Date: 13 October 1928
Location: London
Speaker: Aga Khan III
Source: Speeches of Aga Khan III – K K Aziz
Full Text
The most serious defect of the Constitution proposed by the Nehru Report: a unitary government without safeguards – example of the Burmese people – other minorities and “self-determination” present distribution of provinces haphazard – suitability of a federal structure – free states on basis of religion, nationality, race, lan guage and history – a Muslim free state in the, north-west – practical safeguards for the minorities – the Princely States – question of defence – analogy with the former German Confederation.
In a previous article I dwelt on the unsatisfactory treatment in the Indian Constitution proposed in the Nehru Report of the three great problems of the independent Indian States, the pro tection of the Muslim and other minorities, and the provision of an adequate national Army in Swaraj India. But by far the most serious, in fact the insuperable, defect of the Constitution recom mended is that it predicates a unitary All-India Government, very much on the lines of the present central authority, yet without its safeguards and guarantees, moral and material, and its scope for the development of provincial autonomy and racial develop ments. The draft Constitution overlooks the consideration that the raison d’etre of the call for political freedom is that peoples should govern themselves and not have an outside authority imposed upon them – whether it be that of British electorate or that of an Executive, controlled by an Indian Parliament at Delhi or Simla, inevitably accentuating the dominance in India as a whole of a particular racial or cultural portion.
The Burmese people, by faith and race and history, are so distinct from India that they could not possibly accept the dictation of a Swaraj Parliament at Delhi. The immediate result of adoption of the Left Parties’ scheme would be to unite the Burmans in insistent appeals to the English people for separation and independence – appeals that could not in fairness and equity be refused.
The difficulties which would arise in India proper would hardly be smaller. It is not conceivable that, when the strong arm of Britain had disappeared, great and compact races like the Mah rattas, the Bengalis, or the Muhammadans of the north-west and Sind would accept the control of a Central Executive and Legislature. Should such an authority at Delhi, dependent on a legislative majority of the other nationalities of the sub-continent, dictate to some other of these races, or even to lesser communi ties like the Sikhs, the aggrieved party would be justified, at least where it is territorially preponderant, in insisting on its freedom, according to the principle of “self-determination” which has been invoked against the continuance of British rule. The demand for “self-determination” can express itself in many forms against even a Swaraj majority among strata of peoples as varied in their outlook and standards as are the peoples of India.
While not entirely unconscious of this fundamental objection to their scheme, the framers of the Commonwealth Constitution have evaded the issue, and have not proposed even half measures to meet it. Serious thinkers about the future of my country have realized that the present distribution of provinces – thrown haphazard out of British imperialism and administrative history or convenience – cannot be reconciled with a self-governing India. During his long association with India, the late Edwin Montagu ( than whom no one was more responsible for making Indian autonomy a question of practical politics) often remarked to me that units like the Bombay Presidency and the Central Provinces would be impossible anomalies under self-government.
But, mindful of the difficulties Lord Curzon encountered in partitioning Bengal, he wisely refused to take up the question of provincial redistribution before the inauguration of his Reforms.
Determined to make a beginning with Indian responsibility, he framed the Reforms in the hope and expectation that at later stages the approach of self-government would render the present distribution not only absurd but impossible. Mr. Lionel Curtis, the real parent of dyarchy, also saw the difficulty and made the idealistic proposal of a division of British India into a consider able number of small provinces with a few million inhabitants each. Such a grouping would cut up many real nationalities and make India administratively another, if greater, France, for the provinces would be little more than the French departments. No one with practical knowledge of the various Indian nationalities, with their passion for individual expression can believe that such a scheme would go through without strife or could succeed.
The solution I urge for the consideration of my countrymen, as well as the British people (who, inevitably, whether rightly or wrongly, must be associated with the next two or three “successive stages” of advance to self-government to which they are pledged) is frankly to face the facts and boldly to accept the consequences.
India, when freed from any outside control, cannot have a unitary, non-federal, Government. The country must accept in all its consequences its own inevitable diversities, not only religious and historical, but also national and linguistic. It must base its Constitution on an association of free states, such as the German Empire was before the crash ten years ago. Each Indian province must enjoy to the full the freedom and independence of, say, Bavaria, in the years before the Great War. The Indian Free States would resemble the self-governing British Dominions in being ultimately held together by the bond of monarchy, represented by the present British Sovereign and his heirs. As a convinced monarchist I am indifferent whether the India of that day is regarded as a kingdom or as an empire. The downfall of Russia, Austria, and Germany in our time, and of the two French Empires and the Roman Empire in former generations, may be said to give to the word “Emperor” less happy associations than the word “King”. But, after all, this is only a matter of fashion.
In Rome “Emperor” was a popular term and the kingdom was unpopular. In our own day, the happy consequences of kingship in Great Britain, Holland, Belgium, and the Scandinavian coun tries have endeared the word “King” to the people immediately concerned.
By frank acceptance of the idea of an association of free states almost all the difficulties in the way of a Swaraj India would sooner or later be overcome. Each free state would be based, not on considerations of size, but on those of religion, nationality, race, and language – plus history. Thus Burma would be one state, while Bengal, with its Muhammadan East and Hindu West, would be two. The Mahratta country would be an entity in this re-grouping. Where there exists a distinct race, such as the Gujer atis, the mere fact it occupied a relatively small area would not prevent its acquisition of the status of a free state. On the other hand, the Muhammadan provinces of the North and the West would probably coalesce and make one important free state.
