_ CHAPTER VI. HINDUS AND MAHOMETANS
(AT THE INDIA OFFICE. JANUARY, 1909)
[A deputation of the London Branch of the All-Indian Moslem League waited upon the Secretary of State, in order to represent to him the views of the Mussulmans of India on the projected Indian reforms.]
I am delighted to meet you to-day, because I have always felt in my political experience, now pretty long, that it is when face answers to face that you come best to points of controversial issue. I have listened to the able speech of my friend Mr. Ameer Ali and to the speech that followed, with close attention, not merely for the sake of the arguments upon the special points raised, but because the underlying feeling and the animating spirit of the two speeches are full of encouragement. Why? Because instead of any hostile attitude to our reforms as a whole, I find that you welcome them cordially and with gratitude. I cannot say with what satisfaction I receive that announcement. If you will allow me, I will, before I come to the special points, say a few words upon the general position.
It is only five weeks, I think, since our scheme was launched, and I am bound to say that at the end of those five weeks the position may fairly be described as hopeful and promising. I do not think that the millennium will come in five more weeks, nor in fifty weeks; but I do say that for a scheme of so wide a scope to be received as this scheme has been received, is a highly encouraging sign. It does not follow that because we have launched our ship with a slant of fair wind, this means the same thing as getting into harbour. There are plenty of difficult points that we have got to settle. But when I try from my conning-tower in this office, to read the signs in the political skies, I am full of confidence. The great thing is that in every party both in India and at home--in every party, and every section, and every group--there is a recognition of the magnitude and the gravity of the enterprise on which we have embarked. I studied very closely the proceedings at Madras, and the proceedings at Amritsar, and in able speeches made in both those places I find a truly political spirit in the right sense of the word--in the sense of perspective and proportion--which I sometimes wish could be imitated by some of my political friends nearer home. I mean that issues, important enough but upon which there is some difference, are put aside--for the time only, if you like, but still put aside--in face of the magnitude of the issues that we present to you in these reforms. On Monday, in
The Times newspaper, there was a long and most interesting communication from Bombay, written, I believe, by a gentleman of very wide Indian knowledge and level-headed humour. What does he say? He takes account of the general position as he found it in India shortly after my Despatch arrived. "I might have dwelt," he says, "upon the fact that I have not met a single official who does not admit that some changes which should gratify Indian longings were necessary, and I might have expatiated upon the abounding evidence that Lord Morley's despatch and speech have unquestionably eased a tension which had become exceedingly alarming." That is a most important thing, and I believe Parliament has fully recognised it.
We cannot fold our arms and say that things are to go on as they did before, and I rejoice to see what this gentleman says. He is talking of officials, and I always felt from the beginning that if we did not succeed in carrying with us the goodwill of that powerful service, there would be reason for suspecting that we were wrong upon the merits, and even if we were not wrong on the merits, there would be reason for apprehending formidable difficulties. I have myself complete confidence in them. I see in some journals of my own party suspicions thrown upon the loyalty of that service to his Majesty's Government of the day. It is absurd to think anything of the kind. If our policy and our proposals receive the approval of Parliament and the approval of officials, such as those spoken of in
The Times the other day, I am perfectly sure there will be no more want of goodwill and zeal on the part of the Indian Civil Service, than there would be in the officers of his Majesty's Fleet, or his Majesty's Army. It would be just the same. I should like to read another passage from
The Times letter:--"It would probably be incorrect to say that the bulk of the Civil Service in the Bombay Presidency are gravely apprehensive. Most of them are not unnaturally anxious"--I agree; it is perfectly natural that they should be anxious--"but the main officials in whose judgment most confidence can be placed, regard the future with the buoyant hopefulness without which an Englishman in India is lost indeed." All that is reassuring, and no sign nor whisper reaches me that any responsible man or any responsible section or creed, either in India or here, has any desire whatever to wreck our scheme. And let me go further. Statesmen abroad showing themselves capable of reflection, are watching us with interest and wishing us well. Take the remarkable utterance of President Roosevelt the other day at Washington. And if we turn from Washington to Eastern Europe, I know very well that any injustice, any suspicion that we were capable of being unjust, to Mahomedans in India, would certainly provoke a severe and injurious reaction in Constantinople. I am alive to all these things. Mr. Ameer Ali said he was sure the Secretary of State would mete out just and equitable treatment to all interests, if their views were fairly laid before him. He did me no more than justice.
