Part 3 (1/2)
The Russian Revolution first, and then the entry of the United States into the War, brought about a change in the point of view of the British statesmen. For the first time they realized that they could not win the war without the fullest cooperation of the people of India, both in the military and the economic sense and that the fullest cooperation of the United States also required as a condition precedent, quite a radical revision of their war aims. President Wilson's political idealism, his short, pithy and epigrammatic formulas compelled similar declarations by Allied statesmen. The British statesmen, at the helm of affairs, found it necessary to affirm their faith in President Wilson's principles and formulas if they would not let the morale of their own people at home suffer in comparison. In the meantime the situation in India was becoming uncomfortable. The Nationalists and the Home Rulers insisted on a clear and unequivocal declaration of policy on the lines of President Wilson's principles. The British statesmen in charge of Indian affairs, at Whitehall, were still temporizing when the report of the Royal Commission on the causes of the Mesopotamia disaster burst out on the half-dazed British mind like a bombsh.e.l.l. To the awakening caused by the report and its disclosures a material contribution was made by the outspoken, candid and clear-cut speech of a younger statesman, whose knowledge of the working of the Indian Government could not be questioned. When the Parliament, press and platform were all ablaze with indignation and shame at the supposed incompetence of the Indian Government, to whose inefficiency and culpable neglect of duty were ascribed the series of disasters that ended with the surrender of a British force at Kut-el-amara, Mr. Edwin Samuel Montagu, who had been an Under Secretary for India under Lord Morley and was at the time of the Mesopotamia disaster Minister of Munitions, came out with a strong and emphatic condemnation of the system and the form of Government under which the ”myriads” of India lived and had their affairs managed. Mr.
Montagu's opinion of the machinery of the Indian Government was expressed as follows:
”The machinery of Government in this country with its unwritten const.i.tution, and the machinery of Government in our Dominions has proved itself sufficiently elastic, sufficiently capable of modification, to turn a peace-pursuing instrument into a war-making instrument. It is the Government of India alone which does not seem capable of transformation, and I regard that as based upon the fact that the machinery is statute-ridden machinery. The Government of India is too wooden, too iron, too inelastic, too antediluvian, to be any use for the 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. But it would do. Nothing serious had happened since the Indian mutiny, the public was not interested in Indian affairs, and it required a crisis to direct attention to the fact that the Indian Government is an indefensible system of Government.”
Regarding the Indian Budget Debates in Parliament, he said:
”Does anybody remember the Indian Budget Debates before the War?
Upon that day the House was always empty. India did not matter, and the Debates were left to people on the one side whom their enemies sometimes called ”bureaucrats,” and on the other side to people whom their enemies sometimes called ”seditionists,” until it almost came to be disreputable to take part in Indian Debates.
It required a crisis of this kind to realise how important Indian affairs were. After all, is the House of Commons to be blamed for that? What was the Indian Budget Debate? It was a purely academic discussion which had no effect whatever upon events in India, conducted after the events that were being discussed, had taken place.”
He held that the salary of the Indian Secretary of State should be paid from the British Treasury, and then there would be real debates:
”How can you defend the fact that the Secretaries of State for India alone of all the occupants of the Front Bench, with the possible exception of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, are not responsible to this House for their salaries, and do not come here with their Estimates in order that the House of Commons may express its opinion....
”What I am saying now is in the light of these revelations of this inelasticity of Indian government. However much you could gloss over those indefensible proceedings in the past, the time has now come to alter them.
”The tone of those Debates is unreal, unsubstantial and ineffective. If Estimates for India, like Estimates for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the Colonial Secretary were to be discussed on the floor of the House of Commons, the Debates on India would be as good as the Debates on foreign affairs. After all, what is the difference? Has it even been suggested to the people of Australia that they should pay the salary of the Secretary of State for the Colony? Why should the whole cost of that building in Charles Street, including the building itself, be an item of the Indian taxpayer's burden rather than of this House of Commons and the people of the country?”
Can and does the House of Commons control the India Office? Here is Mr.
Montagu's answer.
”It has been sometimes questioned whether a democracy can rule an Empire. I say that in this instance the democracy has never had the opportunity of trying. But even if the House of Commons were to give orders to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State is not his own master. In matters vitally affecting India, he can be overruled by a majority of his Council. I may be told that the cases are very rare in which the Council has differed from the Secretary of State for India. I know one case anyhow, where it was a very near thing, and where the action of the Council might without remedy have involved the Government of India in a policy out of harmony with the declared policy of the House of Commons and the Cabinet. And these gentlemen are appointed for seven years, and can only be controlled from the Houses of Parliament by a resolution carried in both Houses calling on them for their resignations. The whole system of the India Office is designed to prevent control by the House of Commons for fear that there might be too advanced a Secretary of State. I do not say that it is possible to govern India through the intervention of the Secretary of State with no expert advice, but what I do say is that in this epoch now after the Mesopotamia Report, he must get his expert advice in some other way than by this Council of men, great men though, no doubt, they always are, who come home after lengthy service in India to spend the first years of their retirement as members of the Council of India.
”Does any Member of this House know much about procedure in the India Office? I have been to the India Office and to other offices. I tell this House that the statutory organization of the India Office produces an apotheosis of circ.u.mlocution and red tape beyond the dreams of any ordinary citizen.”
His own idea of what should be done at that juncture was thus expressed:
”But whatever be the object of your rule in India, the universal demand of those Indians whom I have met and corresponded with, is that you should state it. Having stated it, you should give some instalment to show that you are in real earnest, some beginning of the new plan which you intend to pursue, that gives you the opportunity of giving greater representative inst.i.tutions in some form or other to the people of India....
