Federal Structure and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Federal Structure and Mahatma Gandhi

 

My Lord Chancellor, I tender my congratulations to Mr. Lees- Smith for being responsible for this debate, and I tender my congratulations to you, My Lord Chancellor, for having allowed this debate. I think that Mr. Lees-Smith has shown amazing optimism in initiating this debate. He has come as a physician with an oxy- gen pump and he is trying to pump oxygen into a dying body. I do not say that we are a dying body because of this rum- our or threat of Provincial autonomy divorced from Central responsibility.

In my own humble manner, almost from the commencement of these proceedings, I have been uttering words of warning and I was oppressed, and I said so in so many words, with a sense of unreality which dawned upon Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru only yesterday, or as I happen to know, has been dawning upon him for the last few days, because he has given me the privilege of taking me into his confidence in common with his other friends and comrades, if I can also bracket myself as one of his comrades. Out of his ripe experience of administrative affairs, having held high offices in the Government, he has warned us of the danger of Provincial autonomy so-called. I am very often an unrepentant sinner. He had reasons for issuing this warning, especially in connection with me, because I had dared to discuss the question of Provincial autonomy with many English friends who are responsible public men in this country, and he had heard of it, and so he gave me ample warning. It was for that reason that you find me as one of the co-signatories not to the document that has been placed before you, My Lord Chancellor, but to another similar document that was issued to the Press about ten days ago and was addressed to the prime Minister. I told him, as I say here, that both he and the others who have spoken after him and I reached the same goal through different routes. Fools walk in where angels fear to tread. Not having had any experience of administration actually, I felt that, if Provincial autonomy was the Provincial autonomy of my conception, I for one would not mind handling the fruit, feeling the thing and seeing whether it really answered my purpose. I love to meet friends, who may be opponents in policy, on their own platform and find out their difficulties, and find out also whether what they are offering is likely to lead one to the same place, and in that spirit and in that sense I ventured to discuss Provincial autonomy, but I found at once on discussion that what they meant was certainly not the Provincial autonomy that I meant, and so I told my friends also that I would be quite safe if they left me alone, that I was not going to sell the interests of the country out of a foolish conception of Provincial autonomy, or out of impatience to get something for the country.

What I am anxious to do is, having come all these miles with the greatest diffidence, having come here to tender my whole-hearted co-operation to the Government and to this Conference, without the slightest mental reservation, and having applied that spirit of co-operation in thought, word and deed, to leave nothing undone, I have not hesitated even to go into the danger zone, and hence I have dared to talk about and discuss Provincial autonomy. But I have come to the conclusion that you, or the British Ministers, do not contemplate giving India that measure of Provincial autonomy which would satisfy a man of my mentality, which would satisfy the Congress, and which would reconcile the Congress to taking up Provincial autonomy although there may be delay in getting responsibility at the Centre. At the risk of taking up a little of the time of this meeting, let me make my meaning clear, because here too I am adopting a somewhat different line of argument, and I am most anxious not to be misunderstood. Let me take, therefore, one illustration. I want to take for my illustration Bengal, because it is one of the Provinces today in India which is deeply affected. I know that there is a terrorist school active in Bengal. Everybody ought to realize by this time that I can have no manner of sympathy with that terrorist school in any shape or form. I am as convinced as I have ever been that terrorism is the worst kind of action that any reformer can take up. Terrorism is the very worst thing for India in a special manner, because India is a foreign soil for terrorism to flourish in. I am convinced that those young Indians who are giving their lives for what they consider to be a good cause are simply throwing away their lives, and that they are not bringing the country by one inch nearer to the goal which is common, I hope, to us all. I am convinced of all these things, but, having been convinced of them, supposing that Bengal had Provincial autonomy today, what would Bengal do?

Bengal would set free every one of the detenus. Bengal would not hunt down the terrorists an autonomous Bengal, I Mean but Bengal would try to reach these terrorists and convert these terrorists, and I should approach them with every confidence and wipe out terrorism from Bengal. But let me go a little step further, in order to drive home the truth that is in me. If Bengal was autonomous, that autonomy itself would really remove terrorism from Bengal, because these terrorists foolishly consider that their action is the shortest cut to freedom; but, having attained that freedom, the terrorism would cease. Today there are a thousand young men, some of whom, I would dare swear, have absolutely nothing in common with the school of terrorism, a thousand young men who have not been tried and who have not been convicted; they have all, every one of them, been arrested on suspicion. So far as Chittagong is concerned, Mr. Sen Gupta, who was Lord Mayor of Calcutta, who was member of Bengal Legislative Council, and who was also President of the Provincial Congress Committee in Bengal, is here today. He has brought to me a report signed by members of all the parties in Bengal in connection with Chittagong, and it is sad reading. It is painful to read this report, but the substance of this report is that there has been an inferior edition of the Black and Tans in Chittagong and Chittagong is not a place of any importance on the map of India. We now see there has been a flag-showing ceremony, and in making this demonstration all the military forces have been concentrated together in Calcutta, and these demonstrations have gone through ten streets of Calcutta. At whose expense and what will it do? Will it frighten the terrorists?

I promise you it will not frighten the terrorists. Will it then wean the Congressmen from civil disobedience? It will not do so. The Congressmen are pledged to this thing. Suffering is the badge of their tribe. They have determined to go through every form of suffering. It cannot, therefore, frighten them. Our children would laugh at this show, and it is our purpose to show the children that they must not be terrified; they must not be frightened by this display of artillery, guns, air force, and so on. So you see what my conception of Provincial autonomy is. All these things would be impossible; I would not allow a single soldier to enter the Province of Bengal; I would not pay a simple farthing for the upkeep of an army which I may not command. In such Provincial autonomy you do not contemplate a state in Bengal whereby I can set free all these detenus and I can remove from the statute-book the Bengal Regulation III. If it is Provincial autonomy, then it is independence for Bengal precisely in the same manner as that responsible Government. I have seen growing up in Natal.

