Parliament of India

“ 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. ”

“ As their own scheme was designed merely to give Parliament a lead in the first of a progressive series of constitutional reforms, they recommended that a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the working of the new Indian institutions and the general progress of the people of India should at stated intervals determine the further stages of advance towards the final goal of self-government. ”

“ These duties are more analogous to the functions of parliament than to those of an executive board; and it might almost as well be said that parliament, as that the government of India, should be constituted on the principles applicable to executive boards. It is considered an excellence, not a defect in the constitution of parliament, to be not merely a double but a triple government. An executive authority, your petitioners submit, may often with advantage be single, because promptitude is its first requisite. ”

“ I pray to God that India may never be in that plight. That which you consider to be the Mother of Parliaments is like a sterile woman and a prostitute. Both these are harsh terms, but exactly fit the case. That Parliament has not yet of its own accord done a single good thing, hence I have compared it to a sterile woman. The natural condition of that Parliament is such that, without outside pressure, it can do nothing. It is like a prostitute because it is under the control of ministers who change from time to time. ”

“ There can be no doubt that India has its original contribution to make to the theory and practice of government, and that she has too long believed in government by parliament as truly democratic. She has discovered by bitter experience the hollow futility of Parliamentary rule, and it is time that she ceases to trust in a system which has, even in the country of its birth, proved itself bankrupt and self-condemned. ”

“ In no department of the Government where Indians have been adequately tried have they been found wanting.
The truth is, not one single fact can be cited to show that India cannot govern herself well if given a chance. It would not be difficult to form an Indian Parliament today, composed of men as able and of as high character as those that constitute the fine Parliament of Japan. India has public men who, if they lived in England and belonged to the English race, would unhesitatingly be adjudged not only of Parliamentary but of Cabinet rank. ”

“ The influence which would accrue from this bill—a new, enormous, and unexampled influence—was indeed in the highest degree alarming. Seven commissioners, chosen ostensibly by parliament, but really by administration, were to involve in the vortex of their authority the patronage and treasures of India. The right honourable mover had acknowledged himself to be a man of ambition, and it now appeared that he was prepared to sacrifice the king, the parliament, and the people at the shrine of his ambition. ”

“ When you heap contempt upon the whole of the British Parliament, I suppose it is allowable. If only an Indian says that the bureaucratic Government has been found to be wanting, it has failed in its duties, it has failed in its charge of the administration of this country, it is such violent language that the State must put down. ”

“ It is, therefore, your petitioners submit, of the utmost importance that any council which may form a part of the home government of India should derive sufficient weight from its constitution, and from the relation it occupies to the minister, to be a substantial barrier against those inroads of self-interest and ignorance in this country from which the government of India has hitherto been comparatively free, but against which it would be too much to expect that parliament should of itself afford a sufficient protection. ”

“ At the same time, I would not be understood as advocating for India anything in the shape of an Imperial parliament. Empires and parliaments to my mind have very little in common with each other; and India is far too vast a continent, and inhabited by races far too heterogeneous, to make amalgamation in a single assembly possible for representatives elected on any conceivable system. ”

“ The burden of every argument was, “No reform is possible for us until the Indian Government is itself reformed. It is too conservative, too selfish, too alien to the thoughts and needs of India, to effect anything as at present constituted; and just as in England reformers at the beginning of this century looked first to a reform of Parliament, so must Indian reformers now look first to a reform of the governing body of the country.” ”

“ Had the Opposition themselves framed a measure for Ministers, with the express purpose of widening the distance between the Cabinet and the Sovereign, they could not have devised one better adapted to the purpose. The main object of the East India Bills was to withdraw from the Company the entire administration of the civil and commercial affairs of India, and to vest it in a board of commissioners, who should be nominated by Parliament, and rendered perfectly independent of the Crown. ”

“ Until both Houses of Parliament have been duly constituted and summoned to meet for the first session under the provisions of this Constitution, the body functioning as the Constituent Assembly of the Dominion of India immediately before the commencement of this Constitution shall be the provisional Parliament and shall exercise all the powers and perform all the duties conferred by the provisions of this Constitution on Parliament. ”

“ The people of India are not on the level of these races. Even if it be assumed that they are not yet in a position to exercise that right, fully and properly, it is neither right nor just to assume that they shall never be in that position even hereafter. The qualifications implied in that sentence are, besides, quite needless and superfluous. As long as India remains “an integral part of the British Empire” she cannot draft a constitution which does not meet with the approval of the British Parliament and the British Sovereign. ”

“ You are entering upon your duties at a stage of intense interest. Sir Charles Elliott, who was Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, wrote the other day, that this is "the most momentous change ever effected by Parliament in the constitution of the Government of India since 1858." He goes on to say that no prudent man would prophesy. ”