The Government are entirely zealous and in earnest, acting in thorough good faith, in the desire to press forward these proposals. I may tell you that our Bill is now quite ready. I shall introduce it at the first minute after the Address is over, and, when it reaches the Commons, it will be pressed forward with all the force and resolution that Parliamentary conditions permit. These are not mere pious opinions or academic reforms; they are proposals that are to take Parliamentary shape at the earliest possible moment; and after taking Parliamentary shape, no time will, I know, be lost in India in bringing them as rapidly as possible into practical operation.
Now the first point Mr. Ameer Ali made was upon the unfairness to the members of the Mahomedan community, caused by reckoning in the Hindu census a large multitude of men who are not entitled to be there. I submit that it is not very easy--and I have gone into the question very carefully--to divide these lower castes and to classify them. Statisticians would be charged with putting too many into either one or the other division, wherever you choose to draw the line. I know the force of the argument, and am willing to attach to it whatever weight it deserves. I wish some of my friends in this country would study the figures of what are called the lower castes, because they would then see the enormous difficulty and absurdity of applying to India the same principles that are excellent guides to us Westerns who have been bred on the pure milk of the Benthamite word--one man one vote and every man a vote. That dream, by the way, is not quite realised even in this country; but the idea of insisting on a principle of that sort is irrational to anybody who reflects on this multiplicity and variety of race and castes.
Then there is the question of the joint electorate--what is called the mixed electoral college. I was very glad to read this paragraph in the paper that you were good enough to send to me. You recognise the very principle that was at the back of our minds, when we came to the conclusion about mixed electoral college. You say:--"In common with other well-wishers of India, the Committee look forward to a time when the development of a true spirit of compromise, or the fusion of the races, may make principles indicated by his Lordship capable of practical application without sacrificing the interests of any of the nationalities, or giving political ascendency to one to the disadvantage of the others. But the Committee venture to think that, however ready the country may be for constitutional reforms, the interests of the two great communities of India must be considered and dealt with separately." Therefore, to begin with, the difference between us in principle about the joint electorate is only this: we are guilty of nothing worse than that we were premature, in the views of these gentlemen--we were impatient idealists. You say to me, "It is very fine; we hope it will all come true; but you are premature; we must wait." Still, though premature, I observe that your own suggestion in one of those papers adopts and accepts the principle of the scheme outlined in our despatch. It is quite true to say, "Oh, but you are vague in your despatch." Yes, a despatch is not a Bill. A Minister writing a despatch does not put in all the clauses and sections and subsections and schedules. It is the business of a Minister composing a despatch like mine of November 27, 1908, to indicate only general lines--general enough to make the substance and body of the scheme intelligible, but still general. I should like to say a word about the despatch. It is constantly assumed that in the despatch we prescribed and ordered the introduction of the joint electoral college. If any of you will be good enough to look at the words, you will find that no language of that sort--no law of the Medes and Persians--is to be found in it. If you refer to paragraph 12 you will see that our language is this:--
"I suggest for your consideration that the object in view might be better secured, at any rate in the more advanced provinces in India, by a modification of the system of popular electorate founded on the principle of electoral colleges."
You see it was merely a suggestion thrown out for the Government of India, not a direction of the Mede and Persian stamp. You say, "That for the purpose of electing members to the Provincial Councils, electoral colleges should be constituted on lines suggested by his Lordship, composed exclusively of Mahomedans whose numbers and mode of grouping should be fixed by executive authority." This comes within the principle of my despatch, and we shall see--I hope very speedily--whether the Government of India discover objections to its practicability. Mark, electoral colleges "composed exclusively of Mahomedans whose members and mode of grouping should be fixed by executive authority"--that is a proposition which is not outside the despatch. Whether practicable or not, it is a matter for discussion between us here and the Government in India.
