1 SOME ASPECTS OF TEE RELATIONSHIP OF POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION OF INDIA AND PAKISTANi WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PERIOD 1919-1956 by Berm Prasad Barua Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies January, 1967 ProQuest Number: 10731605 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10731605 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ABSTRACT This thesis is a study of those political and constitutional theories which mainly since 1919 had their impact on the constitutional evolution of India and Pakistan. The introductory chapter Begins with a brief account of the constitutional and political background. An attempt has been made to make a comparative analysis of the constitution- making processes of four countries: the U.S.A. and Prance, representing the democracies in the West; and Turkey and Japan, representing Asia. The second chapter is devoted to the constitutional discussions in India during the period 1919-1935. The third and fourth chapters analyse the constitutional and political ideas put forth by Hindu and Muslim thinkers. Although the Hindu and Muslim leaders concentrated on the ultimate goal of political freedom from British rule, this study considers in some detail to what extent there was coherent thinking on the system of government to be established in independent India and Pakistan* The fifth and sixth chapters deal with constitution-making in independent India and Pakistan. The final chapter tries to analyse the major influences which shaped constitution-making in both India and Pakistan. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a heavy debt to Professor H.H, Tinker, who amidst his numerous preoccupations, found time to supervise friy work from beginning to end. It is a pleasure to acknowledge gratefully the invaluable guidance, helpful criticism and constant encouragement which he so generously provided. I wish to thank the Librarians and staff of the S.O.A.S. Library, the L.S.E. Library, the India House Library, the India Office Library, the British Museum, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Senate House Library for their courteous co-operation. My thanks are due also to Mrs. Austin, former Secretary to the Department of Economic and Political Studies, S .0.A.S.,for typing the manuscript. Finally, I am indebted to my wife for her patience and encouragement during the preparation of this work in far-away Britain. CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . 3 ABBREVIATIONS 5 I INTRODUCTION 6 II CONSTITUTIONAL DISCUSSIONS, 1919-1935 38 III MUSLIM POLITICAL IDEAS 6l IV THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF M.K. GANDHI, SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE, M.N. ROY AND JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN 97 V CONSTITUTION-MAKING IN INDIA 128 VI CONSTITUTION-MAKING IN PAKISTAN, I9A7-I956 180 VII CONCLUSION 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY ZhO ABBREVIATIONS Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms M/rm (Montagu-Chelmsford Report) Indian Statutory Commission ISC Indian Annual Register IAR Indian Quarterly Register IQR Constituent Assembly of India Debates CAID Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Debates CAPD 6 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION India and Pakistan both adopted the parliamentary system after independence., The nationalist leaders called for civil rights, self-government, representative government, self-determination, autonomy in Euopean political terms, because Asian political traditions did not fully comprehend those ideas. These political ideastweue derived from European political philosophy and history. The colonists of the British Empire looked to the British Parliament as the supreme mode}.; and the quality of their own politics was regarded as improved, and the range of their liberties enlarged, by the extent to which they approximated to the model. The parliamentary system had been consistently proclaimed ■as their goal by the Westernised e^lite ever since the first Indian National Congress (1885) declared itself to be the fgerm of a Native Parliament^ English-educatednCongress leaders brought up on the works of English liberal thinkers, desired British political institutions which they deemed not incapable of transplantation on to Indian soil. 1 Prom our 1. Report of the First Indian National Congress, 1885, p.3. 7 earliest school-days'? said C. Sankaran hair in 1897? 'the great English writers have been our classics. Englishmen have been our professors in Colleges. English history is taught us in our schools... It is impossible under this training not to be penetrated with English ideas? not to 1 acquire English conceptions of duty? of rights? of brotherhood'. But the Congress leaders in the early years were chiefly concerned with obtaining political favours for their own educated classes. A typical example of this attitude may be seen in the presidential address of Surendranath Banerjea at the Congress annual session in 1899* 'We should be satisfied'? said Banerjea? 