INDIA’S CONSTITUTION

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18925, 20 April 1933, Page 6

INDIA’S CONSTITUTION

It is apparent from the cable messages that the British Government’s proposal for a constitution for India, as outlined in the "White Paper, is not popular amongst those in India who have been sufficiently interested to make themselves articulate. Thus the AllIndia Liberal Federation has declared the proposals “disappointing and unsatisfactory, and likely to accentuate the present acute discontent and demand for Dominion status.”

The British Government’s proposal is the culmination of an . almost continuous process of inquiry, debate, negotiation and civil turmoil, extending over more than five years to the creation of the Simon Commission in the autumn of 1927. The Simon report was published in the summer of 1930. It was followed by threo roundtable conferences in London. Of these only the second had the co-operation of the Indian nationalist movement ns represented by Gandhi. The British Government’s draft scheme sees the light at a moment when he is, nominally at least, in opposition. In Britain an opposition of the Right has been organising under the leadership of Mr Winston Churchill. The Government’s proposals please _ neither brand of extremists.

Indian nationalism indignantly stresses the limited nature of the self-government offered them. In the hands of the British Viceroy is to remain control over foreign affairs, national defence, with broad veto powers in the field of finance. It is obviously not the complete independence for which Gandhi has asked. The proposed scheme is not. dominion status. But it is a long step in the direction of dominion rule. To, that extent it redeems the pledge of gradual education to self-government embodied in the MontnguChelmsford reforms, immediately after the war.

The most important gain for tho people of India is the creation of a single political entity for the entire peninsula. British India xvitli 250,000,000 people and the India of the Native Princes with 75,000,000 people join to form a Federated India.

The non-co-operation campaign inaugurated by Congress and the terrorism which has so long existed, coupled with the prevalence of Hindu-Moslem strife, seem to the onlooker to proclaim that (lie people of India, arc largely lacking in those attributes generally regarded as necessary for’ successful self-government. Under the circumstances the grounds for surprise are not that the British Government lias withheld the full meed of independence, but that it has granted so much.