The Political Future of India

by Lala Lajpat Rai

The questions of franchise and special and communal representation have been entrusted to a special committee the report of which is shortly expected. The same committee will also decide how many official members there will be on each Legislative Council. It is provided that the Governor shall be the President of the Council and will have the power to nominate a Vice-president from the official members. As to the effect of resolutions it is said that “we do not propose that resolutions, whether on reserved or transferred subjects should be binding.”

The classification of the reserved and transferred subjects was also left to a special committee which has since concluded its labours and whose report is awaited with interest.

Legislation on reserved subjects:

“For the purpose of enabling the provincial Government to get through its legislation on reserved subjects, we propose that the head of the Government should have power to certify that a Bill dealing with a reserved subject is a measure ‘essential to the discharge of his responsibility for the peace or tranquillity of the province or of any part thereof, or for the discharge of his responsibility for the reserved subjects.’... The Bill will be read and its general principles discussed in the full legislative council. It will at this stage be open to the council by a majority vote to request the Governor to refer to the Government of India, whose decision on the point shall be final, on the question whether the certified Bill deals with a reserved subject. If no such reference is made, or if the Government of India decide that the certificate has been properly given, the Bill will then be automatically referred to a Grand Committee of the council. Its composition should reproduce as nearly as possible the proportion of the various elements in the larger body ... the grand committee in every council should be constituted so as to comprise from 40 to 50 per cent. of its strength. It should be chosen for each Bill, partly by election by ballot, and partly by nomination. The Governor should have power to nominate a bare majority exclusive of himself. Of the members so nominated not more than two-thirds should be officials, and the elected element should be elected ad hoc by the elected members of the council on the system of the transferable vote.”

“On reference to the grand committee, the Bill will be debated by that body in the ordinary course, if necessary referred to a select committee, to which body we think that the grand committee should have power to appoint any member of the legislative council whether a member of the grand committee or not. The select committee will, as at present, have power to take evidence. Then, after being debated in the grand committee and modified as may be determined, the Bill will be reported to the whole council. The council will have the right to discuss the Bill again generally, but will not be able to reject it, or to amend it except on the motion of a member of the executive council. The Governor will then appoint a time limit within which the Bill may be debated in the council, and on its expiry it will pass automatically. But during such discussion the council will have the right to pass a resolution recording any objection which refers to the principle or details of the measure (but not, of course, to the certificate of its character), and any such resolution will accompany the Act when, after being signed by the Governor, it is submitted to the Governor General and the Secretary of State.”

Provincial Budget: “... the provincial budget should be framed by the executive Government as a whole. The first charge on provincial revenues will be the contribution to the Government of India; and after that the supply for the reserved subjects will have priority. The allocation of supply for the transferred subjects will be decided by the ministers. If the revenue is insufficient for their needs, the question of new taxation will be decided by the Governor and the ministers. We are bound to recognise that in time new taxation will be necessary, for no conceivable economies can finance the new developments which are to be anticipated. The budget will then be laid before the council which will discuss it and vote by resolution upon the allotments. If the legislative council rejects or modifies the proposed allotment for reserved subjects, the Governor should have power to insist on the whole or any part of the allotment originally provided, if for reasons to be stated he certifies its necessity in the terms which we have already suggested. We are emphatically of opinion that the Governor in Council must be empowered to obtain the supply which he declares to be necessary for the discharge of his responsibilities. Except in so far as the Governor exercises this power the budget would be altered in accordance with the resolutions carried in council.”

Modification of the Scheme by the Government of India. “After five years’ time from the first meeting of the reformed councils we suggest that the Government of India should hear applications from either the provincial Government or the provincial council for the modification of the reserved and transferred lists of the province; and that, after considering the evidence laid before them, they should recommend for the approval of the Secretary of State the transfer of such further subjects to the transferred list as they think desirable. On the other hand, if it should be made plain to them that certain functions have been seriously maladministered, it will be open to them, with the sanction of the Secretary of State, to retransfer subjects from the transferred to the reserved list, or to place restrictions for the future on the minister’s powers in respect of certain transferred subjects.... But it is also desirable to complete the responsibility of the ministers for the transferred subjects. This should come in one of two ways, either at the initiative of the council if it desires and is prepared to exercise greater control over the ministers, or at the discretion of the Government of India, which may wish to make this change as a condition of the grant of new, or of the maintainance of existing, powers. We propose, therefore, that the Government of India may, when hearing such applications, direct that the ministers’ salaries, instead of any longer being treated as a reserved subject, and, therefore, protected in the last resort by the Governor’s order from interference should be specifically voted each year by the legislative council; or, failing such direction by the Government of India, it should be open to the councils at that time or subsequently to demand by resolution that such ministers’ salaries should be so voted, and the Government of India should thereupon give effect to such request.”

Periodic commissions: ... Ten years after the first meeting of the new councils established under the Statute a commission should be appointed to review the position. Criticism has been expressed in the past of the composition of Royal Commissions, and it is our intention that the commission which we suggest should be regarded as authoritative and should derive its authority from Parliament itself. The names of the commissioners, therefore, should be submitted by the Secretary of State to both Houses of Parliament for approval by resolution. The commissioners’ mandate should be to consider whether by the end of the term of the legislature then in existence it would be possible to establish complete responsible government in any province or provinces, or how far it would be possible to approximate it in others; to advise on the continued reservation of any departments for the transfer of which to popular control it has been proved to their satisfaction that the time had not yet come; to recommend the retransfer of other matters to the control of the Governor in Council if serious maladministration were established; and to make any recommendations for the working of responsible government or the improvement of the constitutional machinery which experience of the systems in operation may show to be desirable....

“There are several other important matters, germane in greater or less degree to our main purpose, which the commission should review. They should investigate the progress made in admitting Indians into the higher ranks of the public service. They should examine the apportionment of the financial burden of India with a view to adjusting it more fairly between the provinces. The commission should also examine the development of education among the people and the progress and working of local self-governing bodies. Lastly the commission should consider the working of the franchise and the constitution of electorates, including the important matter of the retention of communal representation. Indeed, we regard the development of a broad franchise as the arch on which the edifice of self-government must be raised; for we have no intention that our reforms should result merely in the transfer of powers from a bureaucracy to an oligarchy....”

“In proposing the appointment of a commission ten years after the new Act takes effect we wish to guard against possible misunderstanding. We would not be taken as implying that there can be established by that time complete responsible government in the provinces. In many of the provinces no such consummation can follow in the time named. The pace will be everywhere unequal, though progress in one province will always stimulate progress elsewhere; but undue expectations might be aroused, if we indicated any opinion as to the degree of approximation to complete self-government that might be reached even in one or two of the most advanced provinces. The reasons that make complete responsibility at present impossible are likely to continue operative in some degree even after a decade.”