That is a little colony, but it had its own independent existence; it had its own volunteer force and so on. You do not contemplate that thing for Bengal or any of these Provinces. It will be the Centre still dictating, still ruling, still doing all these things. That is not the Provincial autonomy of my conception. That was why I said, if you present me with that live Provincial autonomy. I shall be prepared to consider that proposition; but I am also convinced that that autonomy is not coming. If that autonomy was coming, we would not see all these protracted proceedings that have taken place here; then we would have managed our own affairs in an entirely different manner. But what really grieves me still more is this: We have all been brought here with one single purpose. I have been brought here especially through that very pact in which it is written that I was coming here to discuss and to receive real responsibility at the Centre: Federation with all its responsibility safeguards undoubtedly safeguards in the interests of India. I have said in season and out of season that I would consider every safeguard that is necessary.

I personally do not really consider, with Mr. Lees-Smith or anybody that all this Constitution-building should take all these long years three years. He thinks of Provincial autonomy in eighteen months. My folly tells me that all this time is not necessary. Where the people have made up their minds, the Parliament has made up its mind, the Ministers have made up their minds and the public opinion here is ready, then these things do not take time. I have seen them not taking time where there has been one mind applied; but I do not know that there is not one mind applied, but there are many minds, all following their own course and all perhaps with a disruptive tendency. That being so, I feel convinced that, in spite of this debate, not only is there going to be no responsibility at the Centre, but no tangible result coming out of this Conference. It hurts me, it pains me, that all this precious time of British Ministers, of the nation and of all these Indians who have come here, all of us, should have been wasted; but I am very much afraid that, in spite of this oxygen pump, the result will be nil. I do not say that the result is, therefore, bound to be that Provincial autonomy will be thrust down our throats. I do not really fear that result. What I fear is something still more dreadful that nothing at all is going to come out of this thing but terrible repression in India. I do not mind that repression; repression will only do us good. If we have repression in the right time, I will consider that also as a very fine outcome from this Conference. Repression has never done harm to a single nation which is sailing for her destined goal with a fixed determination, for that repression is really an oxygen draught, though not the draught that Mr. Lees-Smith has administered. But what I fear is that the slender thread which I had again built up of co-operation with the British nation and with British Ministers is about to snap and that I should again declare myself a convinced non-co-operator and civil resister–that I should redeliver this message of non-co-operation and civil resistance to the millions of India, no matter how many air balloons will float over India or how many tanks will be brought to India. They will have no result.

You do not know today that they produce no results even upon the tender young children. We teach them to dance with joy when bullets are flying about–them they are like so many crackers. We teach them to suffer for the freedom of their country. I do not despair I do not think that because nothing happens here there will be chaos in the land. I do not think so. Not so long as Congress remains untarnished and non-violence goes forward throughout the length and breadth of India undiminished. I have been told so often that it is the Congress that is responsible for this terrorism. I take this opportunity of denying that with all the strength at my command. On the contrary, I have evidence to show that it is the Congress creed of non-violence which up to now has kept the forces of terrorism in check. We have not succeeded to the fullest extent, I am sorry–but as time goes on we hope to succeed. It is not as if this terrorism can bring freedom to India. I wanted freedom precisely of the same type, only fuller, as Mr. Jayakar. I want full freedom for the masses, and I know that terrorism can do no good to the masses. The masses are silent and disarmed. They do not know how to kill. I do not talk of individual instances, but the masses of India have never moved in that direction. Wanting that freedom for the masses, I know that this terrorism can do no good whatsoever Whilst on the one hand Congress will fight British authority and its terrorism, legalized, so also will Congress fight terrorism, illegal, on the part of the youth. Between these two what I feel is that there was this course of co-operation opened up for the British nation and for me by Lord Irwin. He had built this bridge, and I thought I was going to have a safe passage. I had a safe passage, I have come here, and I have come here to tender my cooperation. But I must confess to you that, apart even from what Mr. Lees-Smith has said, and from what has been said on this side by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and by Mr. Sastri and the other speakers, the limited responsibility at the Centre which they have in view would not satisfy me.

I want that responsibility at the Centre that will give me, as you all know, control of the Army and Finance. I know I am not going to get that here now, and I know there is not a British man ready for that, and, therefore, I know I must go back and yet invite the nation to a course of suffering. I have taken part in this debate because I wanted to make my position absolutely clear. What I have been saying to friends in private sitting-rooms with reference to Provincial autonomy I have now said openly at this table, and I have told you what I mean by Provincial autonomy and what would really satisfy me. I close by saying that I sail in the same boat as Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and others, and I feel convinced that real Provincial autonomy is an impossibility unless there is responsibility at the Centre, or unless you are prepared to so weaken the Centre that the Provinces will be able to dictate to the Centre. I know that you are not prepared today to do this. I know that this Conference does not conceive a weak Centre when this Federal Government is brought into being, but that is conceives a strong Centre. A strong Centre governed and administered by an alien authority, and a strong autonomy, are a contradiction in terms. Hence I feel that Provincial autonomy and Central responsibility have really speaking to go together. But I say again that I have an open mind. If somebody will convince me that there is Provincial autonomy, such as I have conceived, for instance, for Bengal, available, I would grasp it.  

Reference:

Indian Round Table Conference (Second Session): Proceedings of Federal Structure Committee and Minorities Committee, Vol. 1, p. 453-4