India We Saw

THE INDIA WE SAW By THE HON. EDWARD CADOGAN, C.B., M.P. A vivid account of the experiences of the Simon Commission in India and at home THE INDIA WE SAW THE INDIA WE SAW BY THE HON./ EDWARD CADOGAN C.B .• M.P. LONDON - .. __ JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. Fwst Edition- • ' .; • 1933 DEDicATION "10· AlL mosE" WHO SHARED mE ~ BEAT AND BURDEN OF Tim DAY FOREWORD HE following pages have been written T not merely with the purpose of re cording the journeyings and investigations .undertaken by the Royal Statutory Com mission. :My intention has rather been to provide for those who are interested in the Indian Constitutional Problem material which, together with other available sources of information, I venture to hope will assist them to form opinions upon whatever recom mendations may ultimately be submitted ta. the Imperial Parliament. I am also anxious to make it clear that in preparing this, my own version of the genesis of the Simon Report, I ·have not entered into consultation with any of my former colleagues on. the Indian Statutory Com mission. The responsibility for the state ments, views, and opinions expressed therein is mine exclusively. E. C. II ILCHESTER PLACE, HOLLAND PARK. vii CHAPTER I HEN in the year 1919 the Government W · of India Act was amended, as a result of the investigations undertaken . by Lord Chelmsford and Mr. Montagu into the Indian constitutional problem, a clause was inserted therein to the effect that at the expiration of every ten years from the institution of the reforms a Royal Commission should be sent out to India in order to report to Parliament as to their progress and effects. In the sum;. mer of 1927, although the statutory period had not yet expired, the Government of the day, doubtless in response to considerable • pressure from Indian politicians, who are not conspicuous for patience, whatever other vir tues they may be endowed with, decided to anticipate the date of the Commission's appointment. · It is noteworthy that in the Act itself there is no very clear indication as to the precise character of its composition. Lord Chelms ford some time later, in my hearing, expressed the opinion that, despite the ambiguity of the I 2 THE INDIA WE SAW :clause, he never entertained any doubt that Ian exclusively Parliamentary Commission had been intended and, although he was not in a 1>osition · to vouch for the views of the late Mr. ,Edwin Montagu on the subject, he be lieved that the latter had shared his opinion. The Government, on the other hand, must have been assailed in the first instance with some misgivings as to what the clause exactly signified, for discussion had evidently taken place with regard to the feasibility of includ ing Indians in its personnel. -After I had accepted the invitation of the Prime Minister to serve on the Royal Com mission I was privileged to have one or two preliminary conversations with Lord Birken head, at that time Secretary of State for India. Although I have preserved no minute of those interviews, two matters that were discussed survive in my recollection. He informed me that the Indians who were pre pared to co-operate with the British Govern ment had advocated the setting up of a Round Table Conference, but that the sugges tion had been condemned in authoritative quarters as outside the range of practical politics. He also imparted to me the informa tion that the expediency of including Indians on the Commission had been contemplated by THE INDIA WE SAW 3 the Government both at home and in India, and that, although at first Lord Irwin was notl averse to the suggestion, it had proved un acceptable on a broad view. He propounded· '· various reasons for this decision, some of which he reproduced in his speech during the appropriate debate ih the House of Lords. There can be little doubt that, whatever other objections could have been urged against such a course, the consideration which weighed most against the inclusion of Indians was the · impossibility of obtaining an agreed report if even only the major Indian communities were represented. This diagnosis seemed to be based upon logical reasoning and was abun dantly vindicated by the subsequent course of events. But, reviewing the· whole matter in the light of all that has since occurred, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that a report which was destined to be repudiated by the Indian intelligentsia and ignored by· the Imperial Government would have been equally valuable whether it had been divided into two separate volumes of contradictory recom mendations or whether it had been presented to His Majesty in an agreed form. I was careful to question Lord Birkenhead as to whether he anticipated any trouble in India from the deliberate exclusion of repre- 4 THE INDIA WE SAW sentative Indians from the Commission. He replied that, although inevitably there would be an outcry in certain quarters, he did not l believe that it would endure-and that ulti rmately we should experience no great difficulty on that account. I could not myself feel quite so sanguine. As •events proved, there can be no question that both the Cabinet in England and the Government of India had egregiously underestimated the effect which the exclusion of Indians from the Commission was destined to produce. As I sat conversing with him in his small bay-windowed room overlooking the Horse Guards Parade, I wondered to myself what motive had induced Lord Birkenhead to accept the India Office. He did not seem to have· his interests centred there and was obviously relieved that the formidable prob lem of the Indian Constitution had tempo rarily been transferred to shoulders other than his own. It may have been that already the evening shadows were beginning to lengthen and draw up across his path, although at that time there was no outward indication that his intellectua1 faculties had passed the meridian. The initial proposal made to those who had consented to serve on the Commission was that a considerable time should be spent both. THE INDIA WE SAW 5 in India and England taking evidence and acquiring by every possible means a fami liarity with the conditions which should govern our recommendations, that we should eventually make our report to His Majesty, and that Parliament-following upon the precedent set when the Montagu-Chelmsford report was laid upon the table-should amend the Government of India Act, that conse quently a select committee of both Houses should sit-upon which unquestionably tl:te Royal Commission should be represented and that our report, .along with any other available material, should form the basis of discussion. It is difficult to entertain any doubt that seven members of the Imperial Parliament, all of whom had considerable interests _both public and private claiming their attention, would be reluctant to accept-. the sacrifice of time and labour which service on the Commission involved, upon any other terms. When Parliament met in the autumn, the Prime Minister lost no time in announcing the personnel of the Royal Commission to the House of Commons. The Secretary of State repeated the same formality in the Upper House and, by an ominous coincidence, in the course of the subsequent discussion the whole 6 THE INDIA WE SAW of the lights in the Palace of Westminster were 1 1extinguished, the noble occupants of the red benches having to continue the debate dis consolately by the light of a few guttering candles. These simultaneous announcements met with anything but a favourable reception. A howl of expostulation went up from the ranks of the Congress Party in India, and in Eng land there was not wanting a chorus of dis approval from both expected and unexpected quarters. With regard to the former I could only feel that for Indian political aspirants who maintained that the government 6(India might at once be handed over to men who had · absolutely no previous experience of governing anything, it was manifestly incon sistent on the4" part to criticize the inexperi ence of those who had been called upon to assume the comparatively limited responsibil ities which service on the Royal Commission entailed, and to the critics in England our report and the general verdict on our report can be my only reply-for what such a reply is worth. The Royal Commission for good or ill was set up in the autumn of 1927 under the sign manual of the King-Emperor, the personnel being approved nemine contradicente by both THE 1!\"DIA WE SAW 7 Houses of Parliament. It was decided that we should proceed to India early in the New Year. The purpose of this preliminary tour was not so much the intention of taking evi- · dence as for the members to gain some experi ence of the working of legislatures, local government institutions, educational centres and any other public departments which mainly concerned the problem we had been set to unravel and also to form in the mind's eye some picture of the real India with which we were asked to deal. Thus launched on our career, if not with general approval at any rate with Parliamentary sanction, we set about the unenviable task which had been imposed upon us. Our first meeting, which was of an informal character, took place in November. On that occasion Sir John Simon invited his colleagues to dinner in the precincts of the House of ·Commons to meet Sir Alexander Muddiman, the Governor-designate of the United Prov inces, one of those eminent civil servants who had risen not only to the top of his profession but also high in the estimation of his fellow-men.

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