The Press WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1936. Indian Politics and the Constitution

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21978, 30 December 1936, Page 8

The Press WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1936. Indian Politics and the Constitution

Yesterday the cable news contained two highly significant items about politics in India, one an announcement that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is trying to organise the Indian National Congress "on a proletarian "basis" and the other a deviously-worded appeal by Mr Gandhi to his countrymen to co-operate with the English m India on a basis of complete equality. Both items obviously relate to the session of Congress which has just opened, a session which must profoundly influence the course of Indian politics in the crucial period which is now beginning. On April I of next year will be inaugurated the provincial autonomy provided for in the new constitution, which means that the provincial councils which meet after that date will be without the steadying influence of the official blocs. The establishment of an allIndia federation, also provided for in the constitution, is much further ahead; and even supposing that there are no serious hitches it is not likely to take place before the end of 1938. The immediate task before Congress is to decide whether it will contest the elections to the provincial councils, which will be held some time in March, and whether Congress representatives will be allowed to take office in provincial governpients. The answer to the first question is a foregone conclusion. Even Pandit Nehru, the least compromising of the Congress leaders, admits that it has no option but to take part in the elections. Some 15.000,000 Indians will be called upon to exercise the franchise and Congress cannot, without serious loss of influence, refrain from presenting them with candidates and advice. The real battle will be waged on the second issue. Pandit Nehru, the retiring president and the most important political figure in India, not even excepting Mr Gandhi, has expressed his views with a frankness and a finality rare in Congress politicians. "To accept office and "ministry under the conditions of the act," he has written, " is to negative our rejection of it. " It is always dangerous to accept responsibility " without power; it will be far worse with this "constitution, hedged in with safeguards and "reserved powers and mortgaged funds. . . . " Ministers who accept office will have to do so "at the price of surrender of much that they "might have stood for in public." There is, of course, a logical weakness in this attitude, since to contest the elections is to accept the constitution—provisionally at any rate. Pandit Nehru's present plan of action is that Congress should concentrate on winning majorities in the provincial councils and then put its weight behind the demand for a constituent assembly to frame a new constitution. The difficulty involved here is that, although Congress is the most powerful political organisation in India, it is certainly not powerful enough to win majorities in all the provinces in the next election and probably not powerful enough to win sufficient seats to qualify it to speak in the name of a majority of the Indian people. The truth seems to be that Congress is strong enough to make the new constitution unworkable but not strong enough to embark on a constructive policy. As a possible alternative to non-co-operation in" the provincial councils, Congress may agree to allow provincial groups to act as they think fit in the light of local circumstances. Such a compromise would almost certainly be tantamount to the deposition of Pandit Nehru and his group from the leadership. A third possibility is the adoption of a vague formula which would in effect postpone consideration of the issue till after the elections. Congress is adept at this sort of equivocation; but it cannot sidestep the constitutional issue without forfeiting some of its capacity for leadership. Indeed, Congress is now at the point where it must choose between the maintenance of a superficial unity and the adoption of a programme which faces and answers the questions now perplexing the minds of the Indian people, or those of them who think about politics. Congress came into existence to work for the political independence of India, and in the past the desire for independence has been strong enough to draw into its ranks landlords, peasants, factory workers, wealthy merchants and industrialists, professional men, and students. But with independence a growing reality, the question of the form of society which is to be built in the new India begins to assume an overriding importance and to split Congress along a line of economic cleavage. The merchants and landlords have nothing in common with Pandit Nehru except the desire for independence, and they are beginning to wonder whether dependence on Great Britain is not a less evil than his programme of socialism. For his part, Pandit Nehru is beginning to wonder whether it is worth while to trim his policy so that it will not too greatly offend moneyed interests. But the economic cleavage is not the only one, or even, perhaps, the most important. There is also the conflict between the old India and the new, between village India and the India of the great industrial cities, the conflict that is epitomised in the contrasting personalities of Gandhi and Nehru. Gandhi belongs to the village; he has the type of mysticism of which only the peasant mind is capable and mixed with it the shrewdness and evasiveness which the peasant mind never wholly loses. He speaks in parables and similes, has no social philosophy, and appeals beyond reason. There is no deviousness or compromise in Nehru. He is logical, specific, and doctrinaire. His enthusiasm, and it is a powerful enthusiasm, is for something he can understand and justify. If he continues to be the leader of Congress, he will either shatter it or make it into a political force comparable to the Communist party in Russia or the Kuomintang in China.