The Political Future of India

by Lala Lajpat Rai

“The tone of those Debates is unreal, unsubstantial and ineffective. If Estimates for India, like Estimates for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the Colonial Secretary were to be discussed on the floor of the House of Commons, the Debates on India would be as good as the Debates on foreign affairs. After all, what is the difference? Has it even been suggested to the people of Australia that they should pay the salary of the Secretary of State for the Colony? Why should the whole cost of that building in Charles Street, including the building itself, be an item of the Indian taxpayer’s burden rather than of this House of Commons and the people of the country?”

Can and does the House of Commons control the India Office? Here is Mr. Montagu’s answer.

“It has been sometimes questioned whether a democracy can rule an Empire. I say that in this instance the democracy has never had the opportunity of trying. But even if the House of Commons were to give orders to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State is not his own master. In matters vitally affecting India, he can be overruled by a majority of his Council. I may be told that the cases are very rare in which the Council has differed from the Secretary of State for India. I know one case anyhow, where it was a very near thing, and where the action of the Council might without remedy have involved the Government of India in a policy out of harmony with the declared policy of the House of Commons and the Cabinet. And these gentlemen are appointed for seven years, and can only be controlled from the Houses of Parliament by a resolution carried in both Houses calling on them for their resignations. The whole system of the India Office is designed to prevent control by the House of Commons for fear that there might be too advanced a Secretary of State. I do not say that it is possible to govern India through the intervention of the Secretary of State with no expert advice, but what I do say is that in this epoch now after the Mesopotamia Report, he must get his expert advice in some other way than by this Council of men, great men though, no doubt, they always are, who come home after lengthy service in India to spend the first years of their retirement as members of the Council of India.

“Does any Member of this House know much about procedure in the India Office? I have been to the India Office and to other offices. I tell this House that the statutory organization of the India Office produces an apotheosis of circumlocution and red tape beyond the dreams of any ordinary citizen.”

His own idea of what should be done at that juncture was thus expressed:

“But whatever be the object of your rule in India, the universal demand of those Indians whom I have met and corresponded with, is that you should state it. Having stated it, you should give some instalment to show that you are in real earnest, some beginning of the new plan which you intend to pursue, that gives you the opportunity of giving greater representative institutions in some form or other to the people of India....

“But I am positive of this, that your great claim to continue the illogical system of Government by which we have governed India in the past is that it was efficient. It has been proved to be not efficient. It has been proved to be not sufficiently elastic to express the will of the Indian people; to make them into a warring Nation as they wanted to be. The history of this War shows that you can rely upon the loyalty of the Indian people to the British Empire—if you ever before doubted it! If you want to use that loyalty, you must take advantage of that love of country which is a religion in India, and you must give them that bigger opportunity of controlling their own destinies, not merely by Councils which cannot act, but by control, by growing control, of the Executive itself. Then in your next War—if we ever have War—in your next crisis, through times of peace, you will have a contented India, an India equipped to help. Believe me, Mr. Speaker, it is not a question of expediency, it is not a question of desirability. Unless you are prepared to remodel, in the light of modern experience, this century-old and cumberous machine, then, I believe, I verily believe, that you will lose your right to control the destinies of the Indian Empire.”

The quick and resourceful mind of Premier Lloyd George at once grasped the situation. He lost no time in deciding what was needed. Probably over the head of his Tory colleagues, possibly with their consent, he gave the Indian portfolio to Mr. Montagu, and told him quietly to set to business. Mr. Montagu’s first step was the announcement of August 20, 1917. On that date he made in the House of Commons the following memorable statement: