Government of India

“ The truth must be frankly and gratefully admitted that the British Government of India is incomparably the best Government we have ever had. It is the strongest and the most righteous and the best suited to Indians diverse populations and diverse interests. ”

“ It is obvious that in a country like India, composed as it is of great provinces and various races differing from one another in interests, customs, and religions, each with its own peculiar and distinct necessities, administrative details ought to be left to the people on the spot. The Government of India would then be free to exercise a firm and impartial control over the Empire and Imperial interests, while guiding into safe channels, without unduly restraining, intelligent progress. ”

“ We ask no more of them than accession on these three subjects in which the common interests of the country are involved. In other matters we would scrupulously respect their autonomous existence.
This country with its institutions is the proud heritage of the people who inhabit it. It is an accident that some live in the States and some in British India, but all alike partake of its culture and character. We are all knit together by bonds of blood and feeling no less than of self-interest. None can segregate us into segments; no impassable barriers can be set up between us. ”

“ The Government of India have no easy job in protecting the interests of Indian settlers in these various parts of His Majesty’s dominions. They will be able to do so only by following the firmest and the most consistent policy. ”

“ The right of the Government of India recognised to enact laws which shall have the effect of subjecting British citizens domiciled in any other British country to the same conditions in visiting India as those imposed on Indians desiring to visit such country. ”

“ In the meanwhile, the Indian States are in a position to play and important part in the formulation of the new Constitutional structure for India and His Majesty's Government have been informed by the Indian States that they desire, in their own interests and in the interests of India as a whole, both to make their contribution to the framing of the structure, and to take their due place in it when it is completed. ”

“ The people of India will now be associated with the Government in the daily and hourly administration of their affairs. A great step forward has thus been taken in the grant of representative government for which the Congress had been crying for years. ... We do not know what the future destiny of India may be. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Content with the limits nature appears to have assigned to its empire, the Government of India will devote all its efforts to the establishment and maintenance of general peace, to the protection of the sovereigns and chiefs its allies, and to the prosperity and happiness of its own faithful subjects. ”

“ I beg the Committee to consider this matter, notwithstanding that the right hon. Gentleman is not disposed to take a gloomy view of the state of India. Look at your responsibilities. India is ruled by Englishmen, but remember that in that unfortunate country you have destroyed every form of government but your own; that you have cast the thrones of the Natives to the ground. Princely families, once the rulers of India, are now either houseless wanderers in the land they once called their own, or are pensioners on the bounty of those strangers by whom their fortunes have been overthrown. ”

“ The White Paper, which has now been brought up to date, carries the survey of developments in relation to States right up to the attainment by them of their legitimate position as full-fledged constituent units of the Indian Union under the new Constitution of India. It has also been expanded to explain fully the historical setting of the problem of the States. ”

“ Politically there are.........two Indias, British India, governed by the Crown according to the statutes of Parliament and enactments of the Indian Legislature, and the Indian States under the suzerainty of the Crown and still for the most part under the personal rule of the Princes. Geographically India is one and indivisible, made up of pink and yellow. The problem of statesmanship is to hold the two together. ”

“ Is it said that India is incapable of ruling herself? That was said of South Africa; that was said of Canada; that was said of the American Colonies when they broke off from Great Britain and set up a Government of their own; that is what England has long been saying of Ireland. That is what every nation that loves power always says of every section of its people that wants more liberty.
The truth is, the safest Government in the world for every people of any intellectual and moral development at all (and India is advanced, both intellectually and morally) is self-government. ”

“ Early in 1919, when the country was agitating for the promised self-government, the English government of India forcibly passed against the unanimous opposition from all sections of the people, special repressive measures in order to check the spread of nationalism in India. ”

“ These commitments had to be borne in mind when the States Ministry approached the Rulers for the integration of their States. There was nothing to compel or induce the Rulers to merge the identity of their States. Any use of force would have not only been against our professed principles but would have also caused serious repercussions. If the Rulers had elected to stay out, they would have continued to draw the heavy Civil Lists which they were drawing before and in a large number of cases they could have continued to enjoy unrestricted use of the States revenues. ”

“ If you could have an independent Government in India for every 30,000,000 of its people, I do not hesitate to say, though we are so many thousand miles away, that there are Englishmen who, settling down among those 20,000,000 of people, would be able to conduct the Government of that particular province on conditions wholly different and immeasurably better than anything in the way of administration which we have ever seen in India. ”

“ Provided that any powers connected with the exercise of the functions of the Crown in its relations with Indian States shall in India, if not exercised by His Majesty, be exercised only by, or by persons acting under the authority of, His Majesty’s Representative for the exercise of those functions of the Crown. ”