Vol. 2 · pages 346–350

327PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE be a constitutional head. But the Joint Report made it quite clear that he was not to be reduced to that position. They expressly stated, “We do not contemplate that from the outset the Governor should occupy the position of a purely constitutional Governor who is bound to accept the decision of his ministers. We reserved to him the power of control because we regard him as generally responsible for his administration”. Nor did the Joint Parliamentary Committee recommend that he should work as a constitutional Governor. The Committee distinctly stated in paragraph 5 of their Report that the Ministers will be assisted and guided by the Governor who will accept their advice and promote their policy whenever possible. This is far from saying that the Committee intended him to function as a constitutional head. Indeed such an intention would be inconsistent with the provisions of the Act under which the Governor’s dictatorial powers were expressly reserved and nothing that is said in the Joint Report or in the Report of the Parliamentary Committee nullifies their use ; so that if the Governor has himself governed and has not allowed the ministers to govern through him it is no fault of his. But granting that the Governor should have acted as a constitutional head, the question again is, would it have made dyarchy workable as responsible form of government ? My answer to this question is also in the negative. For, as I see the situation, if you take away the power of the Governor and make him a constitutional head, you thereby expose the existence of the reserved side of the Government to an attack from a popularly elected chamber. From this peril the reserved side deprived of the protection of the Governor has only one escape and that is to consent to be ruled by the wishes of the Council. In other words, if you remove them from the leap of the Governor, you have no other alternative except to place them on the same footing as the transferred side. But this is only another way of stating that if the desire is to reduce the position of the Governor to that of a constitutional head you must first put an end to dyarchy. 15. So far I have argued against the view that dyarchy is not a system which is made unworkable by certain other factors and in support of the view that owing to its inherent defects, it is not only unworkable but it is incapable of being worked as a responsible form of a government. Of course dyarchy with complete dualism involving the functioning of two separate governments and two separate legislatures, in one the legislature is subordinate to the executive and in the other the executive is subordinate to the legislature, is free from the criticism which has been urged above against the system of dyarchy-with-dualism such as is in operation. But the alternative of dyarchy-with-dualism was rejected by the Government of India in 1919 and is open to the same objections which apply to the system of government that was established by the Morley-Minto Reforms and which have never been so forcibly voiced as in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report A return to such a system at this stage in the evolution of political life in India is unthinkable and I therefore refrain from saying anything on

328 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES a possible recourse to such a system. The only alternative left is to discontinue dyarchy and transfer all subjects to the control of the ministers. 16. So far the general grounds of my opposition to the recommendations of my colleagues who have given their sanction to the continuance of dyarchy have been stated. I now proceed to state my grounds of objection to the continued reservation of the particular subject, namely law and order. The principal reason urged against the transfer of law and order to the charge of a minister is that being subject to the wishes of the electorates and being removable by an adverse vote of the Council the minister will not be able to administer the department impartially. The inevitable consequence of such a situation, it is feared, will be that the services working in the administration of that department will be placed in a false position. Never knowing when they will be supported and when they will be censured, the uncertainty will paralyse their action to the grave detriment of peace and good government It is further urged that in view of the series of Hindu-Moslem riots which have, of late, become so very common we ought not to transfer law and order to the control of a minister who is subject to the vagaries of public opinion and who is likely to be swayed by communal prejudices, Hindu or Moslem. 17. To be frank this argument has produced no effect upon me although my colleagues seem to have been considerably impressed by it. It is one of the stock arguments of bureaucracy. To admit its force is to accept that bureaucratic government is the best form of government Unfortunately bureaucratic government has been known to India too long for anybody to be deceived by any such argument It is so extravagant that its acceptance would involve the negation of all responsible government Whatever its antecedents, responsible government, it must be recognised has come to stay in India. Any change time can bring along with it must be in the direction of expansion of the principle. Any Plan therefore which hinders the broadening of this basic principle must create a serious conflict between the Government and the people. Nor does it appear to me that there exists any ground why we should needlessly give rise to such a conflict by acting upon the bureaucratic argument For, in my opinion, the fear that the ministers will succumb to the clamour of their followers in the House or that their followers will be malevolent in their attitude is not backed by experience and in so far as it is, it does them a great injustice. The suspension of the Local Boards and Municipalities which had been captured by the non-co-operators in 1922 at a time when Mr. Gandhi was in the plenitude of his power gives us hope to say that ministers can be trusted to act independently of the wishes of the electorates when such an action is demanded of them. Members of Government will I am sure testify that the Bombay Legislative Council has invariably acted with the necessary restraint which consciousness of responsibility always brings with it. But even if one is compelled to admit that the House may not keep itself unruffled on occasions of communal feeling and communal clash

329PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE this is no argument against transfer. For one may point out in reply that no community whatever its attitude towards another has any vested interest in disorder such as will induce its accredited representatives to be so irresponsible as to lead them to work against peace and goodwill. The fear therefore which operates on the mind of those who support the reservation of law and order is merely the fear of the unseen, unknown and the untried. My colleagues in not recommending the transfer are no doubt adopting a most cautious course. But I am not certain that they are thereby following the wisest course. For, there is such a thing as too much caution which prohibits the liberty to make an experiment which the wisest course must demand in order to find out whether or not the fear is real. The very same fear of the unknown which is now urged against the transfer of law and order was urged in 1919 against the transfer of the subjects now entrusted to the control of the ministers. But they were all brushed aside by the Secretary of States and the Government of India who both consented to take the leap in the dark. I prefer to adopt the same course with respect to law and order. 18. But there is another reason why if we are to make the experiment it is wise that we should make it without delay. It is obvious that the transfer of a subject brings in its wake an increase in the number of Indians employed in the services. It is possible that the Indians might be less efficient, at any rate, less experienced than the European members of the staff. To postpone the transfer of law and order is therefore to increase the dangers incident upon every transitional stage. Consequently it is much the safest to take the step at once and emerge through that stage while the experienced trained civil servants, who could be relied upon to loyally assist in working the new constitution with as little dislocation as possible, are still with us. Fortunately for me this suggestion comes from a very important authority, in fact it comes from an experienced civil servant, who supplied his views in a note to Mr. Barker who has reproduced the same in his book on the “Future of Government of India and the I.C.S.”. “I propose to state,” says Mr. Barker, “the lines of such criticism, as it is advanced in a Note written by an experienced civil servant……In the first place it is urged by the author of the Note that the maintenance of law and order, and matters concerned with land revenue and tenancy rights, ought to be transferred.” “These departments,” he urges, “are administered under Government by the strongest and most able branch of all the services in India—the Indian Civil Service. The principles of their administration have long been laid down, and are well understood. The service has great tradition behind it which will ensure that, mat administration will get the best assistance and most outspoken advice……It is admitted that the people of India are quiet and easily governed people, though occasionally liable to excitement over things affecting their caste or religion. The task of maintaining law and order is not therefore a very difficult one……the argument that land revenue and tenancy questions affect the interest of the masses rather than

