitutional scaffolding for the British Empire was fortuitously erected in 1887 at the first Colonial Conference in Lundon, India was not admitted to imperial councils on a basis of equality with other units of the Empire. The India Office nominated an ‘observer’ from its establishment to watch the proceedings of these Conferences and to intervene on behalf of India only when occasion demanded such a course, while even in those days when the other units of the Empire were able to express themselves as distinct communities, India continued to figure as an appendage to the Empire whose rights need not be specifically protected. India was not then a nation-State and her presence at the first few Colonial Conferences was entirely on the sufferance of the British Government and of the Dominions. Such perfunctory representation of India at these Conferences continued till 1911.

But the Great War has introduced a sudden and fundamental change in the attitude of the Empire towards India. The enormous strides made by India in the field of defined national consciousness and activity were fully recognised. The Minto-Morley Reforms of 1909 had only added point to the activities of the Indian National Congress which had, during the course of thirty years, evolved into a truly national organization. Further, the repercussions of the Great War upon the attitude of the people of India towards constitutional and political problems have been extremely helpful as far as the nation's future was concerned. Everywhere there was a tendency towards creating a salubrious atmosphere for the people to express themselves fully and to enter the gates of national freedom. The Bengal Partition agitation of a decade earlier was but a bold step in the direction of the nation's progressive educational and political catechism.

Further, during the earlier years of the Great War, the part played by India in the cause of the Allied and Associated Powers was magnificent. In Mesapotamia, in East Africa, and even on the Western Front the Princes and people of India distinguished themselves as loyal and gallant sons of the Empire. This willing holocaust of India's bravest sons in the inferno of the world's greatest Armageddon produced a profound impression upon the Empire and the World. The free gift of a hundred million sterling which the nation voted to the Empire, besides defraying the cost of war nearer home, as well as the non-denominational character of India's sympathy wit and concern for the continued stability of the Commonwealth have been equally generously acknowledged by the British and the Dominion statesmen. Even Mahatma Gandhi, after his heroic sufferings in South Africa in the cause of the upliftment of our nationals who were treated as helots by the Union Government, undertook a sincere mission of propaganda on behalf of the Empire, raised and directed an ambulance ship and actually landed in Britain to do active service on the Western Front, but only to be sent to India completely broken in health. All these manifestations of India’s loyalty to the Empire and of her sincere co-operation to get things done revolutionised her position in the world.

This erstwhile Crown Colony in the Empire has now come to stride across Whitehall as a full-grown unit of the British Commonwealth, at least constitutionally if not politically. Thus it was that on May 23, 1917 H. M. Government stated in Parliament that it has admitted "the Government of India to full partnership in the councils of the Empire." This definition of India's added stature was only a prelude to her representation at the Imperial War Conferences and Cabinets of 1917 and 1918. But our representatives to these as well as to the subsequent conferences were never national in character, in that they had no mandate from the nation as is usually expressed in the instructions given to them by an elected central cabinet.

Still the War and the post-War progress of India with regard to her place in the Commonwealth is remarkable both for its rapidity and constitutional content. Resolution No. IX of the Imperial War Cabinet of 1917 stabilised India's position by declaring that a readjustment of the relations between Great Britain and the Dominions "shall be based upon a full recognition of the Dominions as autonomous nations of an Imperial Commonwealth and of India as an important portion of the same." Then followed the historic declaration of August 20, 1917 which postulated "the gradual development of representative institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government" as the goa to be achieved by India. Again, the Joint Parliamentary Committee of 1919 reported that "India's position in the Imperial Conference opened the door to negotiation between India and the rest of the Empire." The Government of India Act of 1919 is the constitutional instrument in force till today.

The coming into force of the Government of India Act ushered in an era of semi-popular co-operation with the Government in the common task of working the Constitution for the common good of the nation. The very imperfections inherent in the 1919 Constitution led to several onslaughts upon both the central and local legislatures. In some provinces the Constitution was wrecked as in the case of Bengal and the United Provinces, since the new system of dyarchical government proved to be an altogether vicious arrangement, and because the control by the Governor and his Executive Council of the reserved departmants has almost annihilated what the elected portion of the council gained by paper increment of power and opportunities in the transferred departments. As for the centre, the position of the Government was somewhat better. Still, the Indian National Congress, as in 1925 and during the subsequent years, fully manned the councils, both central and provincial, and demonstrated to the Government that the present Constitution falls far short of the nation's needs and as such cannot be accepted as a final settlement. The Government is prone to condemn the Congress for this unhelpful attitude and to suggest that the Congress programme is barren of result. On the contrary, it has been amply proved that, during the days when the Swaraj party was in power in the local councils, the elected ministers for the transferred subjects could initiate and carry through successfully vast nation-building projects. Thus, while this constitutional deadlock proved the settlement to be unsatisfactory, it was vindicated that the nation is replete with administrative competence and practical statesmanship.