The aim of the Government and yours is identical--that there shall be (to quote Mr. Ameer Ali's words) "adequate, real, and genuine Mahomedan representation." Now, where is the difference between us? The machinery we commended, you do not think possible. As I have told you, the language of the despatch does not insist upon a mixed electoral college. It would be no departure in substance from the purpose of our suggestion, that there should be a separate Mahomedan electorate--an electorate exclusively Mahomedan; and in view of the wide and remote distances, and difficulties of organisation in consequence of those distances in the area constituting a large province, I am not sure that this is not one of those cases where election by two stages would not be convenient, and so there might be a separate electoral college exclusively Mahomedan. That is, I take it, in accordance with your own proposal. There are various methods by which it could be done. In the first place, an election exclusively Mahomedan might be direct into the legislative council. To this it may be said that it would be impossible by reason of distance. In the second place, you could have an election by separate communities to a local board, and the local board should be the electoral college, the Mahomedans separating themselves from the other members of the board for that purpose. Thirdly, the members of the local board, the communities being separate in the same way, could return a member for the electoral college. Fourthly, you might have a direct election to an electoral college by the community, and this electoral college would return a representative to the legislative council. These, you see, are four different expedients which well deserve consideration for attaining our end.
I go to the next point, the apprehensions lest if we based our system on numerical strength alone, a great injustice would be done to your community. Of course we all considered that, from the Viceroy downwards. Whether your apprehensions are well founded or not, it is the business of those who call themselves statesmen to take those apprehensions into account, and to do the best we can in setting up a working system to allay and meet such apprehensions. If you take numerical strength as your basis, in the Punjab and Eastern Bengal Mahomedans are in a decisive majority. In the Punjab the Moslem population is 53 per cent. to 38 per cent. Hindu. In Eastern Bengal 58 per cent. are Moslem and 37 per cent. are Hindu. Therefore, in those two provinces, on the numerical basis alone, the Mahomedans will secure sufficient representation. In Madras, on the other hand, the Hindus are 89 per cent. against 6 per cent. of Moslems, and, therefore, numbers would give no adequate representation to Moslem opinion. In Bombay the Moslems are in the ratio of 3-3/4 to 14 millions--20 per cent. to 77 per cent. The conditions are very complex in Bombay, and I need not labour the details of this complexity. I am inclined to agree with those who think that it might be left to the local Government to take other elements into view required or suggested by local conditions. Coming to the United Provinces, there the Moslems are 6-3/4 millions to 40-3/4 Hindus--14 per cent. to 85 per cent. This ratio of numerical strength no more represents the proportion in the elements of weight and importance, than in Eastern Bengal does the Hindu ratio of 37 per cent. to 58 per cent. of Moslems. You may set off each of those two cases against the other. Then there is the great province of Bengal, where the Moslems are one-quarter of the Hindus--9 millions to 39 millions--18 per cent. to 77 per cent.