“ That it is expedient that the governments of the British possessions in India be entrusted to the said company, under such conditions and regulations as parliament shall enact, for the purpose of extending the commerce of this country, and of securing the good government, and promoting the moral and religious improvement of the people of India.” These resolutions were agreed to without any opposition ”

“ In a democracy, accountability lies with the people who are the ultimate sovereign. The parliamentary form of government adopted in India essentially requires that Parliament and the government, consisting of elected representatives, to be accountable to the people. The Cabinet consisting of elected representatives is collectively responsible for the proper administration of the country and is answerable to the legislature for its actions. The Constitution confers the legislature the power to enact laws and the government to implement laws. ”

“ For the People’s Chamber is not merely the most powerful [Pg 72] portion of the High Court of Parliament; it is not alone the central force of the British Constitution, to which kings and nobles have had, and may again have, to bow; it is the directly elected body before whose gaze every wrong can be displayed, and to whose power even the humblest can look for redress. It deals forth justice to the myriad millions of India as to a solitary injured Englishman; it is a sounding board which echoes the claims of a single peasant or an entire people ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no reason on earth why you should not have a new Parliament as well as us:—it might not, perhaps, be quite as convenient to our immaculate Minister, but I sincerely hope he will not find your Volunteers so accommodating as the present India troops in our House of Commons. ”

“ No person shall be a member both of Parliament and of a House of the Legislature of a State specified in Part A or Part B of the First Schedule, and if a person is chosen a member both of Parliament and of a House of the Legislature of such a State, then, at the expiration of such period as may be specified in rules made by the President, that person's seat in Parliament shall become vacant, unless he has previously resigned his seat in the Legislature of the State. ”

“ The executive power of every State shall be so exercised as to ensure compliance with the laws made by Parliament and any existing laws which apply in that State, and the executive power of the Union shall extend to the giving of such directions to a State as may appear to the Government of India to be necessary for that purpose. ”

“ It is far less easy to appraise the value of the attempt which has been made at the same time to bring that large part of India which lies outside the sphere of direct British administration into closer touch with it by the creation of a Chamber of Princes, which will at least sit under the same roof with the Council of State and the Legislative Assembly in the great hall of Parliament to be erected in New Delhi. ”

“ These views swing like the pendulum of a clock and are never steadfast. The people would follow a powerful orator or a man who gives them parties, receptions, etc. As are the people, so is their Parliament. They have certainly one quality very strongly developed. They will never allow their country to be lost. If any person were to cast an evil eye on it, they would pluck out his eyes. But that does not mean that the nation possesses every other virtue or that it should be imitated. If India copies England, it is my firm conviction that she will be ruined. ”

“ It was a mistake to shut out the two judges from the chamber. One European and one Asiatic judge would be as useful in the council as on the bench. Again, in these days of railways and steamers, there seems no reason why [302] governors of presidencies, and lieutenant-governors and chief commissioners of provinces, should not occasionally sit in the legislative council of India to exchange views and give the weight of their personal support to their respective representative members. The sittings are generally held in the cold season, when the British Parliament is not sitting. ”

“ Subject to the provisions of articles 108 and 109, a Bill shall not be deemed to have been passed by the Houses of Parliament unless it has been agreed to by both Houses, either without amendment or with such amendments only as are agreed to by both Houses.
⁠ (3) A Bill pending in Parliament shall not lapse by reason of the prorogation of the Houses.
⁠ (4) A Bill pending in the Council of States which has not been passed by the House of the People shall not lapse on a dissolution of the House of the People. ”

“ Every Minister and the Attorney-General of India shall have the right to speak in, and otherwise to take part in the proceedings of, either House, any joint sitting of the Houses, and any committee of Parliament of which he may be named a member, but shall not by virtue of this article be entitled to vote. ”

“ But it will astonish posterity, when they read our opinions in our actions, that, after years of inquiry, we have found out that the sole grievance of India consisted in this, that the servants of the Company there had not profited enough of their opportunities, nor drained it sufficiently of its treasures,—when they shall hear that the very first and only important act of a commission specially named by act of Parliament is, to charge upon an undone country, in favor of a handful of men in the humblest ranks of the public service, the enormous sum of perhaps four millions of sterling money. ”

“ You have had enough of military reputation on Eastern fields; you have gathered large harvests of that commodity, be it valuable or be it worthless. I invite you to something better, and higher, and holier than that; I invite you to a glory not 'fanned by conquest's crimson wing,' but based upon the solid and lasting benefits which I believe the Parliament of England can, if it will, confer upon the countless populations of India. ”