CHAPTER XVII
SELF-GOVERNMENT
And thus the sheltering Government of India having been reformed both in its personnel and in its laws, brought into touch and sympathy with its people, a start would be made with self-government.
That, of course, must begin with the village, which is the germ from which all self-government that is of any value has always begun, and on the health and vitality of which it must always depend. The village organism must be restored to the state in which we found it, and from that be helped and encouraged to grow to greater things.
The whole of the present conception of the village as an appanage of the headman, and the conception of the headman as an official of Government, must be swept away and a new and true conception must be arrived at.
The village is a self-contained organism, and the headman is its representative before Government and its executive head, the real power being in the Council. Powers and responsibility reside in the village as a whole and in no individual. The people must not be ruled, but rule themselves.
Now as to the exact way in which this conception should be carried out it is impossible to say. In each Province—in distinct parts of the same Province—the village system assumed different forms to meet different circumstances. In Madras the village community was in many details different from that in Burma, and in the North-West still more so. Therefore, the particular way in which the conception should be realised would vary greatly. And only by experience could a satisfactory form for each Province be evolved. Neither would it be possible even in Burma to go back to the old form exactly. Events have marched since then, and what was satisfactory thirty or more years ago would not be so now. The villages must not be reconstituted by copying the past; they must be constituted anew, maintaining, however, the spirit of the past and giving scope for evolution in the future.
Therefore, the scheme that I am about to unfold must be taken to be merely tentative and apply only to Burma. The principles are, I think, right; the details must, of course, be discovered by experience. Practice alone would show how far they realised the objective that is to be aimed at—the constitution of a village organism on natural lines that would govern itself without any need for interference and would be able to grow and evolve.
My scheme is as follows:
In every village a Council should be constituted and the headman should be its executive head.
How this Council should be constituted I do not know. I think there should be wards, each of which should have an elder, representative of the people, but no rigid system of election should be laid down. I have found that villages and wards can very often appoint a representative man by general consent, which is much better than by election. That should only occur in case of a dead-lock. The Council should itself define the wards, and it should be allowed to co-opt additional members. All representation by class or religion should be prohibited. The unit is not so many people, but a section of a village—neighbours dwelling together and whose interests are thereby united. Appointment to the Council should be indefinite; that is to say, an elder should remain an elder until he resigned or until the ward turned him out. I don't think they would like continual elections. An election is a bad means to a desired end—that of obtaining the best representative. And in small communities the sense is usually apparent without it.