Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1929 INDIAN POLITICS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 30 July 1929, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1929 INDIAN POLITICS

AT the lime when the British General Election was at its height, and the attention of the public, both in Great Britain and the Dominions, was concentrated upon the result of that great political contest, there occurred in India an important political action which was largclv lost sight of by the rest of the Empire. That was the Viceroy of India's decision to postpone the Indian General Election, which was due next November. This he did by right of Ins prerogatives under the Montagu-Chelms- , ford Act, which, while it gave a partial measure of self-government to British India, reserved to the Viceroy wide discretionary powers, which he is at liberty to use whenever he is convinced that Ins 1 intervention is necessary for the good >I government of British India and the up'holding of the sovereign rights of the King-Emperor. Behind the Viceroy's action was the genius of a great statesman. Never beFore in the history of British India had ' i. Viceroy been faced with a more perj plexing problem. On the one hand was [the Simon Commission, appointed by both Houses of the British Parliament, and instructed to report on the working of the Montagn-Chelmsford Act, and cm ihe other hand wan the positively hosli.ile majority in (lie Assembly, which | had been created by that Act. The Swarajists, as that majority has been !,tubbed, were bent upon wrecking the • Montagu-Chclmsford Act, and had de'l .rnuncd to thwart the Simon Commis- ' -inn by every means in their power, and for the purpose had laid down a plan of campaign which they were carrying J through with all the virulence possible. Their programme was threefold. First

jthey would boycott the Simon Commission throughout British India. Next they would produce a Report of their own which should cclipso any Report which the Commission might draw up. And, thirdly, when the Commission's Report was due to appear —which is about the end*of the year—they would use the occasion of tho General Election, which was due to bo held about November next, for creating such popular clamour as would completely discredit anything which the Commission's Report might suggest for the better government ol British India. Most remarkable has been the miscarriage of the Swarajists' programme. In tho first place their boycott of tho Commission failed. Eight out of nine of the Legislative Councils of India and tho Council of State passed votes deciding to co-operate actively with the Commission. The great majority of the Moliamedans and Sikhs, the organised nonBrahmms of the south and other important sections of the vast Indian population decided .to ignore the boycott, and the Commission came into close touch with all but the boycotting politicians themselves. In other words, the boycott failed. It did more; it widened the gulf between the Hindus and Mohamedans, whose co-operation is essential if the plans of the Swarajists are to succeed. Then as to the Coastitution which they would substitute for that which the Commission may propose, they adopted the draft of Pundit Motilal Nehree, the Swarajist leader, who worked in conjunction with another prominent member of tho Party. This document is commonly called the Nehree Report, but-when it was published it met with almost universal disapproval from great sections of the Indian nation. It advocated out-and-out Home Rule, and it was rejected by the powerful nonBrahmin Party of Madras and Bombay, by the Sikhs and the great majority of Hindus in the Punjab and Sind, while the Mohamedans assailed it with a fierce antagonism. In other words, the Nehree Report was a failure from the day it was published, and the basis of that failure was the fear of the Mohamedans and other non-Brahmins of India that, under it, they would come under the rule of the Hindus.

There still remained the possibility of using the General Election for the purpose of wrecking the forthcoming Report of the Simon Commission, by creating such a condition af agitation and chaos as would give the impression that all India was violently opposed to its recommendations, whatever they may be. Then it was that the Viceroy stepped in, and. in so many words, said, "There shall be no General Election. The Simon Report shall be published in as quiet a political atmosphere as possible, in order) that its recommendations may be considered calmly by all sections of political opinion in India." That Report will be the work, not of one political party in Great Britain, but of all parties, for the Commission represents all parties of both Houses of the British Parliament. The change of Government in Great Britain makes no alteration in the status of the Commission, nor in the fact that its Report will be examined by a Joint Select Committee of both Houses of the British Parliament, before the future form of government in India is formulated by His Majesty's Government at Westminster. Plainly here is seen the greatest task which will confront Mr Ramsay MacDonald's Cabinet, and the Empire, will watch with interest tho proposals which it will make when the Reports of both the Commission and the Joint Select Committee ore before the British Parliament.