The All Parties Conference

The All Parties' Conference

I

It is not easy to underrate the success of an All Parties' Conference in India, more so when a spirit of general jubilation has pervaded the whole country after the events and experiences at Lucknow. But it is also easy to exaggerate it. Our mind naturally goes to the happenings and hopes of the middle of January 1922. There took place the first All Parties' Conference then, and as one that witnessed it in person, the joys that prevailed at the Jehangir Petit Hall in Bombay on the 16th of January, barely a fortnight after the Ahmedabad Congress, still ring in our ears. They say that old associations and reminiscences are reached quicker through the nose and ear than the eye. To one that was present at the Lucknow session and sat it out the four days and listened to the words of high praise and glorification, the thought was irresistible whether, after all this, the upshot of this historic gathering could be any better than that of its forerunners in Bombay in 1922, and in Ahmedabad in 1924. In 1922, Lord Reading had orders from Whitehall not to carry on conversations any further over the Prince of Wales' visit. In 1924, the worst that was apprehended in the wake of the Gopinath Saha resolution and the proceedings of the Serajgung Provincial Conference in Bengal only came too true. Why should we expect better results to follow this agreement at Lucknow? –ask friends. No one outside a dreamland would expect a Commonwealth to be established in India, close on the heels of, and in accordance with the lines indicated by, the Lucknow Pact. What then have we achieved?

II

The progress of politics is a psychological process. It has not been mechanised even in the West. In this war between mind and machine, India had to make its own adjustments and readjustments. The seed of communal representation sown by Lord Minto in 1908 blossomed and bore fruit in 1916 at Lucknow, in the form of what is popularly known as the Lucknow Concordat. We well remember the historic occasion in the Indian Association Rooms at Calcutta when the preliminaries of that understanding were settled, but with the tacit condition that the expedient devised was to be transient and even short lived. The understanding was accepted en bloc by Mr. Montagu and implemented only in 1921. If, therefore, Dr. Besant with her rare foresight and her inherent political instinct, urged the formulation of a Commonwealth Bill based upon a revised mutual understanding, the time was not opportune even in 1925 for this inevitable but uninviting task. We have often taken to task the Congress for treating with scorn the labours of the National Home Rule League. The duty of examining the Bill prepared by it had perforce to wait until ripe but bitter experience made possible its discharge, but the spirit of scornfulness was none the less blameworthy. This apart, the lapse of well-nigh a decade now, since the Montagu Reforms were enacted, has made it possible to revise the old and vicious system of separate electorates for Mussalmans. It required no small measure of courage on the part of the Drafting Committee to scrap the Lucknow Concordat and realign the march of Indian Nationalism along the paths of true democracy. This it has been possible to achieve only by one course which people had all along fought shy of, but which humbler people like the writer had all along pressed upon the attention of the Congress. Although India's political problem is one and the same from one end to the other, yet its inter-communal problems vary from province to province. Provincial autonomy in the settlement of such complex issues is the only way out

of the impasse. It was thus that the Punjab came to a decision. The All Parties' Conference at Lucknow did not impose its will on the Punjab or Bengal. Moulvi Akram Khan speaking in Urdu and Mr. Sen Gupta speaking in English, both of Calcutta, came to the platform and declared that, though each could not understand the tongue of the other, both were agreed in their hearts to scrap separate electorates. Likewise was the Punjab Pact read out at the Conference and it was signed by Lala Lajpat Rai, Abdur Rahman Azad, Dr. Alam, Dr. Saiffuddin Kichlew, Fazul Huq, Dawood Gharvi, Pundit Haridat Sarma, Dr. Satyapal, Sardar Sardul Singh, Shaik Nizamuddin, Lala Dunichund of Lahore, Moulvis Abdul Khader and Zaquarali Khan, Lala Girdharlal and Mr. Khoraira. In the same manner, the Sindh Pact was arrived at, not because Sindh was a linguistic entity like Andhra Desa, Utkal and Karnataka, nor yet because the Conference overbore the few Sindhi delegates assembled in it, but because the Hindus and Mussalmans agreed to the terms of the respective understandings.

