India Bill

“ Circumstances might force us to hazard a change. If the Company were to refuse to accept of the government unless we would grant pecuniary terms which I thought extravagant, or unless we gave up the clauses in this bill which permit Europeans to hold landed property and natives to hold office, I would take them at their word. But I will not discard them in the mere rage of experiment.
Do I call the government of India a perfect government? Very far from it. No nation can be perfectly well governed till it is competent to govern itself. ”

“ We know India has such institutions and therefore the Bill will not apply to the Indian. But we can have that Bill or none. If it disfranchises Indians, nothing can be better. If it does not, then too we have nothing to fear! For the Indian can never gain political supremacy and, if necessary, we can soon impose an educational test or raise the property qualifications which, while disfranchising Indians wholesale, will not debar a single European from voting. Thus, the Natal legislature is playing a game of “Toss up” at the Indians’ expense. ”

“ That our East India company may desire the ratification of this bill, I cannot deny, because they might, perhaps, receive from it some temporary advantage by the short inconveniencies which those whom they consider as the enemies of their commerce would feel from it. They may desire it, because the experiment, if it fails, as it must, cannot injure them; and if it succeeds, may produce great advantages to them: they may wish it, because they will feel the immediate benefit, and the detriment will fall upon others. ”

“ Your Memorialists beg respectfully to draw your attention to the fact that, were the Bill to become law, the very object of immigration will be frustrated in all its aspects. If it is to enable the Indians to improve their material condition ultimately, the object certainly will not be fulfilled by compelling them to remain under perpetual indenture. If it be to relieve the overcrowded parts of India, that object also will be frustrated. For, the object of the Bill is not to allow the number of Indians in the Colony to increase. ”

“ It may not be founded on what we call a liberal basis, it may indeed be founded on a very crude basis, but it is the Parliamentary franchise nevertheless and, under the Bill it is on it that elective representative institutions of India have to be founded. ”

“ If the constitution which has made the Indian government what it is, must be abolished, because it is thought defective in theory, what is substituted should at least be theoretically unobjectionable. But the constitution of the East India Company, however anomalous, is far more in accordance with the acknowledged principles of good government than either of the proposed bills. ”

“ I have already said that we have no share in laying down the policy upon which India is ruled. Have we any share even in the different Services of the country? Are we allowed to serve our own land and the Empire to the best of our capacity and ability? ”

“ The Congress brought together Indians from different parts of India, and enthused us with the idea of Nationality. The Government used to look upon it with disfavour. The Congress has always insisted that the Nation should control revenue and expenditure. It has always desired self-government after the Canadian model. ”

“ It is this dread that is the dominating influence in the policy of the British Government in India. India is a possession and a dependency and must be administered in the best interests of the master. Many credulous Indians talk of the liberty-loving traditions of the British democracy, but they forget that the application of these traditions to India would make such big holes in their safes, purses, and incomes, that they as men swayed by self-interest and love of power and glory, can never think of enforcing these principles in India. The British are good people. ”

“ The interests of the British Empire were primary and those of India only secondary, and no one can say that the Congress has not been true to that ideal. It might be said with justice and reason that the founders of the Indian National Congress considered the maintenance of British rule in India of vital importance to India herself, and therefore were anxious to do everything in their power, not only to save that rule from any danger that threatened it, but even to strengthen it ”

“ That the expenses of such a struggle to the Indian community must be beyond their control needs no argument to prove. The whole struggle is unequal.
Now, assuming further, that the highest legal tribunal has recorded its opinion that the Indians do not possess “elective representative institutions founded on the Parliamentary franchise”, the method provided in the Bill whereby the Indians may be placed on the Voters’ Roll is, in your Memorialists’ humble opinion, in every way unsatisfactory. ”

“ They know very well that they cannot do this at once—so they have begun with the Franchise Bill. They want to feel the pulse of the Home Government on the question. One member of the Assembly writes to me that he does not believe that the Home Government would sanction the Bill. I need hardly say how important it is for the Indian community that the Bill should not receive the sanction.
Natal is not a bad place for the Indians. Good many Indian traders earn a respectable living here. The Bill, if it became law, would be a very great blow to further Indian enterprise. ”

“ They are more lightly taxed; the pace of the administration is less urgent and exacting; their sentiment is gratified by the splendor of a native court and by the dominion of an Indian government. They feel that they do things for themselves instead of having everything done for them by a cold and alien benevolence.” (Italics are ours)
But after all that is favourable to the Native States of India has been said, their existence in their present form remains a political anomaly. ”

