X
FEDERATION FROM DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW
Different people are looking at this Federation from different points of view. There is the point of view of the Princes. There is the point of view of the Hindus and the Muslims and the Congress. There is also the point of view of the Merchant and the Trader. The point of view of each one of these is of course the result of their particular interests.
What is the interest of the Princes in this Federation? To understand the motives of the Princes you must go back to the Butler Committee. The Princes had been complaining of the encroachment of the Political Department of the Government of India upon their treaty rights under the Doctrine of Paramountcy. The Princes were insisting that the Political Department had no greater right against the States except those that were given by the treaties subsisting between them and the British Government. The Political Department on the other hand claimed that in addition to the rights referable to the treaties, the Crown had also rights which were referable to political usages and customs. To adjudicate upon this dispute, the Secretary of State agreed to appoint the Butler Committee. The Princes had hoped that the Butler Committee would accept their contentions and limit the scope of Paramountcy to the rights referable to the treaties. Unfortunately for the Princes they were disappointed, because the Butler Committee reported that the Paramountcy was paramount and that there could be no definition or delimitation of it. This decision of the Butler Committee meant a complete subordination of the Princes to the Political Department of the Government of India and the Princes were in search of an escape from this unfortunate position in which they were placed and they found, and quite rightly, that the only 'solution which can enable them to escape the tyranny of the Political Department was the Federation; because to the extent to which the Federal authority prevailed, the authority of the Political Department would vanish and as the Federal authority could only be exercised by a Federal Legislature and a Federal Executive and as they would have sufficient voice in the Federal Legislature and the Federal Executive they thought of federation. The federal solution of their problem offered two advantages to the Princes. The first was that it would secure to the Slates internal autonomy which they were very anxious to have, for it is of the essence of federating units to remain in their own hands all powers save those which they themselves have willingly delegated to a common centre and over which they themselves possess a share in the control. The second advantage of the Federation was that Paramountcy would disappear to the extent of the Federal authority. The motive of the Princes, therefore, was selfish and their primary aim was to get rid as much as possible of the authority of the Political Department of the Government of India. This was one of the primary interests of the Princes. The Princes had another interests to safeguard. That was to preserve their powers of civil and military government as much as possible. They wanted to make the Federation as thin as possible so that it might not impinge upon them very hard. The interest of the Princes is two-fold. They wanted to escape Paramountcy. Secondly, they did not want to subject themselves too much to the authority of the Federation. In looking at the Federation, the Princes keep two questions before them. How far will this Federation enable them to escape the tyranny of Paramountcy ? Secondly, how far does this scheme of Federation take away their sovereignty and their powers of internal government? They want to draw more under the former and give less under the latter.
The Muslims had an interest which not only coloured their whole vision but made it so limited that they did not care to look at anything else. That interest was their interest as a minority. They knew only one means of protecting themselves against the Hindu majority. That was to ask for reservation of seats with separate electorates and weightage in representation. In 1930 they discovered that there was another and a more efficacious method of protecting the Muslim minorities. That was to carve out new Provinces in which Muslims would be in a majority and Hindus in a minority as a counterblast to Provinces with Hindus as a majority and Muslims as a minority. They hit upon this system because they felt such as a system of balance of Provinces would permit the Muslims in the Muslim majority Provinces to hold the Hindu minorities in their Provinces as hostage for the good behaviour of the Hindu Majorities in the Provinces in which the Muslims were in minority. The creation of Muslim majority Provinces and to make them strong and powerful was their dominant interest. To accomplish this they demanded the separation of Sindh and the grant of responsible government to the North West Frontier Provinces so that the Muslims could have a command of four Provinces. To make the Provinces strong they insisted on making the Centre weak. As a means to this end the Muslims demanded that residuary powers should be given to the Provinces and the Hindu representation in the Centre should be reduced by giving the Muslims not only 1/3 of seats from the total fixed for British India but also 1/3 from the total assigned to the Princes.
The Hindus as represented by the Hindu Mahasabha were concerned with only one thing. How to meet what they called the menace of the Musalmans ? The Hindu Mahasabha felt that the accession of the Princes was an accretion to the Hindu strength. Everything else was to them of no consequence. Its point of view was Federation at any cost.
The next class whose point of view is worthy of consideration is the Indian Commercial Community. The commercial community is no doubt a small community in a vast country like India, but there can be no doubt about it that the point of view of this community is really more decisive than the point of view of any other community. This community has been behind the Congress. It is this community which has supplied the Congress the sinews of war and it knows that having paid the piper it can call for the tune. The commercial community is primarily interested in what is called commercial discrimination and the lowering of the exchange Ratio. It was a very narrow and limited point of view. The Indian Commercial Community is out to displace Europeans from Trade and Commerce and take their place. This it claims to do in the name of nationalism. It wants the right to lower the exchange rate and make profit in its foreign trade. This also it claims to do in the name of nationalism. Beyond getting profits to themselves the Merchants and Traders have no other consideration.