It was not possible to ascertain the decision of the house at Lucknow by a show of hands. There was unequal representation clearly of the various organisations that had participated in the Conference. From the small province of Sindh, there came 20 delegates. The Liberals of the U. P, the Hindu Maha Sabha, and other sectional organisations sent as many. Nor were various delegates armed with credentials on the various questions by their respective electorates. Obviously then, neither a show of hands nor the counting of organisations could be of any avail in judging the decision of the house. The house had therefore to reach its decisions more by a union of hearts than by the counting of hands or even of heads. The atmosphere that such a set of conditions would develop was necessarily one of mutual forbearance and trustfulness. Accordingly, questions could be handled in their broad outlines, not in their minute details. That was a distinct advantage. For the first time, the Nation learnt to submerge details under the surface of high principles.

For the first time after Gandhi's leadership in the days of Non-co-operation did the Nation give proof of its confidence in its leaders. It is easy to peck at the scheme, to deride it on the score that it is neither federal nor unitary, to criticise that the States have not been pieced into the administrative machinery of the Commonwealth, and to disparage the Dominion status which is pitted against complete National independence. In the first place, one has to remember that an All Parties' Conference has its own limitations. Even in a homogeneous body like the Congress, you are confronted with the obvious inconsistency between an object that is Swaraj, and a goal of complete independence. The one is embodied in an article which is the creed of the Congress, the other is in the form of a resolution of a particular session. If in a homogeneous body like the Congress, such is the state of affairs, how much more complicated should it be with an All Parties' Conference? This latter body could only register the G.C.M. of agreement. It cannot therefore be blamed if it plumped for Dominion status. In the words of Bepin Babu, it gave the last chance to the British, although no one–not even Pandit Moti1al Nehru, the author of the scheme–labours under any unnecessary delusion about its reception by them. Scholars and Political Scientists may be meticulous about the federal or the unitary character of the Constitution, but if we remember that we are not writing on a tabula rasa, that it is not the Australian colonies or the South African components of the Union that are sought to be brought under one common political organisation, and that to-day New Zealand still stands out from the former Commonwealth, we shall know that India's constitution cannot be laid on rigid lines. Here we have a strong Central Government and Provinces, some dealing with Whitehall direct, others subordinate to the Central Government in Delhi. We have to take the Indian Constitution as it is. Would any sensible man ask, what should be the religion of India? With equal sense might he cavil at the mixed character of its Government. Life is a continuous stream into which various tributaries flow and religions and governments areonly contents of Iife. But when people complain that the Native States have not been woven into the fabric of the Constitution on the plan of a federal idea, they ignore the plain fact that the states include both the Princes and the people of the States, and that no scheme of organisation which confers powers on the Central Legislature to legislate for or against them on matters of all-India interest, can be brought into existence without the express assent of the States themselves. If therefore, out of the 700 princes in India, or reducing their numbers, out of the 40 or 50.princes that count, only the Maharajah of Mysore has agreed to participate in the Federal Commonwealth, and the Maharajah of Alwar has upheld the academic idea of a Federal Commonwealth, it cannot be seriously contended that British Indian politicians are giving the go-bye to the Federal principle. This principle is always there and its fulfillment must be the work of time. If anyone can advance it, it is the people of the States not, the people of British India.

III

We may now take up some of the larger questions which were disposed of at Lucknow. On the plain question of linguistic provinces, there was not a little difficulty. Drafting Committee had not the vision to see that Andhra Province was a foregone conclusion. Because the Karnatakas took pains to convince the Committee of their case, the Committee thought that the Andhras too should have come and done likewise. But it saw its mistake when we pointed out that, in geometry, there were axioms as well as Postulates, and problems as well as theorems. Sindh was a problem. Karnataka was a theorem. Utkal was a postulate. But Andhra was an axiom. If there was a contiguous area of 72 thousand square miles peopled by 17 millions, with an additional six millions in the adjoining State of the Nizam's; which contributes exactly half the revenues of the Madras Presidency and possesses