'if we obtain representative institutions of a modified character for the .educated community who by reason of their culture and enlightenment? their assimilation of English ideas and their familiarity with English methods of 2 Government might be presumed to be qualified for such a boon.1 Though the ideal of Swaraj or self-government might be at the back of leaders' minds? there was no definite and clear voice yet calling upon the British to hand over power to Indians. Most Westernised elite still accepted British rule as a dispensation of Divine Providence? an inevitable phase through 3 which India was destined to pass. A 'microscopic minority' was to be the standard British epithet for the Indian educated 1. Report of the Thirteenth Indian National Congress, 1897? pp.15-6. 2. Report<of.the'Eleventh Indian National Congress, 1895? p.14. 3. The phrase ..was first used by Lord Dufferin? the Viceroy? in 1888. See Sir V. Lovett? A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement? p .42• 8 classes who led the Congress right into the twentieth century. This Microscopic minority* theory - the attitude of contempt for the emerging urban middle class - was expressed by John Beames, a civil servant, in a statement to the Aitchison Commission in .1886* Beames declared: 'In the course of my long experience I have constantly found natives deficient in courage, shirking responsibility, careless and indolent. Prom what I have seen of the large number of natives who have served under me during the last twenty-nine years, I do not think they possess the qualifications which fit them to be admitted to the Covenanted Civil Service.'*1' Whatever might be the racial factor/ involved in this cold attitude, the British rulers were convinced that 2 power could not be 'committed to indigenous # ■agency,! The Indian leaders, on the other hand, pleaded that 'the problem of bringing the administration into closer relations with the people is essentially a problem of associating the educated classes with the actual work of the administration. With village panchayats at the bottom, District Councils in the centre, and reformed Legislative Councils at the top, this problem will have been 3 fairly faced.' Lord Ripon, the Viceroy, who was responsible for the famous)fi Resolution on Local Self-G-overnment of May, 1882, attempted to open a channel for the aspirations of the emerging middle class by the encouragement of local self-government, by setting up municipalities with an elected element, and by creating district councils for the rural a$re&£» The new middle class 'must be prevented from becoming ... a source of serious 4 political danger.' Both Ripon and A.O. Hume, a retired civil 1. Public .Service.Commission, Proceedings ,1887, vol.vi, p.50. 2* Report ..of the Public Service Commission, .1886-87, p.36, 3* Royal,Commission upon Decentralization, 1908, vol.viii, Minutes of Evidence, p. 61; O.K. G-okhale. 4. L.S.S. O'Malley, "General Survey", in L.S.S. O'Malley (ed.), Modern India and the West, p.746. 9 servant, tried to counteract this middle class movement by providing ’political education1 to the Indians and by training * 1 them 1 in the working of representative institutions*1 This policy was contrary to the prevailing British view of the necessity to resuscitate the 'natural leadership1 (the Princes and the landholders) of Indian society while keeping the new Westernised elite in their plade, Ripon, however, denied that 2 they were trying to introduce an Bnglish system in India. The Ripon reforms were warmly welcomed by the politically active leaders of Indian society, like S.N. Banerjea, G-.K. Gokhale, B.G-o Tilak, Dadabhai Naoroji, Badruddin Tyabji, and Pherozeshah Mehta, who were believers in polifciis&l education of the electorate through participation in local politics and administration as 3 an approach towards national self-government. They made a reality of the municipal government, but the great mass of the people had nothing to do with the political experience which was confined to the few, and continued to have an authoritarian concept of government. The Decentralisation Commission of 1909, which has been called 1 the watershed in the history of Indian local government91^ made recommendations similar to those of the Resolution of 1882. While they considered the pros and cons of centralisation and'decentralisation, but mainly conceived in terms of administrative convenience, rather than of national political aspirations. The commission suggested that 'the foundation of any stable edifice which shall associate 5 the people with the administration must be the village*1 1.