Fwd: Official British View on Communal Electorates (Correction)

June 5, 2006

THE VEILS OF ANY EXTENSION OF THE SYSTEM ARE PLAIN....

should read as:

THE EVILS OF ANY EXTENSION OF THE SYSTEM ARE PLAIN....

Vrndavan Parker <vrnparker > wrote: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 13:35:25 -0700 (PDT)

Vrndavan Parker <vrnparker >

Official British View on Communal Electorates

vediculture, hinducivilization,

hinduthought, fhrs_usa,

indicjournalists, indianvoice

Below is a statement from the Montagu-Chelmsford Report from 1918. pg 185-188. In it, the British admit that communal electorates are divisive and area serious hindrance to the formation of a self-governing India. However the British felt that, out of political necsessity, they must keep a separate Muslim electorate because it would be a breach of faith with the Muslims and a danger to British Interests. Obviously, 'the powers that be' have decided to maximise this divisive ploy knowing fully well that the results would be the repeated partition of India until that day that India becomes the 'Yugoslavia of South Asia'.

Vrndavan

"At this point we are brought face to face with the most difficultu question whiche arises in connexion with the elected assemblies-whether communal electorates are to be maintained....But we have felt bound to re-examine the question fully in the light of our new policy;and also because we have been pressed to extend the system of communal electorates in a variety of directions. This is no new problem...

The crucial test to which, as we concieve, all proposals should be brought is whether they wil or will not help to carry India towards responsible government. Some persons hold that for a people such as they deem those of India to be, so divided by race, religion and caste as to be unable to consider the interests of any but their own section, a system of communal and class representation is not merely inevitable but is actually best...but when we consider what responsible government implies, and how it was developed in the world WE CANNOT TAKE THIS VIEW.

We conclude unhestatingly that the history of self-government among the nations who developed it and spread it through the world is decisively against the admission by the State of any divided allegiance; AGAINST the State's arranging members in any way which encourages them to think of themselves primarily as citizens of any smaller unit than itself....

DIVISION BY CREEDS AND CLASSES MEANS THE CRREATION OF POLITICAL CAMPS ORGANIZED AGAINST EACH OTHER, AND TEACHES MEN TO THINK AS PARTISANS AND NOT AS CITIZENS; and it is difficult to see how the change from this system to national representation is ever to occur.

The British Government is often accused of dividing men in order to govern them. But if it is unneccessarily divides them at the very moment when it professes to start them on the road to governing themselves, it will find it difficult to meet the charge of being hypocritical or short sighted...

WE REAGRD ANY SYSTEM OF COMMUNAL ELECTORATES, THEREFORE, AS A VERY SERIOUS HINDRANCE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANY SELF-GOVERNING PRINCIPLE. THE VEILS OF ANY EXTENSION OF THE SYSTEM ARE PLAIN....AT THE SAME TIME WE MUST FACE HARD FACTS.

The Muhammadans were given special representation with separate electorates in 1909. The Hindus' acquiescence is embodied in the present agreement between the political leaders of the two communities (the so-called Lucknow pact of 1916). The Muhammadans regard these as settled facts, and any attempt to go back on them would rouse a strom of bitter protest and put a sever strain on the loyalty of a community which has behaved with cosnspicuous loyalty during a period of great difficulty, and which we know to be feeling no small anxiety for its own welfare under a system of popular government...

Much as we regret the necessity, we are convinced that so far as the Muhammadans at all events are concerned the present system must be maintained until conditions alter, even at the price of slower progress towards the realization of a common citizenship. But we can see no reason to set up communal representation for Muhammadans in any province where they form a majority of the voters."

From Cd. 9109 Report on Indian Costitutional reforms (London: His Majseties Stationery Office, 1918), pp 185-188

Available in the book "Partition Of India, Causes and Responsisibilities." Edited by T W Wallbank