10
SELF-GOVERNMENT RESOLUTION.
CANADA AND INDIA
The Self-Government resolution stands thus:- The greatest interest, however, centred about the resolution for self-government, which was moved on the third and last day of the Congress by the Hon. Surendra Nath Bannerji. The Congress was densely packed, and there was scarcely any standing-room. To the usual song of welcome by Indian girls, which opened the proceedings, there was added an Indian National Song, during the singing of which the great assembly stood.
That this Congress is of opinion that the time has arrived to introduce further and substantial measures of reform towards the attainment of Self-Govern- ment, as defined in Article I. of its Constitution, namely, reforming and liberalizing the system of Government in this country so as to secure to the people an effective control over it by, amongst others:
(a) The introduction of provincial autonomy, in- cluding financial independence,
(b) The expansion and reform of the Legislative Councils so as to make them truly and adequately representative of all sections of the people and to give them an effective control over the acts of the ecutive Councils and the establishment of similar Executive Government,
(c) The reconstruction of the various existing Ex- Executive Councils in Provinces where they do not exist,
(d) The reform, or the abolition, of the Council of the Secretary of State for India,
(e) The establishment of Legislative Councils in Provinces where they do not now exist,
(f) The readjustment of relations between the Secretary of State for India and the Government of India; and
(g) A liberal measure of Local Self-Government. That this Congress authorizes the All-India Con- gress Committee to frame a scheme of reform and a programme of continuous work, educative and propa- gandist, having regard to the principles embodied in this resolution, and further authorizes the said Com- mittee to confer with the Committee that may be appointed by the All-India Muslim League for the same purpose, and to take such further measures as may be necessary. The said Committee to submit its report on or before the 1st of September, 1916, to the General Secretaries, who shall circulate it to the different Provincial Congress Committees as early as possible.
In moving the resolution, Mr. Bannerji said: "Let us examine if we are not fit for self-government. In the morning of the world, before Rome was, before Babylon had emerged into the historic arena, our ancestors had founded these village organizations which represented first the beginnings of self-gov- ernment, so organized, so tenacious of life and vital- ity, that they survived the rush of empires, the subversion of thrones and dynasties, and lived with a never-ending life.
"In more recent times what do we find? Wherever we have been tried we have never been found want- ing. We have been tried in the matter of local self- government under adverse conditions, and yet the experiment has grown successful. We have been tried in the higher regions of self-government under the Reform Scheme of 1909, and again we have been successful.
The best training ground for self- government are the institutions of self-government, and Mr. Gladstone is my authority for it. We want self-government for the highest ends of national and moral regeneration of India. Our sense of civic responsibility cannot develop to its fullest might so long as the ban of political inferiority is on
March, 1916
our brow. We must be free men before we can be citizens. We have on our side the sympathies of the civilized countries.
The resolution was passed unanimously.
INDIANS IN THE DOMINIONS.
Of more interest to Canadians, perhaps, is the reso- lution moved by Mr. K. Gandhi, the South African patriot, demanding equal rights of citizenship for Indians in the self-governing Colonies, and calling upon the Imperial Government to use all possible means to secure those rights, which had been hitherto unjustly withheld from them, thus causing wide- spread dissatisfaction and discontent." He said that it was an irony of fate that while the Congress was regretting the hostile atitude of the Colonies towards Indians, a contingent of Indians, formed in South Africa, should be nearing the theatre of war to help the sick and wounded. They were drawn from the middle classes, from hawkers and such like, yet the Colonies did not see the necessity to change their attitude. The real reason for withholding these rights was not suspicion of their loyalty, but undying prejudice. The difficulties in South Africa he would call bread-and-butter difficulties. But in Canada it was not possible for the Sikhs who were domiciled there to bring their wives and their children. When the resolution regarding the Imperial Conference was accepted by the Government of India, there were welcome outbursts in the Colonial newspapers. He hoped that these words would be translated into ac- tion, and that these various invidious distinctions between subjects of Ilis Majesty would disappear.
Mr. G. A. Natesan (Madras), in seconding, pointed out that in previous years the Congress had pro- tested against the conduct of the Imperial Govern- ment in not influencing the Colonies, but this year they were in better times. Even the Colonial papers now declared that the time had come when India should be given her proper place in the Empire. He hoped that the Colonies would now extend to Indian emigrants equal rights with European emigrants.
SIR S. P. SINHA ON SELF-GOVERNMENT.
THE IDEAL OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. What, to begin with, should be the political ideal of India? To some, the raising of this question may seem to be unnecessary and at best academic, and, to others, positively mischievous. To me, however, it seems that the greatest danger in the path of the future well-being of the country is the want of such a reasoned ideal of our future as would satisfy the aspirations and ambitions of the rising generations of India and at the same time meet with the approval of those to whose hands our destinies are committed.
It is my belief that a rational and inspiring ideal will arrest the insidious and corrupting influence of the real enemies of our Motherland, even if it is not able to root out from the land that malignant mental disease which has been called anarchism and whose psychology it is so difficult to analyze. It must be obvious to all sincere and impartial judges that no mandate, whether of the Government or of the Con- gress, will be able to still the throbbing pain in the soul of awakening India, unless the ideal which is held up by the Congress and accepted by the Govern- ment commends itself first to the heart and then to the head. It seems to me that the only satisfactory form of self-government to which India aspires can- not be anything short of what President Lincoln so pithily described as 'government of the people, for the people, and by the people."
When I say this I do not for one moment imply that the British Government is not the best Govern- ment we have had for ages. We have only to look
!