The years following the successful conclusion of the Great War have, even under the present very hybrid Constitution which choked the nation in no uncertain manner, been remarkable for the numerous opportunities which were thrown in the way of India towards facilitating her determination to leave behind the stigma of national adolescence. Simultaneously with her entry into the councils of the Empire as a full-grown nation, at least for all external purposes, she became a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles and an original Member State of the League of Nations. There was considerable opposition from France and the late President Wilson at the Paris Conference that a country which did not then possess even the elements of a representative government was being admitted on a par with the sovereign States of the world to membership of the League of Nations, the first article of whose Covenant stipulates full self-government as the criterion for future membership thereof. There is no doubt that considerations of her vast population, of her peculiar international position, and of her War contribution have ultimately smoothed the way for India's membership of the League of Nations in her own right. Such a privilege has also been granted to India in the International Labour Organization and the Permanent Court of International Justice, which are the subsidiary bodies of the League of Nations. For one thing this triple membership has given India ample scope to express her external individuality. She has actively co-operated with the League’s Geneva mechanism during the past thirteen years and has eminently benefited thereby. Sir Atul Chatterjee was unanimously elected President of the 1927 International Labour Conference and in October 1932 he was equally unanimously elected Chairman of the Governing Body of the International Labour Office. These are no mean distinctions for a subject nation to achieve in the international sphere. India has taken part in every international conference of the post-War period, from the Washington Nine Power Treaty of 1922 which guaranteed the territorial integrity of China and the Disarmament Conference of 1932-1933, to the Conference on the Codification of International Law set up by the League of Nations three years ago. This is all well and good as far as external manifestations of a bloated international status of India are concerned.

But the repercussions of these external achievements upon the domestic situation have been important and have, to a great extent, embarrassed the Indian Government as well as the British and the Dominion Governments. Inch by inch the nation began to fight for equal rights both within the Empire and within her own territorial limits. It is seldom remembered that there are over a quarter of a million nationals of India settled overseas, as a direct result of a century of organised emigration which was coveted and stimulated by the British and the Dominion Governments. From British Guiana to Malaya, and from British Columbia to Fiji, Indians are today scattered all over the Empire. It needs no emphasis that while every citizen of the Commonwealth has equality of treatment and opportunity in India, our nationals in the Empire are being treated as aliens. In fact, the attitude of British Columbia and of the Union of South Africa towards Indian immigrants is extremely uncharitable. The Komagata Maru incident of 1914 might as well go down to history as the "Black Hole of Calcutta" of Indian emigration within the Empire. While foreigners like the Japanese are being admitted to special privileges in the Union under the recent "Gentlemen's Agreement," the lot of her Indian citizens is worse than that of aliens. This is a matter of supreme importance to India both on national and on sentimental grounds.

As the Joint Parliamentary Committee has emphasised, India's place in the Imperial Conference has opened the door for direct negotiation between our country and the Dominions, while a year earlier the Imperial Conference passed the now oft-quoted Reciprocity Resolution which has empowered the Dominions to regulate the composition of their respective populations. There is no doubt that the balance of advantage in this resolution lay with the Dominions, as far as Indian emigration problems are concerned. Since the Government of India is not as yet national, India cannot object to the nationals of the Dominions settling down in our country, even if such a step is warranted by special circumstances. But the Dominions are now in a position to penalise their Indian subjects almost with impunity, and take cover under the plea that such a matter is one of domestic jurisdiction. During the pre-War days the Colonial Office used to intervene pretty certainly when the Interests of Indian emigrants in the Empire were put under permanent jeopardy. Now that the Dominions are complete mistresses of their destinies, the iniquities heaped upon their once welcome and now permanently settled Indian citizens multiplied by leaps and bounds.

