Council of India

“ There would be 21 elected members of whom 15 will be returned by the non-official members of the provincial legislative councils, each council returning two members, other than those of Burma, the Central Provinces and Assam which will return one member each....
“Inasmuch as the Council of State will be the supreme legislative authority for India on all crucial questions and also the revising authority upon all Indian legislation, we desire to attract to it the services of the best men available in the country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In undertaking any legislative measure, the Council is bound to be guided by the principles of Mahomedan law, the tenets of the Hindu shastras, the special laws of every community residing in His Highness's Dominions, the customs and usages having the force of law and the jurisprudence of British India or other civilised countries. No Act of the Council, nor any power granted to it, can in any way affect the rights and prerogatives of His Highness as the supreme ruler of the State. ”

“ Gentleman is afraid of bringing the Government of India under the authority of the Crown. What, I should like to know, would have been done if India had been conquered by the troops of the Crown? We should then never have sent some thirty men into a bye-street of London to distribute patronage and govern a great country. The Government of India would then have been made a department of the Government, with a Council and a Minister of State. ”

“ The recent proposal of the Government of India to enlarge the Legislative Councils and to create an Imperial Advisory Council reveals the purpose of the State to grant to the people all that is consistent with the paramountcy of the British in India. ”

“ The decision then formed and acted on alone rendered possible the employment of natives of India in the higher branches of the administration. Such employment has gradually year by year increased, and certainly will further increase, at least up to the extreme limit of safety. Indians now (1914) occupy seats in the Council of India in London, and in the Executive and Legislative Councils of the Governor- General, Provincial Governors, and Lieutenant-Governors. They hold most of the judicial appointments and fill many responsible executive offices. ”

“ The Government of India must remain wholly responsible to Parliament, and saving such responsibility, its authority in essential matters must remain indisputable pending experience of the effect of the changes now to be introduced in the provinces. In the meantime the Indian Legislative Council should be enlarged and made more representative and its opportunities of influencing government increased. ”

“ Notwithstanding anything in Part XI, if the Council of States has declared by resolution supported by not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting that it is necessary or expedient in the national interest so to do, Parliament may by law provide for the creation of one or more all-India services common to the Union and the States, and, subject to the other provisions of this Chapter, regulate the recruitment, and the conditions of service of persons appointed, to any such service. ”

“ We find throughout India a very general desire for the extension of Council government.... Our first proposition, therefore, is that in all these provinces singleheaded administration must cease and be replaced by collective administration.
“In determining the structure of the Executive we have to bear in mind the duties with which it will [Pg 114] be charged. We start with the two postulates; the complete responsibility for the government cannot be given immediately without inviting a breakdown, and that some responsibility must be given at once if our scheme is to have any value. ”

“ The Law made by Persons or Bodies in India having Legislative Authority.—As a general proposition it would be true to say that wherever a British authority has legislated in India it has been largely influenced by the English law. The legislative authorities in India are very numerous. Those now existing are (1) the governor-general of India in council; (2) the governor of Madras in council; (3) the governor of Bombay in council; (4) the lieutenant-governor of Bengal in council ”

“ Let me say further, on the Judicial Bench in India everybody recognises the enormous service that it is to have Indian members of abundant learning, and who add to that abundant learning a complete knowledge of the conditions and life of the country. I propose at once, if Parliament agrees, to acquire powers to double the Executive Council in Bombay and Madras, and to appoint at least one Indian member in each of those cases, as well as in the Governor-General's Council. ”

“ That it would be vain to expect that a new council could have as much moral influence, and power of asserting its opinion with effect, as the Court of Directors. A new body can no more succeed to the feelings and authority which their antiquity and their historical antecedents give to the East India Company, than a legislature, under a new name, sitting in Westminster, would have the moral ascendency of the Houses of Lords and Commons. One of the most important elements of usefulness will thus be necessarily wanting in any newly constituted Indian Council, as compared with the present. ”

“ The question is whether there is no one of the 300 millions of the population of India, who is competent to be the officially-constituted adviser of the Governor-General in Council in the administration of Indian affairs. You make an Indian a judge of the High Court, and Indians have even been acting Chief Justices. As to capacity, who can deny that they have distinguished themselves as administrators of native States, where a very full demand is made on their resources, intellectual and moral? ”

“ They represent great traditions and great interests, which duty and statesmanship equally forbid us to ignore. The creation of an Imperial Council, in which they would have sat with representatives of the Indian aristocracy of British India, was an important feature of the original scheme of reforms proposed by the Government of India. ”

“ There is, however, another portion of that system which is in every respect admirable, and the creation of which bears the impress of that keen political insight which, according to many Continental authorities, is the birthright of the Anglo-Saxon race. India is governed locally by a council composed mainly of officials who have passed their adult lives in the country ”

