Vol. 6 · pages 256–260

241 THE NECESSITY FOR A CHANGE worn out so as to give a false reading of the actual tension. But there can be no doubt that in the case of India the Executive, in the alterations which it introduced from time to time and particularly in 1909 in the election and business procedure of the legislature, had all along constructed it badly of purpose and had attempted to conceal thereby dangerous pressure of the steam in the political machine, so as to cause it to give a false reading of the situation. So long as the members of the legislature derived their mandates from the Executive, owing to the fact that all of them were nominated members, such an artifice worked well, with the entry of the elected members holding their mandates from the people, the weakness of the artifice became evident. The mortification of the elected members led them to obstruct and challenge the great fundamental principles recognized as the theoretical basis of procedure. Now if a party complained of inequality among members, of the rules of conducting proceedings, of freedom of speech or of the majority principle, it is a danger signal indicative of the existence of some serious defects in the life of the State. When such a conflict arises it is for a political statesman to judge whether he has to face a reform of the procedure of the representative assembly or a reform in the constitution of the State. While inside the Legislative Assembly there were signs of hardening opposition and weariness which comes from sterile efforts, outside the Legislature the tide of feeling was rising more quickly, for, all the time the sense of national consciousness and the desire for political power were growing rapidly in the minds of educated Indians, no doubt, because the Legislature with its limited powers was found to be an insufficient safety valve. As a result of the realization of this fact those who had given their thoughts to the political reconstruction of the country agreed that a mere reform of the procedure will not do. Only a reform of the constitution will save the state from anarchy. There was, however, a considerable diversity in the reforms suggested for effecting an alteration in the constitution of India. One scheme may here be noted in passing and that was the scheme propounded by the Indian National Congress and the Moslem League, shortly known as the Congress-LeagueScheme.1 The scheme demanded a four-fifths majority of elected 1 This will be found in East India Constitutional Reforms, pp. Cd. 9178 of 1918, p. 98.

242 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES members in the Central Legislature. As to the Executive, it demanded that one-half of the total number of the Executive members should be Indians and that they should be elected by the elected members of the Legislature. The Legislature was to have complete financial and legislative powers. Nay, its recommendations, passed in the form of resolutions, were to be binding on the Executive. Such “was the latest, most complete and most authoritative presentation of the claims of the leading Indian political organizations” on behalf of the Indian people. But when we come to analyse the scheme it speaks poorly of the political genius of the Indian politicians. The scheme was formulated as a fulfilment of responsible government in British India. But in practice it was not only not a measure of responsible government, but it was deficient even to subserve the ends of good government. The scheme did not ask that the legislature should have the power to make or unmake an Executive as it pleased. If it had asked that, then the scheme would have been a scheme for responsible government. But what it asked for was to compel an Executive, which was irremovable, to conduct the administration of the country according to the orders of the Legislature. The Scheme was of a piece with that of Lord Morley in an enlarged form. He had introduced an Indian element into the Government so that Indian opinion and Indian advice might have some weight with the Executive in addition to what it exercised through the legislative organ of the Government. Those who framed the Congress-League-Scheme merely increased the Indian element in the Executive and the Legislature, and added provisions aimed at converting advice into control without realizing what was to happen if the Executive refused to be bound by the wishes of the Legislature. The essence of the project was an Executive with a divided mandate legally responsible to Parliament, and practically to an elected Legislature. Such a separation of mandates, it was obvious, would have enabled the Legislature to paralyse the Executive without having power to remove it. Being without any constitutional means to change the Legislature in cases of conflict by an appeal to the Electorate it would have been obliged to carry on

243 THE NECESSITY FOR A CHANGE the Government even where it did not respect the wishes of the Legislature. The scheme was unsound, like all previous attempts at the reform of the Indian Constitution, because in it the Executive and the legislature derived their mandates from and were responsible to different powers. It was unsound because it overlooked the possibility that two mandates may not agree, in which case there would be a conflict. That conflict is inherent in a non-parliamentary executive. Some form of a Parliamentary government with a Parliamentary executive was the only way of avoiding it. It is from this standpoint that the announcement of August 20, 1917, forms a landmark in the annals of the development of the Indian Constitution. On that date the Secretary of State for India announced in the House of Commons that— “The policy of His Majesty’s Government, with which the Government of India are in complete accord, is that of the increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire. They have decided that substantial steps in this direction should be taken as soon as possible ……” “ I would add that progress in this policy can only be achieved by successive stages. The British Government and the Government of India, on whom the responsibility lies for the welfare and advancement of the Indian peoples, must be judges of the time and measure of each advance, and they must be guided by the co-operation received from those upon whom new opportunities of service will thus be conferred and by the extent to which it is found that confidence can be reposed in their sense of responsibility.” This momentous announcement marks the end of one epoch and the beginning of a new one. It definitely abandoned the old conception under which the Executive might, as it saw fit, consult the wishes of the legislature, which were only given an increasing share in the administration of the country and increasing opportunities for influencing and criticizing, but never for

244 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES controlling, the Government. Under the new conception the aim was to endow the Legislature with the power to make or unmake the government, so that it would be not only a government of the people and for the people, but by the people. The adoption of such a change of policy in the basis of the political institutions of the country involved far-reaching changes in their relations with one another, administrative, legisltive and financial. The changes in the system of Provincial Finance introduced in consequence of the Reforms Act of 1919 were not caused by any inherent defects in the system as it stood at that date. On the other hand, the system was eminently workable. They were effected because the system as a whole was inconsistent with the great revolution which that Act had sought to effect in the governmental system of that country. The nature of the changes, their extent and their adequacy will form the subject-matter of the two following chapters. zz

CHAPTER XI THE NATURE OF A CHANGE The announcement of August 20, 1917, spoke of progressive realization of responsible government as the goal of the future British policy in India, and the Montague-Chelmsford Report on Constitutional Reforms surveyed the ways of giving effect to that announcement. One of the merits of that Report consisted in showing that the Congress-League-Scheme of political reforms did not embody the principle for the recognition of which they were agitating so long. Instead of inaugurating a responsible government in India, the scheme would have saddled the country with a non-parliamentary executive under a parliamentary system of government. Being convinced of their error the Congress-League politicians, be it said to their credit, abandoned their scheme in favour of the proposals contained in the Joint Report. But in their turn they demanded the introduction of a more or less complete responsible government in most of the political institutions at one stroke. But the framers of the new constitution pointed out that the emphasis on the word progressive in the announcement was as great if not greater than the emphasis laid on the word responsible. 1 In consonance with this view it was decided to introduce, as a substantial step in the progress towards the realization of the goal laid down in the announcement, a responsible government of a limited character in the Provincial Governments. The Provincial Governments in India, like the Central Government, were irresponsible governments. The changes made in the constitution of Provincial Legislatures were of the same nature as the changes in the Central Legislature, in that both were calculated to enable the Executive to consult the Legislature without being amenable to its control. Only on one occasion were the frame-works of the two machines of governments, the 1 Report of the Joint Select Committee on the Government of India Bill, p. 203 of 1919, p.s. para. 7.