India, Old and New

by Sir Valentine Chirol

The atmosphere was thus cleared before the Assembly approached another and only less delicate question. Some time before the Budget disclosed the heavy military expenditure to be defrayed out of Indian revenues, the recommendations of the Committee appointed under the presidency of Lord Esher to inquire into the administration and organisation of the army in India had caused widespread alarm. There were peculiar circumstances connected with the Committee's Report which were calculated to excite Indian suspicion. The first part, which laid down the general principles in regard to organisation and administration, was drawn up in London and received the approval of the Secretary of State for India before the British members of the Committee proceeded to India, where their Indian colleagues for the first time joined them, whilst the President, Lord Esher, himself never went to India at all. To carry out these principles the Report stated that "the centre of gravity of probable military operations has shifted from West to East. In the future we must contemplate the possibility of our armies operating in the Middle East based partially in India and partially at home.... India has now been admitted into partnership with the Empire, and the Indian Army has fought alongside of troops from other parts of the Empire in every theatre of war. Its responsibilities have thus been greatly widened, and it can no longer be regarded as a local force whose sphere of activity is limited to India and the surrounding frontier territories. It must rather be treated as a part of the Imperial Army ready to serve in any part of the world." Indians interpreted the Report as an attempt on the part of the British War Office to throw upon the Indian Exchequer the cost of a larger army than would be required merely for Indian defence whilst keeping it under its own control for employment at the discretion of British Ministers far beyond the frontiers of India. Official assurances were given both in India and at home that an exaggerated construction had been placed on the meaning of the Report, to which, moreover, neither the British Government nor the Government of India was officially committed, and that in any case Indian troops would not be required to serve outside India except with the consent of the Government of India. These assurances did not prevent the Assembly from passing two Resolutions in which it embodied its strong protests. The second part of the Report, containing practical recommendations for the reorganisation of the Indian Army, and alone based on the results of the inquiry actually conducted in India, was far less criticised.

The army estimates themselves would have been enough to cause dismay even if the estimates of other departments, upon which the Indian public looks with more favour, had not clearly been pruned down with more than usual parsimony to meet the large increase in military expenditure. But Lord Rawlinson, who had done his utmost to reduce them to the extreme limit of safety as he conceived it in existing circumstances, wisely decided to take the Assembly as far as possible into his confidence, and to explain the requirements of the military situation not only from his seat on the Government bench but in private conferences, at which members were freely invited to meet him and his advisers. If he did not altogether convince them, he gave them food for reflection at a time when not only our own North-West Frontier but the whole of Central Asia is still in a state of turmoil, Persia a very doubtful quantity, and the Ameer of Afghanistan far more eager to sign a treaty of alliance with Soviet Russia than to bring to a friendly conclusion the long-drawn negotiations which the Government of India has sent the head of its foreign department to conduct at Kabul. The appointment of a Committee to visit the North-West Frontier and to study the situation on the spot was admirably calculated to carry the practical education of Indian legislators a long step farther. In regard to other matters, too, Government gave and gained time for reflection by referring them, before committing itself to any definite pronouncement of policy, to special committees in which points at issue could be thrashed out much more effectively and with less heat than if only discussed in full house.