The situation in the Union of South Africa is a very important point in our present study. For full twenty years Mahatma Gandhi put up a stubborn fight in the cause of Indians in that Dominion, and the Smuts-Gandhi Agreement of 1914 was the net result of a quarter of a century's unremitting effort. But this pact was not a pact between two nations. It was ushered into existence entirely by force of circumstances. With the advent of the Reciprocity Resolution and the exaggerated fears held about economic exploitation and miscegenation, as a result of the continued presence of Indians in that country, the Smuts-Gandhi Agreement was unilaterally abrogated by the South African Government. The Colonial Office was powerless to intervene on behalf of India. Public opinion in our country was worked up to an unusual pitch and even a non-national Government was induced to join in the chorus of national protest, invoke the Joint Select Committee's declaration, and press for direct negotiations with the Union Government.

Thus was the first Cape Town Round Table Conference between India and the Union of South Africa convened in 1927. As a result of this Conference, an Agent-General of the Government of India is now resident in the Union. A similar Conference was held in 1932, thus extending the principle of direct negotiation. Even though the results of these two Conferences are not designed to meet all the contingencies of the Indian situation in the Union, there is no doubt that they have ushered into existence a really useful modus vivendi which is sure to revolutionize India’s relationship to the British Commonwealth and the outer world.

Much as it is believed that without a national government in India all these arrangements would defeat their own ends, a very useful extension of this principle is now to be found in the appointment of Indian Trade Commissioners at Hamburg and Milan, while similar appointments are foreshadowed for New York, Alexandria, and Zanzibar. Again, the Indo-Japanese Trade Convention of 1904 was further strengthened by similar bilateral agreements with Turkey and Poland in 1929 and 1930.

Events of the past few years have moved with such rapidity that references to India's place in the British Commonwealth contained in State documents and other constitutional utterances are liable to go unnoticed. Occasionally a deliberate effort is being made to queer the pitch of India's struggle for constitutional freedom by imparting special emphasis to one or two of these utterances. Still, the cumulative effect of these is very important. Thus, the Balfour Report on Inter-Imperial Relations Committee of the Imperial Conference of 1926, while emphasising the special position of India in the Empire, defined the Dominions as "autonomous communities of the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." Lord Irwin, as Viceroy of India, in his message to the nation in 1929 reiterated the principle that, in the view of His Majesty's Government, "it is implicit in the declaration of 1917 that the natural issue of India's constitutional progress, as there contemplated, is the attainment of Dominion Status." Further, Section 124 of the Report of the Conference on the Operation of Dominion Legislation and Merchant Shipping Legislation, speaking with special reference to merchant shipping legislation, pointed out that "'as the position of India in these matters has always been, to all intents and purposes, identical with that of the Dominions, it is not anticipated that there would be any difficulty in applying the principles of our recommendations to India." Lastly, Capt. Wedgwood Benn, the Secretary of State for India in the second Labour Administration, declared in the House of Commons on December 18, 1929 that "there is Dominion Status in action" in the case of India and went on to say that "there is a Dominion attribute which has now become part and parcel of the rights of India." This piecemeal increment to India's nation-concept has thus supplied us with a fairly, comprehensive de jure external status, while on every side India s external personality, which has gradually taken shape during the post-War period, has imperceptibly imparted a new orientation to Indian policy towards problems touching the welfare of the British Commonwealth of Nations and the comity of world States.

III

But the real difficulty lies in regard to imparting political content to this de jure definition of India's intra-imperial and international status. So to speak, this status must be converted to a de facto basis. To achieve this, the liquidation of the Indo-British question is a prime necessity. Efforts are now being made to attempt ill constitutional revision for India's good government. With traditional consistency the British Government emphasised the inevitability of gradualness in the sphere of constitutional and political reforms. But equally emphatically the people of India reiterated the national demand that the time is come for plunging headlong into the unknown and certainly untried depths of constitutional finality. They wanted the right to commit mistakes in order to put their house in order and manage it. This they claim is the birth-right of any nation. To bridge the gulf existing between these two sets of objectives is a very difficult task. In either case this multiple effort is fraught with considerable dangers for the ordered progress of India as well as for the future of the British Commonwealth. British statesmanship as well as Indian nationalism are now on trial, and the satisfactory solution of the Indo-British problem will go down to history as one of the most unique efforts at mutual understanding between two distinct peoples in the world.

The Government of India Act of 1919 which still holds the field has laid down the procedure to be followed for the revision of the Constitution after ten years, provided the progress made in the intervening decennial period justifies such a course. As has been indicated above, phenomenal progress in the external sphere coupled with an equally rapid advancement in the field of internal administration has rendered it necessary that the stipulated reforms enquiry should come off earlier than was originally contemplated by the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. It was thus that the Simon Commission was sent out to India in 1928. During the past four years the atmosphere has been fully surcharged with the reform spirit both in England and in India.

