So there is no remedy as far as thought devoid of fiery imagination can go penetrating the details of human affairs in India and the details that have been here for centuries as rigid facts. I now come to what the Englishman should do under the circumstances. To be brief, if he is a Cromwell, he should frankly say not only to India but Say so in the face of the nations of the world: “O, Indians! Do your damndest, we will govern you as we like. Go away. On what grounds and in what way is India more specially yours than ours? Aryans conquered it, they have gone. We occupied it when you were all fighting amongst yourselves, we will occupy it as long as we can. Come. We will die to a man and govern you as best we choose.” After this proclamation, he, the Crom well, will guide the Government of India on a new basis of that benevolent and bias less autocracy of his Puritan type. Abolish all religious superstition, all social iniquities, and all backward tendencies of these diseased people by law put into force at the point of the bayonet. Guru Gobind Singh make a living people out of these Willy nilly Johnnies by a moral power. Let his idea be now carried out by a military power. The writer of “Mother India” has written scandalously, as Gandhi says like a drain inspector. But what use is writing “Unhappy India” and “Father India” in reply? We must frankly admit that we are mostly as she says. The way out of it is not any reply to her but a change like the one coming over Afghanistan and Turkey. Let military law do with us what so far moral law has not been able to do.
And if he is a Bentham, or a Burke, then certainly he shall make no compromise with miserable political conditions in India as the Nehru Committee has done in a most miserable way, and as they expect and wish you might follow. It is an enslaved country from centuries and all these communal conditions have come about under encouragement of one kind or another from the subtle tone of administrative machinery. Also, denominational educations of Aligarh, Benares, Lahore and Amritsar have added fuel to the fire. The lure of coveted Government services and powers of municipal chairs and authority of District Boards have added to the flame. As a straight forward Englishman, bent upon doing substantial service to the people of India, in helping them to ‘Self-government and Independence, you must discourage all such conditions that have artificially created communal differences, There is no doubt, wrong administrative partialities shown at different times to one or the other community are responsible for these miseries.
Due to these partialities shown directly or indirectly the people surmise that your policy is divide and rule. You must put a stop to all this nonsense. In the new Constitution, there shall be no compromise of any kind with one community or the other. Your Constitution must afford equal opportunities to all who live under it. The truly Democratic Constitution should not allow one community of get into power and work mischief through the democratic institutions to crush the other. In the grant of your New Constitution, the right of all people should be equal in the eye of law. Public services shall not be demoralized by selection of candidates on any communal basis. No more shall English servants of the Crown take sides, Deterring punishments shall be freely meted out to those who might in any way corrupt the services,
The crux of the introduction of the truly democratic Government in the country is the question of franchise and such franchise that would automatically and mechanically make the electorate no communal. You are expected by afflicted lovers of the progress of the Indian peoples to determine it under the Indian conditions. I may Just suggest that the question of franchise cannot be properly settled nor a no communal general electorate be made possible and efficiently workable without taking away the great errors of history which have been made by your countrymen in making provinces and subdivisions in India. The Nehru Committee has taken lying down the arbitrary and imaginary administrative lines that are supposed to divide one province from the other. Wipe out the provinces as they are for a universal franchise based on equitable ground by which no one community should be able to dominate. So far imagination has been lacking in removing these errors because your nation went on adding one province after another to their Empire and went on making little bits into separate administrative units. Under perform autocracy, such divisions worked fairly well, and any divisions need another casting. And the principle of dividing provinces on the communal basis is axing the very root of the political progress in the country. It is simply un-statesmanlike to treat Sindh, Northwestern Frontier and Bengal as the Moslem majority provinces when these provinces can be either Split or lumped up into better working divisions than the present ones. The real work of genius should be the system of conditioning the franchise in such a way as to balance power. As long as the military power and the army are with the Central Government, this balance of power can be effectively secured in all the New Harmony Presidencies. It goes without saying that for a real and effective change some hard discipline is essential for some time to let the new change settle to function Properly,
I would suggest not only to make the Constitution impartial and no communal but to so divide India administratively that the joint electorate may be possible on no communal basis in a fool proof way. The franchise should be granted under certain limits of revenue paying capacity, education and the human substance, also on the soldier yielding capacities of different peoples. With the new division of most harmonious provinces and with the new limits of franchise, the elected bodies would be coming forth to work the new constitution in a non-communal manner befitting sensible men and true citizens. My point is to so redevise the country that there may be a Fairley balanced opportunity for all communities and castes and the franchise may be so limited and elastic that best representatives of all communities may have equal chances. Thus, either bring in true Western conditions of running the democratic institution’s by completely ignoring the communal differences not in a theoretical way but in a practical manner, considering the local conditions of prejudice and ignorance and tenant slavery or go back to benevolent autocracy of a dictator, The liqueur is impossible now. It would be ridiculous in the eyes of the civilized world if you do not grant us Dominion Status forthwith. Therefore the only possible alternative is to give a foolproof franchise to secure the balance of the political power that manifests itself most acutely and effectively in the selection of the state servants. If this is done, the various minorities may also be let alone to take care of themselves.
(To be continued. Due to exigencies of space, S Puran Singh’s letter will be carried over into another installment next week Editor.)
Article extracted from this publication >> August 17, 1990
