Date: 23 December 1932
Location: London
Speaker: Aga Khan III
Source: Speeches of Aga Khan III – K K Aziz
Full Text
Mr. Secretary of State, My Lords and Gentlemen, now we have come to the close of this third session of the Round Table Confer ence we may congratulate ourselves upon the fact that a great step forward has been taken towards our goal, than which none more difficult or more splendid has ever been envisaged by statesmen. I am confident I speak the general mind when I say that we have come closer together. The three main groups of which the Conference is composed, British public men, represen tatives of the Princes, and British Indian delegates, have been working on the whole in a businesslike and matter of fact way, a fine example indeed of inter Imperial co-operation in the achievement of a great end. I was going to join my friend, Sir Tej [Bahadur] Sapru, in making an appeal to the representatives of the Princes, and, through them, to the Princes, for an early decision, but the happy speeches made by Sir Akbar Hydari, Sir Manubhai Mehta, Nawab Liaqat Hyat-Khan and Raja Oudh Narain Bisarya have made that unnecessary. In our discussions there have been differences of opinion, but always, in all sections of the Conference and, I am glad to say, including all the British delegates, the good of India as a whole has been the dominant consideration. Some matters of importance, such as the distri bution among various sections of representation in the Central Legislature, and other similar questions remain unsettled and must be decided by His Majesty’s Government before placing their scheme before the Joint Select Committee. It is our earnest hope that, by such decisions and by the formulation of broad agreements, the remaining differences will be settled and that those who may be called upon to co-operate with the Joint Com mittee will be united, irrespective of whether they are British, British Indian or States representatives. I should like to see a Round Table Party, a party consisting of all of us who have worked together here, to meet the Joint Select Committee of the two Houses of Parliament. Unity is needed for giving the final touches to the great work of which the foundation stone was laid when Lord Irwin, with the full consent of the Prime Minister, made his historic declaration in respect of Dominion status.
I have heard it said – and I think this point ought to be cleared up once for all – that that declaration of Lord Irwin’s was the result of the announcement of 1917. Such an interpretation is a very wrong and misleading reading of history. The declaration of Lord Irwin was inevitable the moment that destiny brought England and India together in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In view of the historic character of the English people and the peoples of India, without some such development their association would be historically meaningless. We find the very seeds of this declaration already in the speeches and writings and thought of Burke and Fox and all the leading statesmen of the late eighteenth century. In India already in the nineties men like Gokhale and Mehta and others with my humble self, were speaking and writing .o n this subject. Before the first Durbar some of us represented this to Lord Curzon as a happy occasion on which to give an indication of the ideal that should unite the two peoples.
I hope you will pardon me for going into these questions of the past, but I feel that it is necessary to make it clear that this was not a sudden departure from past history. May I say in this connection that while we deeply regret the absence of the Prime Minister, we well understand how pressing and continuous are the demands upon him, particularly in the midst of his great work for world recovery. I am convinced that if he succeeds in his great ambition of helping forward disarmament, peace, and world economic recovery, that will be the shortest cut to bring about the happiest results desired for the general welfare and prosperity of India.
We have had the continued good fortune of the Chairmanship of the Lord Chancellor, to whose courteous patience, sympathy and friendliness in guiding our proceedings we owe no small measure of the harmony that has prevailed. We are fortunate also, most fortunate indeed, in the fact that so large a share in deciding His Majesty’s Government’s policy has fallen to the present Secretary of State for India. Sir Samuel Hoare [later Lord Templewood] has impressed us deeply by his unswerving loyalty to the Federal idea and to the creation of true Federal units in the autonomous Provinces and in co-operation with the great self-governing States.
I have no doubt that when the Constitution has been framed we shall then consider how to give effect to it. I have also no doubt that the living forces of India will find reasonable and satisfactory methods of procedure. It is as well in politics, while we should always have the goal and object in view, to get over obstacles as we meet them and as we go along, and not unnecess arily tie our own hands in advance. I cannot possibly finish this evening without first of all thanking the English people for all the hospitality which for three consecutive sessions they have shown us. I must also thank the British Secretariat, the India Office staff, the various people associated with the work of this Conference as well as the British Indian Secretariat which has helped us on every occasion, whose work under difficult circum stances I admire and for which I feel most grateful.
We have come now to the close of this stage in the gratifying assurance that we have after all made an advance under the guidance of the Secretary of State towards India’s attainment of full political status, and to sincere and devoted co-operation as a partner in the Commonwealth of Nations of which His Majesty the King-Emperor is the Sovereign.
Source: Indian R,ound Tabk Conference (Third Session) (17th November, 1932-24 December, 1932), London, 1933, Cmd. 4238, pp. 133-5.
This last session of the conference was attended by the following delegates:
British Dekgation J. Ramsay MacDonald Lord Sankey Sir Samuel Hoare Viscount Hailsham Sir John Simon Lord Irwin J. C. C. Davidson R. A. Butler Earl Peel Earl Winterton Marquess of Reading Marquess of Lothian Indian States’ Del.egation Raja of Sarila (small States) Raja Oudh Narain Bisarya (Bhopal) Krishnama Chari (Baroda) Nawab Liaquat Hayat Khan (Patiala) Wajahat Husain (Kashmir) Nawab Sir Muhammad Akbar Hydari (Hyderabad and Rewa) Sir Mirza Muhammad Ismail (Mysore) Sir Manubhai N. Mehta (Bikaner) Sir Sukhdeo Prasad (Udaipur,Jaipur andjodhpur) D. A. Surve (Kolahpur) L. F. Rushbrook-Williams (Nawanagar) British Indian Del,egation TheAga Khan Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Sir Hubert Carr Pandit Nanak Chand A. H. Ghuznavi Sir Henry Gidney Hafiz Hidayat Husain Sir Muhammad Iqbal M. R. Jayakar Sir Cowasji Jehangir M. N.Joshi N. C. Kelkar Raja of Khallikote Ramaswami Mudaliar Begum Shah Nawaz Sir A. P. Patro Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru Dr. Shafaat Ahmad Khan Sardar Tara Singh Sir Nripendra Nath Sircar Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas Zafrullah Khan Indian States’ Del,egation Staff R. Z. Abbasi (Khairpur) Sahibzada Mumtaz Ali Khan (Malerkotla) Pandit Amar Nath Atal Gaipur) Sir Richard Chenevix-Trench (Hyderabad) C. L. Corfield (Rewa) K. V. Godbole (Phaltan) C. G. Herbert (Cochin) M. S. A. Hydari (Hyderabad) Nawab Mehdi Yar Jang (Hyderabad) Pandit Ramchandra Kak (Kashmir) Digvijaya Sinltji of Limbdi (Nawanagar) Mir Maqbool Mahmood (Patiala andjhalawar) K. C. Neogy Major Pantle ( Ochcha) K. M. Panikkar Pandit P. N. Pathak (Sarila) Sir Prabhashankar Pattani (Bhavnagar) G. P. Pillai (Travancore) B. I. Powar (Kolahpur) S. Qureshi (Mysore) Madhava Rao (Mysore) R. K. Ranadive (Baroda) C. N. Seddon (Sangli) R. K. Sorabji (Datia) J. W. Young (Jodhpur) B. H. Zaidi (Rampur)