Political Evolution in India

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THE Indian Legislature is composed of the Governor-General and the two Chambers -- the Council of State and the Legislative Assembly -- on the analogy of the King, Lords and Commons of the United Kingdom. It was set up by the Government of India Act, 1919, which, in its turn, was the legislative expression of the well-known pledge given by the Secretary of State for India in the House of Commons on August 20, 1917, in the following words:

"The policy of His Majesty's Government with which the Government of India are in complete accord is that of the increasing association of Indians in every branch of the Administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire."

Thus a pledge, given at the very height of the European War, was redeemed without delay; and before the ink was dry on the Armistice agreement, the Secretary of State had drafted the measure which was to offer the peoples of India a larger instalment of responsible government than ever before.

There are two aspects of this departure which are important. The first is that the British Parliament chose the moment of victory for the inauguration of the new Indian Constitution; and the second is that the Constitution is really new. There is no need to labor the first of these points. No candid critic can pretend that the British nation failed to redeem -- and more than redeem -- the political pledges it gave to India during the war. The fact which marks the novelty of the departure was that before the Government of India Act, 1919, was passed, India possessed no legislature in the true sense. The Legislative Councils set up by Lord Morley's Act were in essence an extension, though a large extension, of the then existing system; and their author himself emphatically declared that they were not Parliaments. He was right. And we need not now enquire whether he foresaw the inevitable demand which the rapidly maturing political consciousness of India would provoke. The germ of his policy lay far back in the days of the East India Company; and he made no departure from established principle...