India Office

“ Fifty, and forty, and even twenty-five years ago, it may have been necessary to contract on extravagant terms and for life with Englishmen of education, in order to obtain their services in so remote a country as India then was. Such men a generation since were comparatively rare, and the India House, and after it the India Office, may have been right in establishing a special privileged service for its needs, and in granting the covenants it made with them. ”

“ At present it consists of officials of the Home Civil Service and of retired Indian officials. What is wanted is an ebb and flow—a strong, fresh current running to and fro from England to India. It is bad to keep men out in India too long at a time, and it is bad to have a Secretary of State who knows nothing about India surrounded by men who have either never seen it or who have left it for good. A Secretary of State would, moreover, if the India Office were filled with men of the active Indian Service, have a better acquaintance than he now has with the personnel of the Indian Services ”

“ In India, public office has been, and must continue to be, the only road to distinction, until we have a law of primogeniture, and a concentration of capital. In India no man has ever thought himself respectable, or been thought so by others, unless he is armed with his little 'hukūmat'; his 'little brief authority' under Government, that gives him the command of some public establishment paid out of the revenues of the State. ”

“ Without meaning it, and doubtless working, as it considers, with a shingle eye to the maintenance of British supremacy in India, the Indian Foreign Office is frequently guilty of grievous injustice. That office, more than any other department in the Indian Government, is in a position which neither man nor institution is good enough, or free enough from liability to error, to bear. ”

“ 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 Ruler or a subject of a Federated State shall be eligible to hold any civil office under the Crown in India in connection with the affairs of the Federation, and the Governor-General may declare that the Ruler or any subject of a specified Indian State which is not a Federated State, or any native of a specified tribal area or territory adjacent to India, shall be eligible to hold any such office, being an office specified in the declaration. ”

“ But in the case of India such advisers are assigned to him by the constitution of the government, and they are as much responsible for what they advise, as he for what he ordains; while, in other departments, the minister’s only official advisers are the subordinates in his office, men often of great skill and experience, but not in the public eye, often unknown to the public even by name; official reserve precludes the possibility of ascertaining what advice they give, and they are responsible only to the minister himself. ”

“ In addition, after making careful inquiry through various commissions, he reformed the systems of education and police, laid down a comprehensive scheme of irrigation, improved the leave rules and the excessive report-writing of the civil service, encouraged the native princes by the formation of the Imperial Cadet Corps and introduced many other reforms. His term of office was also notable for the coronation durbar at Delhi in January 1903, the expedition to Lhasa in 1904, which first unveiled that forbidden city to European gaze, and the partition of Bengal in 1905. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No subject of His Majesty domiciled in India shall on grounds only of religion, place of birth, descent, colour or any of them be ineligible for office under the Crown in India, or be prohibited on any such grounds from acquiring, holding or disposing of property, or carrying on any occupation, trade, business or profession in British India. ”

“ To believe that the administration of India would have been more free from error, had it been conducted by a minister of the Crown without the aid of the Court of Directors, would be to believe that the minister, with full power to govern India as he pleased, has governed ill because he has had the assistance of experienced and responsible advisers. ”

“ The executive government of India is, and must be, seated in India itself. The Court of Directors is not so much an executive as a deliberative body. Its principal function, and that of the home government generally, is not to direct the details of administration, but to scrutinise and revise the past acts of the Indian government—to lay down principles and issue general instructions for their future guidance—and to give or refuse sanction to great political measures, which are referred home for approval. ”

“ 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 far more demand is made on their resources, intellectual and moral? ”

“ 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.” ”

“ In face of these observations about the politically minded classes of India it is rather unkind of the authors to insinuate later on that in the interests of the foreign merchant, the foreign missionary and the European servants of the state it is necessary that the Government of India should yet remain absolute and that, in the provinces as well, important branches of the administration should be excluded from the jurisdiction of the popular assemblies. ”

“ 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 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? ”

“ India is so wide a field, that a practical acquaintance with every part of its affairs cannot be found combined in any small number of individuals. The council ought to contain men of general experience and knowledge of the world, also men specially qualified by financial and revenue experience, by judicial experience, diplomatic experience, military experience; it ought to contain persons conversant with the varied social relations, and varied institutions of Bengal, Madras, Bombay, the Northwestern Provinces, the Punjaub, and the native states. ”

“ It is in no way unjust that public officers thus selected and trained should be exclusively eligible to offices which require specially Indian knowledge and experience. If any door to the higher appointments, without passing through the lower, be opened even for occasional use, there will be such incessant knocking at it by persons of influence that it will be impossible ever to keep it closed. The only excepted appointment should be the highest one of all. The Viceroy of British India should be a person selected from all Englishmen for his great general capacity for government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All the chief offices of state, the direction and control of armies, the administration of revenues, of divisions, of districts, the coining of money, the administration of justice, the imposing of taxes, etc., are generally in the hands of foreigners who have absolutely no interest in the country except as servants of the crown, persons whose interests in the country cease with the expiration of their term of service. These servants are recruited and appointed out of India. ”

“ But an agent cannot act when his interest may conflict with his duty. In all matters of common concern with the States—customs, railways, ports, the salt monopoly, etc.—there is always the possibility that the interest of British India may not be identical with the interest of a particular State. The Crown's duty is, or may be, to safeguard the interest of the State particularly in case of a minority administration. ”

“ 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 have therefore found it necessary that in the interest of the growth of democratic institutions in these States, no less than the requirements of administrative efficiency, the Government of India should exercise general supervision over the Governments of the States till such time as it may be necessary. ”

“ The British Cabinet consisting of politicians of the type of Lord Curzon and Lord Milner have decided that India is to have responsible government and that a substantial advance is to be made in that direction as soon as possible. ”

“ 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. ”