“ Of all the demands made by the Princes, the Butler Committee clearly and forcefully recognised only one, that for making any transfer of the Crown's rights and obligations in relation to States to persons not under the Crown's authority, conditional on the agreement of the States. In paragraph 58 of the report, the Committee said:
"The States demand that without their own agreement, the rights and obligations of the Paramount Power should not be assigned to persons who are not under its control, for instance, an Indian Government in British India responsible to an Indian Legislature. ”

“ It is a matter of no great difficulty to write out a scheme or plan of government, plentifully bestrewed with personalities and accusations; there have been many such; but the calm judgment of men filling different ranks in life, and conversant with different aspects of Indian character, can alone insure the embodiment of a scheme calculated to benefit both India and England. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, the Indian Independence Act releases the States from all their obligations to the Crown. The States have complete freedom—technically and legally they are independent. Presently I will discuss the degree of independence which we ourselves feel is best in the interests of your own States. But there has grown up during the period of British administration, owing to the fact that the Crown Representative and the Viceroy are one and the same person, a system of co-ordinated administration on all matters of common concern which meant that the sub-continent of India acted as an economic entity. ”

“ And it is important to remark, that by the provisions of either of the bills, the House of Commons will be rendered even less competent, in point of knowledge of Indian affairs, than at present, since by both bills all the members of the Council of India will be excluded from it.
The government of dependencies by a minister and his subordinates, under the sole control of parliament, is not a new experiment in England. That form of colonial government lost the United States, and had nearly lost all the colonies of any considerable population and importance. ”

“ It means that the system of government which obtains now, which is bureaucratic, should be changed or otherwise it is an admission on the part of our masters—after all it is the British Cabinet who are our masters and not the Bureaucracy here—it is an admission on the part of our masters that a change of government, of the bureaucratic system of government is necessary for the welfare of India. ”

“ I think these facts show that there is something in the arrangements of the Indian Government which makes it no Government at all, except for the purpose of raising money and spending taxes. It is no Government for watching over the people and conferring upon them those blessings which we try to silence our consciences by believing the British Government is established in India to promote. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such as it is, this is the amount of benefit to India from the control exercised over the Indian government by the British Parliament and people.
It is not by attempting to rule directly a country like India, but by giving it good rulers, that the English people can do their duty to that country; and they can scarcely give it a worse one than an English cabinet minister, who is thinking of English, not Indian politics; who does not remains long enough in office to acquire an intelligent interest in so complicated a subject ”

“ They admit that:
“If responsible government is to be established in India there will be a far greater need than is even dreamt of at present for persons to take part in public affairs in the legislative assemblies and elsewhere; and for this reason the more Indians we can employ in the public services the better. Moreover, it would lessen the burden of Imperial responsibilities if a body of capable Indian administrators could be produced. We regard it as necessary, therefore, that recruitment of a largely increased proportion of Indians should be begun at once.” ”

“ It has to be carried on the person, a thing that is not always easy to do. Instances are on record when Indians not far from their homes have been arrested for being without a pass and put to a great deal of annoyance. Such cases, if the fifth clause of the Bill is to remain, are likely to happen oftener than before. And since the Bill has been introduced in the interests of the Indian community, your Petitioners submit that the feelings of that community should receive some consideration. ”

“ It has been said that the responsibility for this niggardly policy in the matter of admitting Indians to the Commissioned ranks of the army rests with the Home Government and that the Indian Government’s recommendations were much more liberal. Now, as practical men, we fully realize that for some time to come, at least until British suspicion of India’s desire to get out of the Empire is completely removed by the grant of responsible government to India, India’s military policy and the Indian army must be controlled by the British executive. ”

“ Nor is the Congress any more representative of the toiling masses that are not "unclean." No measures have been more bitterly assailed in the Congress than those which, like the Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1900, were framed and have operated for the benefit of the agricultural and other humbler classes—i.e., of the real "people of India," in whose name the Congress speaks so loudly and with so little title. ”

“ The resolution of Ministers to call the public attention to Indian affairs was sufficiently indicated in the Speech from the Throne [174] , in which the affairs of the East India Company were plainly alluded to. "The concerns of this country," his Majesty was made to say, "are so various and extensive, as to require the most vigilant and active attention; and some of them, as well from remoteness of place as from other circumstances, are so peculiarly liable to abuses and exposed to danger, that the interposition of the Legislature for their protection may become necessary. ”

“ The Congress wants national schools and national universities; the Government says no, “ you may misuse them.” The keynote of the situation is, that India must exist in the interests of England and Englishmen ; or at any rate England and English politicians know what is good and useful for India, how much she should and how much she should not have; in what line she should advance and in what she should not. India and Indians have no right to think for themselves. ”