On the Indian side there were several initial difficulties. From the beginning it was felt that the Reforms Commission should be a joint affair, in so far as both Britain and India could proceed with combined effort. Instead of being such a joint national effort, the Simon Commission was appointed as only representative of both the Houses of the British Parliament. This initial mistake on the part of Britain has been the cause of all the present trouble in India. The people hoped that the reforms porparlours would be conducted on a basis of perfect equality with the British nation. On the contrary, the Commissioners came to India as assessors nominated by the British Cabinet and instructed to advise the British Parliament, to which was reserved the right to deliver the verdict upon India's competence to demand and obtain self-government at any specified time. This fundamental difference of national opinion led to the boycott of the Simon Commission all over the country. The tardy reparation made to cover this initial blunder has only proved to the world that the Indian Central Committee as well as the auxiliary provincial committees were extremely unreal and utterly unsatisfactory. That the Commission has reserved the right to collect evidence in camera robbed it of its goodwill towards India, while the entire procedure belied the roseate picture of a free India which is given every opportunity to advance towards nationhood without let or hindrance as was advertised by Great Britain.

There is no doubt that the Round Table Conference design is unique in the history of the British Commonwealth. Whenever a Dominion of the Commonwealth acquired a new constitution such joint consultations never took place. Britain has never sat round a table to hammer out with the prospective Dominion the details of a constitution suited to the requirements of the latter. In the case of India it was felt that the Round Table Conference method would meet the special position of the country. It was necessary to bring the Princes and the people of India on a common platform in order to give them a united opportunity for negotiating a treaty with Great Britain, especially in view of the fact that the Princes of India are not amenable to the good offices of the British Parliament, in that their relations to the Paramount Power are solely determined through the Crown and as such can only be brought into constitution for the whole country entirely at their own will. Undoubtedly the Round Table Conference method had a lot to commend itself to the country.

But one or two difficulties were in the way of the people of India to warm up to the British proposals. The procedure was defective right from the beginning. Apart from the question of the composition of the Simon Commission, it was emphatically made clear by the British Government that the Round Table Conference had no plenary powers. Its function was merely to arrive at the largest measure of agreement between the Princes and the delegates from British India and then between these two units and the British delegation. This reservation of rights to the British Parliament to accept or reject the Round Table Conference recommendations on merits further emphasised the point that a settlement cannot be negotiated between the two nations on the basis of joint free discussions.

From this it is evident that the breach between the people of India and the British Government became wider and wider as months rolled by. So much so that when the first Round Table Conference was convened in the cold weather of 1930 the most substantial portion of India's national opinion, as represented by the Indian National Congress, was relegated to the spacious prisons of the country. The first Conference itself was barren of result. The false position in which the Conference was placed in 1980 was rectified at the second Conference held during the course of the subsequent year, as a result of the rapprochement which was arrived at between the Government and people of India through the medium of the enlightened statesmanship of Lord Irwin, and Mahatma Gandhi represented the hitherto suppressed elements at the second Round Table Conference. A deadlock ensued and the Conference broke up almost in disgust. The events of the past fifteen months, ever since the Mahatma returned to India on the 5th January 1932, constitute a very sad record in the history of Indo-British relationships of the post-War period. A Conservative ramp in the British House of Commons can now claim that the nationalist movement in India has been completely brought under control and that the third Round Table Conference has been convened and completed its appointed task as the year 1932 negotiated the corner. As we write this article, the air is thick with rumours that there will be a general gaol delivery in India and that the promised White Paper on constitutional reforms will contain a provision for the appointment of Indian assessors to co-operate with the announced Joint Parliamentary Committee which is to draft the new Constitution. Whatever the case might be, two facts are emphatically clear. In the first place, an organization may be suppressed for some time by an iron government, even as in the case of Germany today. But the nation's soul which yearns after complete autonomy cannot be annihilated. The second point is that when the Congress was represented at the second Round Table Conference substantial progress was made in visualising the rough outlines of a complete constitution, even though the inevitable crash came along on fundamentals. Without the Congress the third Round Table Conference proved to be a dismal failure, and whatever leeway was made a year earlier was most unceremoniously forfeited and the clock of progress was actually put ward. One thing is now certain. That is this. The Congress alone can deliver the goods and with the Congress alone ought any constitutional settlement to be arrived at.