”But I am positive of this, that your great claim to continue the illogical system of Government by which we have governed India in the past is that it was efficient. It has been proved to be not efficient. It has been proved to be not sufficiently elastic to express the will of the Indian people; to make them into a warring Nation as they wanted to be. The history of this War shows that you can rely upon the loyalty of the Indian people to the British Empire--if you ever before doubted it! If you want to use that loyalty, you must take advantage of that love of country which is a religion in India, and you must give them that bigger opportunity of controlling their own destinies, not merely by Councils which cannot act, but by control, by growing control, of the Executive itself. Then in your next War--if we ever have War--in your next crisis, through times of peace, you will have a contented India, an India equipped to help. Believe me, Mr.
Speaker, it is not a question of expediency, it is not a question of desirability. Unless you are prepared to remodel, in the light of modern experience, this century-old and c.u.mberous machine, then, I believe, I verily believe, that you will lose your right to control the destinies of the Indian Empire.”
The quick and resourceful mind of Premier Lloyd George at once grasped the situation. He lost no time in deciding what was needed. Probably over the head of his Tory colleagues, possibly with their consent, he gave the Indian portfolio to Mr. Montagu, and told him quietly to set to business. Mr. Montagu's first step was the announcement of August 20, 1917. On that date he made in the House of Commons the following memorable statement:
”The policy of His Majesty's Government, with which the Government of India are in complete accord, is that of the increasing a.s.sociation of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing inst.i.tutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire. They have decided that substantial steps in this direction should be taken as soon as possible, and that it is of the highest importance as a preliminary to considering what these steps should be that there should be a free and informal exchange of opinion between those in authority at home and in India. His Majesty's Government have accordingly decided, with His Majesty's approval, that I should accept the Viceroy's invitation to proceed to India to discuss these matters with the Viceroy and the Government of India, to consider with the Viceroy the views of local Governments, and to receive with him the suggestions of representative bodies and others.
”I would add that progress in this policy can only be achieved by successive stages. The British Government and the Government of India, on whom the responsibility lies for the welfare and advancement of the Indian peoples, must be judges of the time and measure of each advance, and they must be guided by the co-operation received from those upon whom new opportunities of service will thus be conferred and by the extent to which it is found that confidence can be reposed in their sense of responsibility.
”Ample opportunity will be afforded for public discussion of the proposals which will be submitted in due course to Parliament.”
It is obvious that the content of the second sentence of paragraph two in the above announcement is in fundamental opposition to the right of every nation to self-determination, a principle now admitted to be of general application (including, according to the British Premier, even the black races inhabiting the Colonies that were occupied by Germany before the War, within its purview). The people of India are not on the level of these races. Even if it be a.s.sumed that they are not yet in a position to exercise that right, fully and properly, it is neither right nor just to a.s.sume that they shall never be in that position even hereafter. The qualifications implied in that sentence are, besides, quite needless and superfluous. As long as India remains ”an integral part of the British Empire” she cannot draft a const.i.tution which does not meet with the approval of the British Parliament and the British Sovereign. It is to be regretted that the British statesmen could not rise equal to the spirit of the times and make an announcement free from that spirit of autocratic bl.u.s.ter and racial swagger which was entirely out of place at a time when they were making impa.s.sioned appeals to Indian manhood to share the burdens of Empire by contributing ungrudgingly in men and money for its defence. This att.i.tude is somewhat inconsistent with the statements in paragraph 179 of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, wherein, after referring to the natural evolution of ”the desire for self-determination,” the distinguished authors of the Report concede that ”the demand that now meets us from the educated cla.s.ses of India is no more than the right and natural outcome of the work of a hundred years.”
In spite of this uncalled for reservation in the announcement, it is perfectly true that ”the announcement marks the end of one epoch and the beginning of a new one.” What makes the announcement ”momentous,”
however, is not the language used, as even more high-sounding phrases have been used before by eminent British statesmen of the position of Warren Hastings, Macaulay, Munroe, Metcalf and others, but the fact that the statement has been made by the Secretary of State for India, as representing the Crown and the Cabinet who, in their turn, are the const.i.tutional representatives of the people of Great Britain and Ireland. The statement is thus both morally and legally binding on the British people, though it will not acquire that character so far as the people of India are concerned, unless it is embodied in a Statute of Parliament. Is it too much to hope that when that stage comes the second sentence of the second paragraph might be omitted or so modified as to remove the inconsistency pointed out above?
We have no doubt, however, that the language of the announcement notwithstanding, the destiny of India remains ultimately in the hands of the Indians themselves. It will be determined, favorably or unfavorably, by the solidity of their public life, by the purity and idealism of the Indian public men to be hereafter entrusted with the task of administration, by the honesty and intensity of their endeavor to uplift the ma.s.ses, both intellectually and economically, by the extent to which they reduce the religious and communal excuses that are being put forth as reasons for half-hearted advance, and by the amount of political unity they generate in the nation. The well known maxim that those who will must by themselves be free, is as good today as ever. They will have to do all this in order to persuade the British Parliament to declare them fit for responsible Government. Once they show their fitness by deeds and by actual conduct, no one can keep them in leading-strings.
Coming back to the announcement itself, would it not be well to bear in mind that what differentiates this announcement from the statutory declarations of the Act of 1833 and the Royal proclamation of 1858 is not the language used but the step or steps taken to ascertain Indian opinion, to understand and interpret it in accordance with the spirit of the times and the frankness and fairness with which the whole problem is stated in the joint report of the two statesmen, who are the present official heads of the Government of India. Nor can it be denied that the announcement and the report have received the cordial appreciation of the Indian leaders.