What shall I say about the Congress ? What was its paint of view ? I am sure I am not exaggerating or misrepresenting facts when I say that the Congress point of view at the Round Table Conference was that the Congress was the only party in India and that no body else counted and that the British should settle with the Congress only. This was the burden of Mr. Gandhi's song at the Round Table Conference. He was so busy in establishing his own claim to recognition by the British as the dictator of India that he forgot altogether that the important question was not, with whom the settlement should be made but what were to be the terms of that settlement. As to the terms of the settlement, Mr. Gandhi was quite unequal to the task. When he went to London he had forgotten that he would have before him not those who go to him to obtain his advice and return with his blessings but persons who would treat him as a lawyer treats a witness in the box. Mr. Gandhi also forgot that he was going to a political conference. He went there as though he was going to a Vaishnava Shrine singing the Narsi Mehta's Songs. When I think of the whole affair I am wondering if any nation had ever sent a representative to negotiate the terms of a national settlement who was more unfit than Mr. Gandhi. How unfit Mr. Gandhi was to negotiate a settlement becomes evident when one realizes that this Ambassador of India was ready to return to India with only Provincial Autonomy when as a matter of fact he was sent to negotiate on the basis of Independence. No man has brought greater disasters to the interests of India than did Mr. Gandhi at the Round Table Conference. Less one speaks of him the better.
How far each of these interests feel satisfied with the Federal Scheme such as it is, it is not for me to say. The question one may however ask is, are these the only points of view that must be taken into consideration in deciding as to what we shall do with this Federation ? I protest that there are other points of view besides those mentioned above which must receive attention. There is the point of view of the Free man. There is also the point of view of the Poor man. What have they to say of Federation ? The Federation does not seem to take any account of them. Yet they are the people who are most deeply concerned. Can the free man hope that the Federal Constitution will not be a menace to his freedom? Can the poor man feel that the constitution will enable him to have old values revalued, to have vested rights devested ? I have no doubt that this Federation if it comes into being will be a standing menace to the free man and an obstacle in the way of the poor man. What freedom can there be when you are made subject to the autocracy of the Princes? What economic betterment can there be when you get Second Chambers with vested rights entrenched in full and when legislation affecting property is subject to sanction by the Government both before introducing and after it has passed ?
XI
CONCLUSION
I have perhaps detained you longer than I should have done. You will allow that it is not altogether my fault. The vastness of the subject is one reason for the length of this address.
I must, however, confess that there is also another reason which has persuaded me not to cut too short. We are standing today at the point of time where the old age ends and the new begins. The old age was the age of Ranade, Agarkar, Tilak, Gokhale, Wachha, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Surendranath Bannerjee. The new age is the age of Mr. Gandhi and this generation is said to be Gandhi generation. As one who knows something of the old age and also something of the new I see some very definite marks of difference between the two. The type of leadership has undergone a profound change. In the age of Ranade the leaders struggled to modernize India. In the age of Gandhi the leaders are making her a living specimen of antiquity. In the age of Ranade leaders depended upon experience as a corrective method ot their thoughts and their deeds. The leaders of the present age depend upon their inner voice as their guide. Not only is there a difference in their mental make up there is a difference even in their viewpoint regarding external appearance. The leaders of the old age took care to be well clad while the leaders of the present age take pride in being half clad. The leaders of the Gandhi age are of course aware of these differences. But far from blushing for their views and. their appearance they claim that the India of Gandhi is superior to India of Ranade. They say that the age of Mr. Gandhi is an agitated and an expectant age, which the age of Mr. Ranade was not.
Those who have lived both in the age of Ranade and the age of Gandhi will admit that there is this difference between the two. At the same time they will be able to insist that if the India of Ranade was less agitated it was more honest and that if it was less expectant it was more enlightened. The age of Ranade was an age in which men and women did engage themselves seriously in studying and examining the facts of their life, and what is more important is that in the face of the opposition of the orthodox mass they tried to mould their lives and their character in accordance with the light they found as a result of their research. In the age of Ranade there was not the same divorce between a politician and a student which one sees in the Gandhi age. In the age of Ranade a politician, who was not a student, was treated as an intolerable nuisance, if not a danger. In the age of Mr. Gandhi learning, if it is not despised, is certainly not deemed to be a necessary qualification of a politician.