330 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES of the classes who will be represented in the Legislature (and therefore, on the fifth of the canons mentioned above, should not be transferred) is absolutely inconsistent with the franchise and electorate scheme which has been put forward for the Provinces……The convinced advocate of the compartmental system who is afraid to transfer some at any rate of the departments concerned with law and order and with revenue administration admit that he is afraid of his own scheme. I, though I am not an advocate of dyarchy, should not be afraid to make the experiment, because I should hope to find among the Ministers that common sense, goodwill, and forbearance which are essential to the success of any scheme, dyarchical or not.” 19. I quite realise the anxiety of the minorities in respect of the transfer of law and order. But it is somewhat difficult to understand how they expect to gain by its reservation. There will be no difference between a bureaucrat in charge of law and order and a minister from the standpoint of personal bias if the bureaucrat is to be an Indian. If he is to be a European, then the most that can be said of him is that he will be a neutral person. But this is hardly an advantage. For, there is no guarantee that a neutral person will also be an impartial person. On the contrary a person who is neutral has also his interests and his prejudices and when he has no such interest he is likely to be ignorant. The European personal of the bureaucrat is therefore a doubtful advantage to the minorities who are anxious for the reservation of law and order. What however passes my comprehension is the failure of some of the representatives of the minorities to realise the great advantage which the ministerial system gives them as against the bureaucratic regime. For the best guarantee which the minorities can have for their own protection is power to control the actions of the executive. The bureaucratic system is impervious to this control. If it protects the minorities it is because it likes to do so. But if on any occasion it chooses not to take action the minorities have no remedy. In other words, a minister can be dictated to ; but a bureaucrat may not even be advised. This it seems to me is a vital difference between the regime of the bureaucrat and the regime of the minister. Personally myself, I do not see how the minorities will lose by the transfer of law and order and I say this, although I belong to a minority whose members are treated worse than human beings. My view is that in a Legislature where minorities are adequately represented, it is to their advantage that law and order should be transferred. For, such transfer gives them the power of control over the administration of the subject which is denied to them under reservation. I think the minorities should consider seriously whether there is not sufficient truth in the statement that a rogue does better under the master’s eye than an honest man unwatched ; and if they do I think they will realise that they can with good reason prefer inferior officers, over whom they can exercise an influence, to the most exemplary of mankind entirely free from such responsibility. 20. There is however another and a more important reason why Minorities prefer reservation to transfer. It is because their representation

331PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE in the Legislature is so small as to make them inconsequential. From the standpoint of the minorities, the choice obviously is between reservation and no representation on the one hand and transfer and adequate representation on the other. Here again the second alternative must be deemed to be more beneficial than the first. It would therefore be more in the interest of the minorities to insist on adequate representation than to persist in opposing the transfer of law and order. But, if the fear of mal-administration in the department of law and order to the prejudice of the minorities cannot be allayed by the grant of adequate representation to the minorities, I am prepared to add a proviso to my recommendation to the effect that if a minority of say 40 per cent, in the Legislative Council should decide by a vote that law and order be a reserved subject, it shall then be withdrawn from the list of transferred subjects. I make the proposal in preference to that of the Majority, because I hold that some day the subject shall have to be transferred if the principle of responsible government laid down in the Pronouncement of 20th August, 1917, is to be made good and that the proposal while it does not come in the way of giving effect to it immediately it does not preclude the possibility of cancelling the transfer, if experience shows that the fears entertained about it are well founded. CHAPTER 2 THE EXECUTIVE IN WORKING 21. The introduction of a unified government based on ministerial responsibility gives rise to four important questions. Of these the first pertains to the stability of the executive, the second to communal representation in the Executive, the third to the enforcement of the responsibility of the Executive and the fourth to the mutual relation among the members of the Executive. 22. Regarding the first question it is said that owing to the communal bias of the members of the legislature, the legislature is bound to be composed of groups. With attachment to community more pronounced than loyalty to principles, the ministry may find itself resting on uncertain foundation of communal allegiance measured out in proportion to communal advantage so that if communities choose to transfer their allegiance according to their will and without reference to principles, ministries may crumble as soon as they are formed. To prevent such an evil it is proposed that the ministry might be formed from a panel of men chosen by the various groups in the Council and once it is formed it should be made irremovable during the lifetime of the Council. I recognise that the fear of an unstable executive may come true. But I do not think that it calls for a remedy or a remedy of the kind suggested. India is not the only country with the group tendency manifesting itself in the Legislature. The French Chamber of Deputies is a more glaring instance of the group tendency involving frequent disruption of the ministeries. All the same the French