vast resources, and is five times the size of Switzerland, four times the size of Belgium or Serbia, twice the size of Scotland or Ireland, slightly larger than Turkey and slightly smaller than Italy; who should dare to ask that Andhra must make out its case, more especially after the Madras Government has established the Andhra University and the Madras Legislative Council has endorsed the separation of the Andhra Province? These facts were enough to convince the Committee that the Commission contemplated in Clause 72 should forthwith proceed to carve out the Andhra Province. The case of Utkal was doubtless more complicated, but there is no insuperable difficulty, for the Committee's difficulty was that the finances of Utkal might not be self-sufficient. That may be so, when you still think of panoplied Governors attended by Body Guards, red baize, mounted sowars riding fine horses of sixteen hands and above, and living in huge palaces furnished with ebony and sandal, drawing rich sumptuary allowances and touring in saloons and special trains. Under the Dominion status, yea, even under it, our Governors will be humble Indians, wedded to the gospel of plain living and high thinking. And when all arguments failed, we suggested that Pandit Motilal Nehru himself should be the first Governor of Utkal and too, the first Honorary Governor, as purity and poverty went always together in politics. It was thus that, fifteen years after the Andhras had begun to sublimate the movement for linguistic provinces, the Utkals who had long been their forerunners, had their claim also recognised. Closely connected with this question was the question of the common language of India, and this and several other smaller matters were referred to the Committee with the hints of the Conference for disposal. All these matters will finally come before the Convention and may be re-examined in time. Only one small suggestion may be referred to here. It relates to the amendment of the Constitution. There was the Muslim League's suggestion that the Committee's proposal to sanction an amendment merely by a vote of two-thirds of the members of Parliament was a little bit risky and he suggested four-fifths. It is true that various countries have various safeguards. In Switzerland, an amendment must have its root and origin in a Referendum. In America, the States have as much voice in the matter as the Commonwealth. What was at the of the mind of the mover in our case was undoubtedly a communal apprehension. The Mussalmans would form, it is believed, between 1/4 and 1/3 of the members of the Central Legislature. The Hindus, in any case, would be two-thirds. Under the Committee's suggestion, the Hindus alone could carry an amendment. But under the amendment proposed, the Mussalmans alone could defeat any change. Safety therefore lay in accepting a middle fraction. That would be three-fourths. We have no doubt that the Drafting Committee which has been reappointed will strike the mean.

IV

Few will deny that the value of the agreement is intrinsic. The agreement is an end in itself. But it is also the means to an end, in that it formulates a demand. A demand always implies a. sanction behind. At Lucknow, the sanctions were not considered although the need for them was referred to. Was there not really a sanction behind Lucknow? To those that have eyes, it is evident that behind Lucknow lay Bardoli. If Lucknow embodied the demand, Bardoli furnishes the sanction. There is something really apposite in the consummation of Lucknow being reached close upon the heels of the conclusions of Bardoli. No one is under a delusion about the docility of the Englishman. He is not the man to give in unless he is compelled to. Importunity has never brought Home Rule. Only under pressure have people yielded in the past. Whether that pressure shall be violent or non-violent in character, is the only question. So far, the Indian National Congress has firmly stood by non-violence. But there is no guarantee that the cult of non-violence will long hold the field. Youth is always impatient and it has had time enough to forget the lesson learnt by its predecessors, that anarchy and violence are not a paying proposition. It is the weakness of man that each generation stands to learn its own lessons by its own follies rather than by the follies of others. In the coming years, therefore, the quest for sanctions will leave us in a void between the Moderates that condemn non-violent non-co-operation, and the Extremists who uphold violence. The salvation will therefore lie in being able to persuade the men with balanced minds and sober judgments, as Pandit Malaviya would say, to describe those who are popularly called Moderates, to accept the cult of non-violent non-co-operation in case the Reforms should fall short of the National Demand. The All Parties' Conference has fortunately taken a wise step in declaring in its last resolution:

‘That this Conference declares that the agreements and decisions contained in the foregoing resolution are based upon the assumption that the general scheme sketched out in the Nehru Report adopted by this Conference shall be given effect to as a whole, inasmuch as the various provisions thereof are inter-dependent upon each other, and all the Parties assembled in this Conference hereby agree that every one of them will stand by it as a whole, and will refuse to accept any single part of it without giving full force and effect to all other parts. Provided that any modification of this scheme may be accepted by the consent and agreement of all the parties.’

Swaraj therefore comes to us not merely when we agree to divide the spoils, but only in proportion to the measure in which we are prepared to receive the blows.