The burning question of the protection of minorities would in large measure be solved. The compact bodies of Muhammadans in the North-West and the East of India proper would have free states of their own. In provinces where they are a small minority they would have some guarantee of fair play in the fact of propin quity by language and residence to their Hindu neighbours, and also by being too small numerically to bid for political control.
Other minorities would have similar practical safeguards. The free states would not be mere provinces with Legislatures and Executives liable to be overruled by a Central Government in which the Hindus would have a permanent majority. They would be secure from all kinds of interference, except in matters in which they would be freely associated with other states: and if the Bavarian example were taken, these would be few and far between. The Indian principalities could come into a free associ ation of states, because in practice their semi-autonomy would be augmented and not decreased. The larger states, such as Hyderabad, Kashmir, and Mysore, could enter into the associ ation as distinct units, while groups of smaller principalities like those of Kathiawar, Rajputana and Central India could confed erate and enter the union as free and independent members. If thought desirable the states of, say, Central India could constitute two groups of free states.
To revert to the position of Burma: she would stand to gain substantially by the new system without any corresponding loss.
There would be no incentive for her to separate from Eastern Dominions with which she would have close economic ties and from which she would derive commercial advantage. I have little doubt that, if the objective I have sketched is adopted, the Gajer atis or the Marhattas, or a union of the Northern Provinces and Sind, could in the relatively near future establish, within their own well-defined areas, free state administrations with good hope of success.
The popular authority would be based on national facts and have that immense asset – the nearness of the governing body in sentiment and ideas to the people. The difficulty of providing adequate defence would be overcome by stages. Initially, all that would be required would be the removal of British troops and officials from the one or two well-defined areas where the new system was taking effect. Rightly conservative and cautious, the British would be willing to start the experiment of transfer of full responsibility over one or two areas, with a view to successive extensions of the system, as it succeeded, to other units.
The success or failure of this approach to self-government would depend on the position of each unit being akin to that of Bavaria in the former German Confederation, rather than that of an American state or a Swiss canton. Anyone with a knowl edge of political history must be aware of the immense difference here implied and its consequences, and must realize that it will immediately go a long way to appeal not only to the Ruling Princes, but to the various races and religions, as well as to Burma. By freeing the Muslim majorities in the North-West and East from ultimate Hindu control it will give them something worth having. Glaring injustice to any community is improbable, because nowhere in the free states of India will one nationality, race, religion or historical unit be at the mercy of a semi-foreign majority dictating its orders from a distance.
Source: The Times, London, 13 October 1928.
In this second and concluding part of the article, the Aga Khan takes issue with the Nehru Report’s goal of a unitary India.
On the Nehru Report and its implications for Indian politics see All Parties Conference, Report of the Committee Appointed by the Conference to Determine the Principles of the Constitution for India, together with a Summary of the Proceedings of the Conference Hel,d at Lucknow, All India Congress Committee, Allahabad, 1928; All Parties Conference, Supplementary Report of the Committee, All India Congress Committee, Allahabad, n.d.; Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, The Nehru Report and Muslim Ri,ghts, Qadian, 1930; Haji Abdullah Haroon, The Constitution of the Future Commonwealth of India and the Rights of the Muslim Minority: A Representation Submitted to the Members of the Nehru Committee (Allahabad) and to the All Parties Convention (Calcutta), Karachi, 1928; William Isaac Hull, India’s Political Crisis, Baltimore, 1930; Dhirendranath Sen, Whither India: A Critical Study of the Nehru Report and the Exposition of the Principles of India ‘.5 Future Government, Cal cutta, n.d.; The Indian National Demand: Being a Summary of the Nehru Report and the Proceedings of the National Convention He’ld in Calcutta, 1928, published by Rafi Ahmad Kidwai, Secretary, All Parties Conference, and Convention, Allahabad, 1928 ( contains the final texts of the report); Punjab Information Bureau, Selections From the Punjab Press on Simon Commission and Nehru Report, Lahore, 1928; Talammuz Husain, The Case of the Muslim, Gorakhpur, 1928; G. W. Chau dhri, “The Nehru Report”, in Pakistan Historical Society, A History of the Freedom Movement (Being the Story of Muslim Struggle for the Freedom of Hind-Pakistan) 1707-1947, Volume 3, 1906-1936, Part 1, 1906-1928, Karachi, 1961; and I. H.
Qureshi, The Struggle for Pakistan, Karachi, 1965.
The background to the Nehru Committee and its report is as follows. In a speech in the House of Lords, asking the House to agree to the submission to the King of the names of the proposed members of the Indian Statutory (Simon) Commission, Lord Birkenhead, the Secretary of State for India, explained why no Indians had been appointed to the commission and entered into some details of the divisions of opinion and of interest in India, referring with some emphasis to the Hindu-Muslim schism. The Congress leaders in India took deep umbrage at these words and took them as a challenge to India to produce a constitution. An All Parties Conference, which had lately been formed to bring all boycotters of the Simon Commission together, undertook to prepare a constitution to confound British official pessimism. After long discussions, the conference appointed a sub-committee to draw up a consti tution. The drafting committee consisted of Pandit Motilal Nehru, Sayyid Ali Imam, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Sardar Mangal Singh, S. C. Bose, E. R. Pradhan and Shoib Qureshi. Motilal Nehru was the chairman, hence the report’s popular name. The Sikh member was driven out of the Secretaryship of the Sikh League within a week of the publication of the report. The Christians, too, repudiated the principles adopted by the report in reference to the protection of the minorities. Muslim reaction to the report was a swift, uncompromising and unqualified rejection.