So far we have concentrated upon the vital reasons for the failure of the present efforts to define the future relationships of India to Great Britain and through the latter to the British Commonwealth of Nations. Ultimate realisation of the liquidation of the Indo-British problem is bound to come in the immediate future. But enough progress has been made during the ‘thinking aloud’ process so aptly adopted at the Round Table Conferences that we are in a position to predict the probable future course of events as well as the rough outlines of an Indian Constitution.

The most important outcome of the deliberations of the past four years is the Federation idea. This has taken root in the country, and an all-India Federal Constitution is bound to come, that several of the Indian Principalities are now willing to throw in their lot with the Provinces and to strive for a united India is a remarkable manifestation of the new ideas of freedom and nationhood which are now truly obsessing the people of the country. Medieval feudalism is in leagne with triumphant democracy, but the medieval feudalism of the Indian states is to be ennobled by contact with the more democratic people from British India, while the latter themselves are to be restrained by the more stable elements from Princely India. Poise is sure to emanate from this process of double harness. No doubt friction as to constitutional detail will drag on the task of complete democratisation of India, both the Indias included. Still it cannot be gainsaid that going through the mill is but one of the main qualifications for any people to possess before they aspire to nationhood. When Princely India coalesces with its British counterpart, there will be a sense of actuality in the connotation of the word ‘India’ which has so far denoted a loose geographical entity. In the future this self-same ‘India’ would indicate a robust and live nation. This is a fundamental change involved in the Indian scene during the past four or five years. It is bound to stay, whatever may be the initial difficulties.

It would no doubt be edifying to discuss the details connected with the present constitutional porparlours. But such a method is outside the scheme of the present paper. Still, we are perforce obliged to take cognizance of two or three important aspects of this prelude to the impending constitutional change-over which are bound to affect the position of India in the British Commonwealth. The bone of contention between British and Indian public opinion in the present struggle is the question of central responsibility in relation to safeguards. The British believe that any transference of actual responsibility in the Centre, without safeguards, to the people of India would dissolve the country into different warring camps and there would be two or three Ulsters in the country as are represented by the Indian States and the minority communities. On the other side, India insists that without central responsibility the new Constitution would be a potpourri designed to whet the appetites of a favoured group of Indian politicians, while any array of safe-guards would negate all hopes of politcal nationhood for the country. On a closer analysis it is felt that the gulf between these two points of view is fairy well bridged as far as central responsibility is concerned. The task of the impending Joint Select Committee of the British Parliament is bound to revolve upon the question of safeguards. Mahatwa Gandhi's definition of India's goal as being "the substance of independence" is equally bound to be the pivot of the ensuing discussions in London.

The safeguards required by the British relate to full or combined control of the army, defence, external relations, and equal commercial and economic opportunity in India. The first three are intended to guarantee the chain of defences now erected in the Empire, since India's place in it is claimed to be of vital significance. Through the latter it is hoped any unjust discrimination against British enterprise in the country would be obviated. In either case the British Government would like to control triumphant democracy in India from indulging in ultra-nationalistic programmes to sustain which, it is believed, the country is as yet unequal in strength and experience. But the hedging of Indian central responsibility by vexatious restrictions tantamounts, according to Indian public opinion, to a modified form of diarchy which has so far been restricted in its application to the Provinces. The restoration of dyarchy in the federal and central spheres is bound to end in a complete deadlock, and would make the Viceroy the virtual dictator in the country. Further, the position of the Secretary of State for India has been completely shaken, and it is doubtful whether the Dominions Office, when entrusted with cognizance of Indian affairs, would be able to ease the situation in the country. It is very difficult to emphasise the probable course of events in regard to these matters, but it is certain that their solution to the satisfaction of India, which is bound to come, is sure to affect her position in the British Commonwealth. The test of the time is whether Britain would stand by her pledge that India is to attain Dominion Status within any reasonably definable time. If this is done, a seventh Dominion would figure as a health unit of the British Commonwealth. Otherwise, the Indian political cauldron would continue to simmer for an indefinite period and impart instability both to the British Commonwealth and to the comity of world States. The League of Nations is claimed to be the problem of the XX century, but a permanent solution of the Indo-British problem would go down to history as the most peaceful solution of the fortunes of 350 millions of human beings, and as such as the greatest event in human history.

Delhi, 4th March 1933.

1 This is an advance copy of an article which Dr. Lanka Sundaram has contributed to the Queen’s Quarterly, of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. In 1931 Dr. Sundaram was invited to contribute to the same paper on India and World Politics which has aroused considerable interest. Written specially to suit the needs of a foreign audience, Dr. Sundaram's present effort will be read with considerable interest in India.

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