Nothing, however, could alter the awkward fact that Government had been compelled to confront the Legislative Assembly at its first session with a Budget showing a deficit and making calls upon the Indian tax-payer absolutely unprecedented in the annals of British-Indian State finance. The deficit amounted to nearly 19 crores of rupees on a Budget of 130 crores,[3] and the Financial Member, Mr. Hailey, who had only recently succeeded to the financial department, had to admit that the deficit could only be met by increased taxation. That the estimates of the previous year had been so largely exceeded was due beyond dispute to the growth of military expenditure, which, for the current financial year, has been put down at 62 crores, or very nearly half the total expenditure for which provision has to be made. This Budget, moreover, not only came at a time of general economic depression, but coincided with the operation of the new financial arrangements between the Provinces and the Government of India, which have deprived the latter of the facilities it had formerly for mitigating its own financial necessities by adjusting to them the doles paid out of the Central Exchequer to the several Provincial Exchequers. Under the new system various revenues have been definitely allocated to the Provincial Governments for their own free disposal, and in return they have to make fixed annual contributions to the Central Exchequer. These contributions are in no case to be subject to increase in the future, but on the contrary to be reduced gradually and to cease at the earliest possible moment compatible with the irreducible requirements of the Government of India. The Act of 1919, it is true, transfers to the Indian Legislature no direct or complete statutory control over revenue and expenditure, and powers are still vested in the Government of India to override the Assembly in cases of emergency and to enact supplies which it refuses if the Governor-General in Council certifies them to be essential to the peace, tranquillity, and interests of India. But the fact that there was a deficit which could only be met by increased taxation offered exceptional opportunities which might easily have been used for embarrassing obstruction by a young and immature chamber naturally concerned for its own popularity. Even a direct conflict between the Government and the Assembly might not have been impossible, and the consequences would have been lamentable. For if the Government of India had been driven to use its statutory powers to impose taxation and secure supplies in opposition to the Legislature during its very first session, all the hopes of friendly co-operation based on the new constitution would have been wrecked far more disastrously and permanently than by any "Non-co-operation" movement. The Legislative Assembly was wise enough to exercise its rights with sufficient insistence to show that it was conscious of them, but never to strain them. It did not refrain from criticism of almost every department in turn or from motions to reduce the official estimates for them. Many of the criticisms were sound, and some of the reductions were accepted by Government. Mr. Hailey handled a delicate situation with unfailing patience and skill. Even in regard to new taxation he endeavoured to meet, as far as the exigencies of the Budget allowed, the objections of the Assembly to such increases as, for instance, higher postal rates, which press most heavily on the least well-to-do classes. Nothing, however, helped him so much to get his Budget through without a serious conflict as the decision of the Government to seek in an increase of the import duties over two-thirds of the new revenue to be raised to meet the deficit. For there Government took up common ground with Indian opinion on fiscal matters and carried into effect the principle laid down by the Select Joint Committee on the Reforms Bill, and endorsed by the Secretary of State, that the Government of India must be granted the same liberty to devise Indian tariff arrangements on a consideration of Indian interests as all other self-governing parts of the Empire enjoy. If the Assembly did not see altogether eye to eye with Government as to the necessity for all this increased expenditure and increased taxation, its objections were at least mitigated by a form of increased taxation in which it saw the first step towards fiscal autonomy. In this as in every other question with which the Legislature had to deal, the Government of India showed its willingness to accept as far as possible the guidance of Indian opinion and to act as a national Indian Government, and not merely as the supreme executive authority under the Government of the United Kingdom.

On those terms the Assembly was prepared to take into account the difficulties and responsibilities inherited by Government from past policies from which no sudden departure was possible, or desired even, by responsible Indians who recognise the present limitations of their experience as well as of their rights. Government and Legislature therefore parted in mutual goodwill and with increased confidence in the value of the new policy of co-operation. But the Legislature has only just commenced to realise the extent of its powers, expressed and implied. The latter stretch almost immeasurably farther than the former. Indian-elected members form a large majority in the Legislative Assembly, which has already so largely overshadowed the Council of State that it will probably be difficult for the upper house to exercise over the more popular chamber the corrective influence originally contemplated. The Government of India, of course, retains its great statutory powers, but these could hardly be exercised again in uncompromising opposition to the opinion of the majority of the Assembly now that out of eight members of the Viceroy's Executive Council, which, with him, forms the Government of India, no less than three are Indians, who would presumably be often more amenable than their British colleagues to the pressure of Indian opinion. Under the Act of 1919 the Government of India is not responsible to the Assembly. That may come in a later stage, it has not come yet. But one may rest already assured that only in extreme cases, and if the majority shows itself far more irresponsible than it has yet given the slightest reason to fear, is Government likely to risk a cleavage between British and Indian members of the Viceroy's Executive Council, or to rely on the fact that no vote of the Assembly can remove it from office, to provoke or face a conflict of which the consequences would extend far beyond the walls of the Legislature. This is a powerful lever of which Indians may quickly learn the use.