“ Only let me say that here we may seem to lag a stage behind the Government of India themselves—so little violent are we—because that Government say, in their despatch—"On all ordinary occasions we are ready to dispense with an official majority in the Imperial Legislative Council, and to rely on the public spirit of non-official members to enable us to carry on the ordinary work of legislation." ”

“ We recommend therefore that the strength of the legislative council, to be known in future as the Legislative Assembly of India, should be raised to a total strength of about 100 members, so as to be far more truly representative of British India. ”

“ The joint government of a minister and a council, composed in majority of persons of Indian experience, deriving their appointments only partially from ministerial nomination, and all of them holding office on a tenure independent of the minister, is a combination which fulfils to a considerable extent the conditions of a good organ of government for India. ”

“ The statutory obligation, now existing, that three of the members of the Supreme Executive Council shall be selected from the public services in India and similar provisions with regard to Provincial Councils should be removed. The elected representatives of the people should have a voice in the selection of the Indian members of the Executive Councils and for that purpose a principle of election should be adopted. ”

“ But if the genius of such a government, even as to what concerns its direction in Europe, is in this manner essentially, and perhaps incurably faulty, that of its administration in India is still more so. That administration is necessarily composed of a council of merchants, a profession no doubt extremely respectable, but which in no country in the world carries along with it that sort of authority which naturally overawes the people, and without force commands their willing obedience. ”

“ Even in the unusual case, of which present circumstances are an example, when the minister has made himself acquainted with India through the discharge of high functions in India itself, his knowledge is but the knowledge of one man; and one man’s knowledge of a subject like India, until corrected and completed by that of other men, is, it may safely be affirmed, wholly insufficient, and if implicitly trusted, even dangerous. The good government, therefore, of India, by a minister and a council, depends upon the amount of influence possessed by the council ”

“ To make the council a merely consultative body, without initiative, before whom subjects are only brought after the minister has made up his mind, is already a fatal inroad upon its usefulness. But by the second bill the council are not even a consultative body. The minister is under no obligation to consult them. They are not empowered to hold any regular meetings. They are to meet only when the minister convenes them, or on a special requisition by six members. He may send orders to India without their knowledge when the case is urgent, of which urgency he is the sole judge. ”

“ It is difficult to calculate what effect the influence of the very superior men whom he proposed as a Council, might have had on the future fortunes and history of India. But neither the Directors nor the Ministers were sufficiently advanced in their views of Indian policy, or possessed sufficient expansion of mind to adopt a measure in which the expense of employing first-rate men was as nothing, compared with the results that might have been anticipated. ”

“ That your petitioners cannot well conceive a worse form of government for India, than a minister with a council whom he should be at liberty to consult or not at his pleasure, or whose advice he should be able to disregard without giving his reasons in writing, and in a manner likely to carry conviction. ”

“ Notwithstanding anything contained in the preceding paragraphs of this Article, when in pursuance of any such agreement of integration, as is referred to in clause (b) of paragraph (1) of Article II, any other State is integrated with the United State, the Raj Pramukh may, in consultation with the Government of India, appoint the Rules of such State as the third Junior Vice-President of the Council of Rulers who shall hold office for a term of five years. ”

“ That your petitioners may venture to assume that it will not be proposed to vest the home portion of the administration of India in a minister of the Crown, without the adjunct of a council composed of statesmen experienced in Indian affairs. Her Majesty’s ministers cannot but be aware that the knowledge necessary for governing a foreign country, and in particular a country like India, requires as much special study as any other profession, and cannot possibly be possessed by any one who has not devoted a considerable portion of his life to the acquisition of it. ”

“ That, with the duty of preparing the dispatches to India would naturally be combined the nomination and control of the home establishments. This your petitioners consider absolutely essential to the utility of the council. If the officers through whom they work are in direct dependence upon an authority higher than theirs, all matters of importance will in reality be settled between the minister and the subordinates, passing over the council altogether. ”

“ The Indian Independence Act, 1947, and the Government of India Act, 1935, together with all enactments amending or supplementing the latter Act, but not including the Abolition of Privy Council Jurisdiction Act, 1949, are hereby repealed. ”

“ Every caste, every trade, every village in India has for ages its Council of Five which practically legislated for and conducted the administration of the little community which it represented. Until the introduction of the Parish Councils Act last year there was no such rural system of self-administration even in England. ”

“ The members of the Legislative Council can ask questions and pass resolutions, but the latter are not binding on the Executive, except resolutions on the Budget for the transferred subjects.
All Provincial Legislation requires the assent of the Governor and the Governor-General, and is also subject to disallowance by His Majesty.
Public Service
Racial bars should not exist. In addition to recruitment in England a system of appointment to all public services be established in India with an increasing percentage of recruitment. ”

“ The first step that has been taken with the hope of allaying the discontent in India has been the increase in the Councils of the Government of India and of the Local Governments of Madras and Bombay, with the creation of Councils in the other Provinces which did not have them before. ”