To my mind there is no doubt that this Gandhi age is the dark age of India. It is an age in which people instead of looking for their ideals in the future are returning to antiquity. It is an age in which people have ceased to think for themselves and as they have ceased to think they have ceased to read and examine the facts of their lives. The fate of an ignorant democracy which refuses to follow the way shown by learning and experience and chooses to grope in the dark paths of the mystics and the megalomaniacs is a sad thing to contemplate. Such an age I thought needed something more than a mere descriptive sketch of the Federal Scheme. It needed a treatment which was complete though not. exhaustive and pointed without being dogmatic in order to make it alive to the dangers arising from the inauguration of the Federal Scheme. This is the task I had set before myself in preparing this address. Whether I have failed or succeeded. it is for you to say. If this address has length which is not compensated by depth, all I can say is that I have tried to do my duty according to my lights.
I am not opposed to a Federal Form of Government. I confess I have a partiality for a Unitary form of Govsernment. I think India needs it. But I also realize that a Federal Form of Government is inevitable if there is to be Provincial Autonomy. But I am in dead horror the Federal Scheme contained in the Government of India Act. I think I hive justified my antipathy by giving adequate reasons. I want all to examine them and come to their own conclusions. Let us however realize that the case of Provincial Autonomy is very different from that of the Federal Scheme. To those who think that the Federation should become acceptable, if the Governor-General gave an assurance along the same lines as was supposed to be done by the Governors that he will not exercise his powers under his special responsibilities. I want to say two things. First I am sure the Governor-General cannot give such an assurance because he is exercising these powers not merely in the interest of the Crown but also in the interest of the States. Secondly, even if he did, that cannot alter the nature of the Federal Scheme. To those who think that a change in the system of State representation from nomination to election will make the Federation less objectionable, I want to say that they are treating a matter of detail as though it was a matter of fundamental. Let us note what is fundamental and what is not Let there be no mistake, let there be no fooling as to this. We have had enough of both. The real question is the extension and the growth of responsibility. Is that possible ? That is the crux. Let us also realize that there is no use bugging to Provincial Autonomy and leaving responsibility in the Centre hanging in the air. i am convinced that without real responsibility at the Centre, Provincial Autonomy is an empty shell.
Whatwe should do to force our point of view, this isno place to discuss. It is enough if I have succeeded in giving you an adequate idea of what arethe dangers of this Federal Scheme.
What is the interest of the Princes in this Federation? To understand the motives of the Princes you must go back to the Butler Committee. The Princes had been complaining of the encroachment of the Political Department of the Government of India upon their treaty rights under the Doctrine of Paramountcy. The Princes were insisting that the Political Department had no greater right against the States except those that were given by the treaties subsisting between them and the British Government. The Political Department on the other hand claimed that in addition to the rights referable to the treaties, the Crown had also rights which were referable to political usages and customs. To adjudicate upon this dispute, the Secretary of State agreed to appoint the Butler Committee. The Princes had hoped that the Butler Committee would accept their contentions and limit the scope of Paramountcy to the rights referable to the treaties. Unfortunately for the Princes they were disappointed, because the Butler Committee reported that the Paramountcy was paramount and that there could be no definition or delimitation of it. This decision of the Butler Committee meant a complete subordination of the Princes to the Political Department of the Government of India and the Princes were in search of an escape from this unfortunate position in which they were placed and they found, and quite rightly, that the only 'solution which can enable them to escape the tyranny of the Political Department was the Federation; because to the extent to which the Federal authority prevailed, the authority of the Political Department would vanish and as the Federal authority could only be exercised by a Federal Legislature and a Federal Executive and as they would have sufficient voice in the Federal Legislature and the Federal Executive they thought of federation. The federal solution of their problem offered two advantages to the Princes. The first was that it would secure to the Slates internal autonomy which they were very anxious to have, for it is of the essence of federating units to remain in their own hands all powers save those which they themselves have willingly delegated to a common centre and over which they themselves possess a share in the control. The second advantage of the Federation was that Paramountcy would disappear to the extent of the Federal authority. The motive of the Princes, therefore, was selfish and their primary aim was to get rid as much as possible of the authority of the Political Department of the Government of India. This was one of the primary interests of the Princes. The Princes had another interests to safeguard. That was to preserve their powers of civil and military government as much as possible. They wanted to make the Federation as thin as possible so that it might not impinge upon them very hard. The interest of the Princes is two-fold. They wanted to escape Paramountcy. Secondly, they did not want to subject themselves too much to the authority of the Federation. In looking at the Federation, the Princes keep two questions before them. How far will this Federation enable them to escape the tyranny of Paramountcy ? Secondly, how far does this scheme of Federation take away their sovereignty and their powers of internal government? They want to draw more under the former and give less under the latter.