March, 1916
CANADA AND INDIA
around to see the manifold blessings which have been brought to this country by the Government. But as a British Premier early in this century very truly observed, "Good government cannot be a substitute for self-government." Says a recent writer in a well- known British periodical: "Every Englishman is aware that on no account, not if he were to be gov erned by an angel from heaven, would he surrender that most sacred of all his rights, the right of making his own laws.
He would not be an English- man; he would not be able to look English fields and trees in the face, if he had parted with that right. Laws in themselves have never counted for much. There have been beneficent despots and wise law- givers in all ages who have increased the prosperity and probably the contentment and happiness of their subjects, but yet their government has not stimulated the moral and intellectual capacity latent in citizen- ship or fortified its character or enlarged its under- standing. There is more hope for the future of man- kind in the least and faintest impulse towards self- help, self-realization, self-redemption, than in any of the laws that Aristotle ever dreamt of."
The ideal, therefore, of self-government is one that is not based merely on emotion and sentiment, but on the lessons of history.
I believe in all sincerity that such has been the ideal which the British Government itself has enter- tained and cherished almost from the commencement of British rule in India. Generations of statesmen have repeatedly laid down that policy, solemn dec- larations of successive sovereigns have graciously endorsed it, and Acts of Parliament have given it legislative sanction. I will not burden my speech with quotations from these: they will all be found in previous Presidential addresses. But, with your leave, I will quote only one passage from a speech of John Bright, delivered at Manchester on the 11th of December, 1877: "I believe that it is our duty not only to govern India well now for our sakes, and to satisfy our own conscience, but so to arrange its gov- ernment and so to administer it that we should look forward to the time when India will have to take up her own government and administer it in her own fashion. I say he is no statesman-he is no man actuated with a high moral sense with regard to our great and terrible moral responsibility-who is not willing thus to look ahead and thus to prepare for circumstances which hay come sooner than we think and sooner than any of us hope for, but which must come at some not very distant date."-From Presi dential Address.
ALL-INDIA MUSLIM LEAGUE,
The Al-India Muslim League met at Bombay Dec. 30th, 1915, with a large and distinguished gathering of Hindus, Mussulmans, Parsis, etc. The President, Sir S. P. Sinha, and a number of delegates from the Indian National Congress were present.
In the course of his Presidential address, Hon. Mr. Mazarul Haque spoke as follows:
DUTIES OF INDIAN MUSLIMS.
Let us find out the duties that our nationality and religion require of us. Everyone in this asssembly, and for all I know, everyone outside it, will agree with me that our first and foremost duty is to our God, the King of Kings and the Ruler of the des- tinies of all countries and nations. Next to God, we owe duties to our Sovereign, our country and our community. Our duty to our Sovereign is plain and clear. Our loyalty as subjects of our King-Emperor is unquestioning and unquestioned. We have proved it fully in the past, and, if occasion arises and if we are given the chance, we are prepared to prove it
11
again. No deed, action or speech of ours has ever hampered or is likely to hamper the Government in its obvious duty of maintaining the prestige and power of the great Empire to which we are privi- leged to belong. Nor have we ever failed in giving our best support to the Government of India in its legitimate function of carrying on the administration of the country.
DUTIES OF GOVERNMENT.
Just as we owe duties to Government, similarly the Government owes duties to us. It would be un- grateful on our part not to acknowledge the innu- merable advantages that Tudia has derived from her contact with England.
But much more yet remains to be accomplished, and, from an Indian point of view, the things that have been left unaccomplished are the things that really matter in the life of a nation. England has borne the burden of India, but has not prepared her to bear her own burdens. She has not made her strong, self-reliant and self-supporting. She has not made her a nation respected by the other nations of the world. She has not developed the resources of the country, as it was her duty to develop them. She has not helped the Indian people to live a life of the greatest possible fulness. She has failed to bring out the capacities of the people of Hindustan to their fullest extent. England's connection with India has lasted for about a century and a half, and most parts of the country have been under her direct rule during this period. But the progress India has made, with all her vast resources-material, moral and economic -is comparatively very small.
The children of the soil have no real share in the government of their own country. Policy is laid down and carried on by non-Indians, which, oftener than not, goes against the wishes of the people and ignores their sentiments. Remember, I do not at- tribute motives. I believe the administration of the country has been carried on by conscientious, hard- working men, who have honestly done their work according to their best lights, but their work has degenerated into a mere routine. People who have spent their lives in carrying out details can hardly ever rise above their surroundings and view things from a broader outlook.
RECONSTRUCTION.
Gentlemen, our demands are neither immediate nor peremptory. We can wait and must wait till the end of the war, when the whole Empire will be recon- structed upon new lines; but there is no harm in postulating our demands now, and informing the British people of the unity and the intensity with which the reforms are insisted upon. When the affairs of the Empire are taken into consideration, our views should be before the English nation. Of course we cannot expect that India will change in the twinkling of an eye by some magical process, but we do hope that a new policy will be initiated, which will end in self-government and give us the status and power of a living nation. If you ask me to give you indications of reforms which are immediately needed, I would say that the first step towards self- government must be taken by abolishing the packed official majority in the Imperial Council. We must have a sure and safe elected non-official majority, which would discuss and deal with all Indian ques- tions from the Indian standpoint. Next, we must free the Executive Council of the Viceroy from the incubus of the Bureaucracy. Then fierce light would be thrown into the dark corners of Indian adminis- tration. We must have more Indians in the Execu- tive Council, which is really the chief source from which policies emanate. Again, a great reform that is needed is what has been called "Provincial Au-
625
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.