The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1937 BRITAIN’S GREAT EXPERIMENT IN INDIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20679, 18 March 1937, Page 6

The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1937 BRITAIN’S GREAT EXPERIMENT IN INDIA.

“It is inevitable that the advent of such profound constitutional changes should be accompanied by some degree of stress and difficulty .... the opportunities for useful service are very great.” In these words, the Viceroy of India addressed an appeal to the leaders of the Congress Party to co-operate in trying out one of the greatest experiments in constitutional government of modern times. It is characteristic of the Congress Party, as the cable messages report this morning, that it should hesitate to accept any responsibilities in giving effect to the British plan. If British statesmanship had shown similar lack of vision and courage there would be no British Commonwealth of Nations to-day. But something more than discussion is needed in India to-day if the full value Of Britain’s plans for the political emancipation of India is to be enjoyed by the great mass of the people of India. This point was stressed by the Viceroy, who declared that “faith and courage are needed in order to serve the highest ends of the public.” If the Congress Party can be judged by the attitude of its members to a great experiment, it has neither. This is demonstrated in the shortsightedness of elected Congressmen who are displaying extraordinary timidity in their attitude to the acceptance of office under the new regime. It is stated in the cable messages this morning that the opposition of the Congress Party falls into three possible courses of action or inaction:

(1) Opposition to acceptance of office owing to the view that it would mean a temporary abandonment of the extremist policy. (2) Acceptance as a means of combating the constitution, if necessary, by deadlocks.

(3) That the constitution, though far short of the party's demand, should be worked for the benefit of the people until a breakdown occurred.

For once in the long and troubled history of India responsibility reposes on the shoulders of the people. Out of Britain’s century-old experience in the making of new nations beyond the seas, the Imperial Government has given India a new Magna Charta. Will the great experiment be a success? For some weeks the Indian electors, their numbers suddenly increased frdm 7,000,000 to 35,000,000, have been choosing their Provincial Legislatures. Later on these Legislatures, the States ruled by the Indian Princes—or those who come into the Federation—and 100,000 electors under the restricted franchise, will elect the Federal Legislatures (Upper and Lower). And from April 1, 1938, India with its teeming population of 400,000,000 of varied races, religions, and degrees of civilisation will exist, as it has never before existed, as a Federal entity. As will be observed from the cable messages this morning, the great experiment begins under a distinct handicap. First of all the majority of the voters are illiterate and hardly know what they want; while the most powerful political organisation in the land, the Congress Party, knowing what it wants is distinctly hostile because it dislikes the new constitution. It is these fundamental difficulties that have prompted the best informed observers of the march of events in modern India to suggest that

He would be an optimist indeed who would expect that a constitution resting on a people so politically unstable, voting in unwieldy and unmanageable constituencies, besides the obstacles presented by differences in languages and a widespread illiteracy, would work smoothly, more especially when it is remembered that attempts are already being made in powerful quarters to wreck it. And yet, the history of British colonisation is the history of miracles in statesmanship that have invariably confounded the critics and ultimately justified the faith the miracle workers reposed in their great experiments.