The Muslims had an interest which not only coloured their whole vision but made it so limited that they did not care to look at anything else. That interest was their interest as a minority. They knew only one means of protecting themselves against the Hindu majority. That was to ask for reservation of seats with separate electorates and weightage in representation. In 1930 they discovered that there was another and a more efficacious method of protecting the Muslim minorities. That was to carve out new Provinces in which Muslims would be in a majority and Hindus in a minority as a counterblast to Provinces with Hindus as a majority and Muslims as a minority. They hit upon this system because they felt such as a system of balance of Provinces would permit the Muslims in the Muslim majority Provinces to hold the Hindu minorities in their Provinces as hostage for the good behaviour of the Hindu Majorities in the Provinces in which the Muslims were in minority. The creation of Muslim majority Provinces and to make them strong and powerful was their dominant interest. To accomplish this they demanded the separation of Sindh and the grant of responsible government to the North West Frontier Provinces so that the Muslims could have a command of four Provinces. To make the Provinces strong they insisted on making the Centre weak. As a means to this end the Muslims demanded that residuary powers should be given to the Provinces and the Hindu representation in the Centre should be reduced by giving the Muslims not only 1/3 of seats from the total fixed for British India but also 1/3 from the total assigned to the Princes.
The Hindus as represented by the Hindu Mahasabha were concerned with only one thing. How to meet what they called the menace of the Musalmans ? The Hindu Mahasabha felt that the accession of the Princes was an accretion to the Hindu strength. Everything else was to them of no consequence. Its point of view was Federation at any cost.
The next class whose point of view is worthy of consideration is the Indian Commercial Community. The commercial community is no doubt a small community in a vast country like India, but there can be no doubt about it that the point of view of this community is really more decisive than the point of view of any other community. This community has been behind the Congress. It is this community which has supplied the Congress the sinews of war and it knows that having paid the piper it can call for the tune. The commercial community is primarily interested in what is called commercial discrimination and the lowering of the exchange Ratio. It was a very narrow and limited point of view. The Indian Commercial Community is out to displace Europeans from Trade and Commerce and take their place. This it claims to do in the name of nationalism. It wants the right to lower the exchange rate and make profit in its foreign trade. This also it claims to do in the name of nationalism. Beyond getting profits to themselves the Merchants and Traders have no other consideration.
What shall I say about the Congress ? What was its paint of view ? I am sure I am not exaggerating or misrepresenting facts when I say that the Congress point of view at the Round Table Conference was that the Congress was the only party in India and that no body else counted and that the British should settle with the Congress only. This was the burden of Mr. Gandhi's song at the Round Table Conference. He was so busy in establishing his own claim to recognition by the British as the dictator of India that he forgot altogether that the important question was not, with whom the settlement should be made but what were to be the terms of that settlement. As to the terms of the settlement, Mr. Gandhi was quite unequal to the task. When he went to London he had forgotten that he would have before him not those who go to him to obtain his advice and return with his blessings but persons who would treat him as a lawyer treats a witness in the box. Mr. Gandhi also forgot that he was going to a political conference. He went there as though he was going to a Vaishnava Shrine singing the Narsi Mehta's Songs. When I think of the whole affair I am wondering if any nation had ever sent a representative to negotiate the terms of a national settlement who was more unfit than Mr. Gandhi. How unfit Mr. Gandhi was to negotiate a settlement becomes evident when one realizes that this Ambassador of India was ready to return to India with only Provincial Autonomy when as a matter of fact he was sent to negotiate on the basis of Independence. No man has brought greater disasters to the interests of India than did Mr. Gandhi at the Round Table Conference. Less one speaks of him the better.
How far each of these interests feel satisfied with the Federal Scheme such as it is, it is not for me to say. The question one may however ask is, are these the only points of view that must be taken into consideration in deciding as to what we shall do with this Federation ? I protest that there are other points of view besides those mentioned above which must receive attention. There is the point of view of the Free man. There is also the point of view of the Poor man. What have they to say of Federation ? The Federation does not seem to take any account of them. Yet they are the people who are most deeply concerned. Can the free man hope that the Federal Constitution will not be a menace to his freedom? Can the poor man feel that the constitution will enable him to have old values revalued, to have vested rights devested ? I have no doubt that this Federation if it comes into being will be a standing menace to the free man and an obstacle in the way of the poor man. What freedom can there be when you are made subject to the autocracy of the Princes? What economic betterment can there be when you get Second Chambers with vested rights entrenched in full and when legislation affecting property is subject to sanction by the Government both before introducing and after it has passed ?