In another important direction the first session of the Legislature bore out Sir Thomas Munro's view, expressed, as we have already seen, a hundred years ago, that in India as elsewhere liberal treatment will be found the most effectual way of elevating the character of the people. Nothing perhaps has tended more to alienate the sympathies of Englishmen from the political aspirations which the founders of the Indian National Congress were bent upon promoting than the subordination of social to political reforms. There remained always some distinguished Indians who ensued both—notably Mr. Gokhale, who founded the society of "the Servants of India," dedicated chiefly to social reform, of which the beneficent activities have expanded steadily throughout a decade of political turmoil. His mantle fell on no unworthy shoulders, and it is a good omen that his chief disciple, Mr. Srinivasa Sastri, has become the leader of the Moderate party in the Council of State, as well as one of the Indian representatives at the recent Imperial Conference in London. A similar spirit informs the numerous associations that have addressed themselves, though with perhaps less success so far, to the more glaring evils of the Hindu religious social system, such as infant marriage, the prohibition of re-marriage of widows, the rigidity of caste laws in regard to inter-caste marriage, and to intercourse between the different castes even at meals. Many interesting experiments have been made by Indians for infusing into education a new moral tone and discipline on Indian lines, and it is due to Indian effort no less than to the encouragement of Government that female education has begun to bridge over the intellectual gulf that tended to separate more and more the men and the women of the Western-educated classes. In Madras, to quote only one instance, there is to-day a high school for girls—almost unthinkable two decades ago and only opened ten years ago—in which high-caste Brahman girls live under the same roof and are taught in the same class-rooms as not only Hindu girls of the non-Brahman castes, but Mahomedan and native Christian and Eurasian girls from all parts of the Presidency, and the only real difficulty now experienced is in the traditional matter of food, and it is circumvented, if not overcome, by providing seven different kitchens and seven different messes.

The last attempt on the part of the Government to promote social reforms by way of legislation was Lord Lansdowne's "Age of Consent" Bill thirty years ago, and though it was carried through in spite of the violent opposition of Hindu orthodoxy, which then brought Mr. Tilak into public life as its leader, an alien Government pledged to complete neutrality in social and religious matters shrank after that unpleasant experience from assuming the lead in such matters without having at least the preponderating bulk of Indian opinion behind it. Not the least noteworthy event of the first session of the Indian Legislature was the introduction by Dr. Gour, a Hindu member from the Central Provinces, of a private Bill legalising civil marriage which British Indian law so far recognises only between a Christian and a non-Christian, though the Indian States of Baroda and Indore have legalised them for all their subjects. Sir Henry Maine wished to move, as far back as 1868, in this direction when he was Law Member of the Government of India, but to meet even then a fierce orthodox opposition the provisions of the Bill finally enacted in 1872 were so whittled down as to make it practically useless, and it was almost nullified when it came up for interpretation by the Privy Council. The question does in fact involve many material as well as social and religious considerations, as matters of personal law are largely governed by ancient custom in the different communities, and the point at issue was whether it is possible for a Hindu to cease to be subject to Hindu law. More recent attempts to make civil marriage lawful have failed hopelessly. Dr. Gour has had the courage to appeal to the more liberal spirit for which the new reforms stand, and he defended his Bill, which is only a permissive Bill, on the grounds that any measure calculated to break down the ancient barriers between races and creeds and communities must tend to strengthen the sense of national solidarity of which the new Indian Legislature is the expression. It remains yet to be seen what will be the fate of his Bill, but its introduction is in itself not one of the least hopeful signs of the times.

If one turns from the Government of India to the new Provincial Governments and Councils the outlook is, on the whole, not less encouraging. The statutory powers of the Provincial Councils are more definite and can be brought more directly to bear upon Government, but they are not likely to be exercised in any extravagant fashion until time has shown how Indian Ministers discharge their responsibilities to the Councils and how the two wings of the new Provincial Governments work together. In fact, the policy, wisely adopted by Provincial Governors, of treating the two wings of their Government as equally associated with them in a common task of governance, has robbed the distinction between "reserved" and "transferred" subjects, if not of all reality, at any rate of the invidious appearance of discrimination which might otherwise have attached to the word "dyarchy." As one Provincial Governor remarked to me, "We are in reality skipping the dyarchy stage." Indian Ministers, kept fully informed and drawn into consultation on all subjects, are learning to understand the difficulties of government and administration of which, as outside critics, they had little notion, and to value the experience and knowledge which their European colleagues and subordinates freely place at their disposal, whilst the latter benefit both from hearing the Indian point of view and from having to explain and justify their own. Economic depression and financial stringency cannot, however, but react unfavourably upon the new system in the Provinces as well as at Delhi, for all the more practical reforms in which the ordinary Indian elector, whether politically minded or otherwise, is most closely interested, and for which he has been looking to the new Provincial Councils, require money, and a great deal of money. There is a universal demand for more elementary schools, more road-making, more sanitation, a more strenuous fight against malaria, a greater extension of local government and village councils' activities, and the demand cannot be met except by more expenditure. The Indian Ministers and Indian members of the Provincial Councils have to face unpopularity whether by postponing much-needed reforms or by imposing new taxation in order to carry them out. A great many of the best men have naturally been attracted to Delhi, but though the proceedings in the Provincial Councils have more frequently betrayed impatience and inexperience, and sometimes required the monitory intervention of the Governor, they have played on the whole creditably the important part allotted to them in this great constitutional experiment.