We all see, then, that the problem presents extraordinary difficulty. How are you going in a case like the United Provinces, for example, to secure that adequate and substantial representation, which it is the interest and the desire of the Government for its own sake to secure. No fair-minded Moslem would deny in Eastern Bengal, any more than a fair-minded non-Moslem would deny it in the United Provinces, that there is no easy solution. You see, gentlemen, I do not despair of finding a fair-minded man in a controversy of this kind. From information that reaches me I do not at all despair of meeting fair-minded critics of both communities, in spite of the sharp antagonism that exists on many matters between them. But, whatever may be the case with Mahomedans and Hindus, there is one body of men who are bound to keep a fair mind, and that is the Government. The Government are bound, whatever you may do among yourselves, strictly, and I will even say sternly, to insist on overcoming all obstacles in a spirit of absolute equity. Now, what is the object of the Government? It is that the Legislative Councils should represent truly and effectively, with a reasonable approach to the balance of real social forces, the wishes and needs of the communities themselves. That is the object of the Government, and in face of a great problem of that kind, algebra, arithmetic, geometry, logic--none of these things will do your business for you. You have to look at it widely and away from those sciences, excellent in their place, but not of much service when you are solving awkward political riddles. I think if you allow some method of leaving to a local authority the power of adding to the number of representatives from the Mahomedan community, or the Hindu community, as the case may be, that might be a possible and prudent way of getting through this embarrassment. Let us all be clear of one thing, namely--and I thought of this when I heard one or two observations that fell from Mr. Ameer Ali--that no general proposition can be wisely based on the possession by either community, either of superior civil qualities or superior personal claims. If you begin to introduce that element, you perceive the perils to that peace and mutual goodwill which we hope to emerge by-and-by, though it may take longer than some think. I repeat that I see no harm from the point of view of a practical working compromise, in the principle that population, or numerical strength, should be the main factor in determining how many representatives should sit for this or the other community; but modifying influences may be both wisely and equitably taken into account in allotting the numbers of such representatives.
As regards Indian members on the Executive Council, if you will allow me to say so, I think it was dubious tactics in you to bring that question forward. We were told by those who object, for instance, to my recommending to the Crown an Indian member of the Viceroy's Executive--that it will never do; that if you choose a man of one community, the other will demand a second. The Executive Council in all--this will not be in the Bill--consists of six members. Suppose there were to be two vacancies, and I were to recommend to the Crown the appointment of one Mahomedan and one Hindu, the effect would be that of the six gentlemen one-third would be non-English. You may think that all right, but it would be a decidedly serious step. Suppose you say you will bring in a Bill, then, for the purpose of appointing an extra member always to be an Indian. That is much more easily said than done. I am talking perfectly plainly. You would not get such a Bill. I want to talk even more plainly. I want to say that reference to the Hindu community or the Mahomedan community, in respect to the position of the Viceroy's Executive, is entirely wide of the mark in the view, I know, both of the Viceroy and of myself. If, as I have already said I expect, it may be my duty by-and-by to recommend to the Crown the name of an Indian member, it will not be solely for the sake of placing on the Viceroy's Executive Council an Indian member simply as either a Hindu or a Mahomedan. Decidedly we are of opinion that the Governor-General in Council will be all the more likely to transact business wisely, if he has a responsible Indian adviser at his elbow. But the principle in making such a recommendation to the Crown, would be to remove the apparent disability in practice--for there is no disability in law--of an Indian holding a certain appointment because he is an Indian. That is a principle we do not accept; and the principle I should go upon--and I know Lord Minto would say exactly the same--is the desirability of demonstrating that we hold to the famous promise made in the proclamation of Queen Victoria in 1858, that if a man is fully qualified in proved ability and character to fill a certain post, he shall not be shut out by race or religious faith. There is a very great deal more to be said on this most important subject; but to-day I need only tell you--which I do with all respect, without complaining of what you have said, and without denying that in practical usage some day there may be means of alternation for meeting your difficulty--I see no chance whatever of our being able to comply with your present request.
I have endeavoured to meet you as fairly as I possibly could. I assure you again we are acting in earnest, with zeal and entire good faith; and any suggestion that any member of the Government, either in this office or the Government of India, has any prejudice whatever against Mahomedans, for the purposes of political administration in India, is one of the idlest and most wicked misapprehensions that could possibly enter into the political mind. I am greatly encouraged by having met you. I am sure that you speak in the name of important bodies of your own countrymen and of your own community. I am sure that you are going to look at our proposals in a fair and reasonable spirit, and give us credit for a desire to do the best that we possibly can in the interests of all the communities in India, including also the interests of the British Government. I can only tell you further, that if this action of ours fails, miscarries, and is wrecked, it will be a considerable time before another opportunity occurs. You will never again--I do not care whether the time be long or be short--you will never again have the combination of a Secretary of State and a Viceroy, who are more thoroughly in earnest in their desire to improve Indian government, and to do full justice to every element of the Indian population. _