XI
CONCLUSION
I have perhaps detained you longer than I should have done. You will allow that it is not altogether my fault. The vastness of the subject is one reason for the length of this address.
I must, however, confess that there is also another reason which has persuaded me not to cut too short. We are standing today at the point of time where the old age ends and the new begins. The old age was the age of Ranade, Agarkar, Tilak, Gokhale, Wachha, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Surendranath Bannerjee. The new age is the age of Mr. Gandhi and this generation is said to be Gandhi generation. As one who knows something of the old age and also something of the new I see some very definite marks of difference between the two. The type of leadership has undergone a profound change. In the age of Ranade the leaders struggled to modernize India. In the age of Gandhi the leaders are making her a living specimen of antiquity. In the age of Ranade leaders depended upon experience as a corrective method ot their thoughts and their deeds. The leaders of the present age depend upon their inner voice as their guide. Not only is there a difference in their mental make up there is a difference even in their viewpoint regarding external appearance. The leaders of the old age took care to be well clad while the leaders of the present age take pride in being half clad. The leaders of the Gandhi age are of course aware of these differences. But far from blushing for their views and. their appearance they claim that the India of Gandhi is superior to India of Ranade. They say that the age of Mr. Gandhi is an agitated and an expectant age, which the age of Mr. Ranade was not.
Those who have lived both in the age of Ranade and the age of Gandhi will admit that there is this difference between the two. At the same time they will be able to insist that if the India of Ranade was less agitated it was more honest and that if it was less expectant it was more enlightened. The age of Ranade was an age in which men and women did engage themselves seriously in studying and examining the facts of their life, and what is more important is that in the face of the opposition of the orthodox mass they tried to mould their lives and their character in accordance with the light they found as a result of their research. In the age of Ranade there was not the same divorce between a politician and a student which one sees in the Gandhi age. In the age of Ranade a politician, who was not a student, was treated as an intolerable nuisance, if not a danger. In the age of Mr. Gandhi learning, if it is not despised, is certainly not deemed to be a necessary qualification of a politician.
To my mind there is no doubt that this Gandhi age is the dark age of India. It is an age in which people instead of looking for their ideals in the future are returning to antiquity. It is an age in which people have ceased to think for themselves and as they have ceased to think they have ceased to read and examine the facts of their lives. The fate of an ignorant democracy which refuses to follow the way shown by learning and experience and chooses to grope in the dark paths of the mystics and the megalomaniacs is a sad thing to contemplate. Such an age I thought needed something more than a mere descriptive sketch of the Federal Scheme. It needed a treatment which was complete though not. exhaustive and pointed without being dogmatic in order to make it alive to the dangers arising from the inauguration of the Federal Scheme. This is the task I had set before myself in preparing this address. Whether I have failed or succeeded. it is for you to say. If this address has length which is not compensated by depth, all I can say is that I have tried to do my duty according to my lights.
I am not opposed to a Federal Form of Government. I confess I have a partiality for a Unitary form of Govsernment. I think India needs it. But I also realize that a Federal Form of Government is inevitable if there is to be Provincial Autonomy. But I am in dead horror the Federal Scheme contained in the Government of India Act. I think I hive justified my antipathy by giving adequate reasons. I want all to examine them and come to their own conclusions. Let us however realize that the case of Provincial Autonomy is very different from that of the Federal Scheme. To those who think that the Federation should become acceptable, if the Governor-General gave an assurance along the same lines as was supposed to be done by the Governors that he will not exercise his powers under his special responsibilities. I want to say two things. First I am sure the Governor-General cannot give such an assurance because he is exercising these powers not merely in the interest of the Crown but also in the interest of the States. Secondly, even if he did, that cannot alter the nature of the Federal Scheme. To those who think that a change in the system of State representation from nomination to election will make the Federation less objectionable, I want to say that they are treating a matter of detail as though it was a matter of fundamental. Let us note what is fundamental and what is not Let there be no mistake, let there be no fooling as to this. We have had enough of both. The real question is the extension and the growth of responsibility. Is that possible ? That is the crux. Let us also realize that there is no use bugging to Provincial Autonomy and leaving responsibility in the Centre hanging in the air. i am convinced that without real responsibility at the Centre, Provincial Autonomy is an empty shell.
Whatwe should do to force our point of view, this isno place to discuss. It is enough if I have succeeded in giving you an adequate idea of what arethe dangers of this Federal Scheme.
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