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. The moment when the Government of India is departing from its autocratic traditions and transferring a large part of its powers throughout British India into the hands of representative assemblies which are to pave the way towards the democratic goal of responsible government, seems scarcely well chosen for the creation of a Chamber which must give greater cohesion, and potentially greater power to resist the spirit of the age, to a body of ruling Princes and Chiefs who all stand in varying degrees for archaic forms of despotic government and whose peoples have for the most part stood hitherto entirely outside the political life of British India.

The Native States, as they are commonly called, scattered over nearly the whole length and breadth of the Indian Empire, cover altogether more than a third of its total area and include nearly a quarter of its total population. Some of them can compare in size and wealth with the smaller States of Europe. Some are but insignificant specks on the map. Great and small, there are several hundreds of them. Their relations with the Paramount Power, which have been not inaptly described as those of subordinate alliance, are governed by treaties and engagements of which the terms are not altogether uniform. The essence is in all cases the maintenance of their administrative autonomy under their own dynastic rulers whose hereditary rights and privileges are permanently guaranteed to them, subject to their loyalty to the British Crown and to reasonably good government. The Princes and Chiefs who rule over them—some well, a few rather badly, most of them perhaps indifferently; some Hindus, some Mahomedans; some still very conservative and almost mediaeval, some on genuinely progressive lines; some with a mere veneer of European modernity—are all equally jealous of their rights and their dignity. The Native States cannot, however, live wholly in water-tight compartments. They must be more or less directly affected by what goes on in British India just across their own often very artificial boundaries. Their material interests are too closely bound up with those of their British-Indian neighbours. In many matters, e.g. railways, posts, telegraphs, irrigation, etc., they are in a great measure dependent upon, and must fall into line with, British India. Their peoples—even those who do not go to British India for their education or for larger opportunities of livelihood—are being slowly influenced by the currents of thought which flow in from British India.

Political unrest cannot always or permanently be halted at their frontier, though His Exalted Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad, whose ways are still largely those of the Moghuls, has not hesitated, albeit himself a Mahomedan Prince, to proscribe all Khilafat agitation within his territory. The Extremist Press has already very frequently denounced ruling Princes and Chiefs as obstacles to the democratic evolution of a Swaraj India which will have to be removed, and if the Nagpur Congress pronounced against extending its propaganda to the Native States, it did so only "for the present" and on grounds of pure and avowed expediency. Apart from the menace of Indian Extremism, there must obviously be a fundamental conflict of ideals between ruling Chiefs bent on preserving their independent political entity and the aspirations towards national unity entertained by the moderate Indian Nationalists whose influence is sure to predominate over all the old traditions of Indian governance if the new reforms are successful. Some Princes are wise enough to swim with the current and have introduced rudimentary councils and representative assemblies which at any rate provide a modern façade for their own patriarchal systems of government. But all are more or less conscious that their own position is being profoundly modified by constitutional changes in British India, which must, and indeed are intended to, alter the very character of the Government representing the Paramount Power to whose authority they owe their own survival since the beginning of British rule. Their survival has indeed always been an anomaly, though hitherto, on the whole, equally creditable to the British Raj that preserved them from extinction in the old days of stress and storm and to the rulers who have justified British statesmanship by their fine loyalty. But in a democratised and self-governing India it might easily become a much more palpable anomaly.