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Lord Sinha of Raipur and the Government of India Act 1919

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Lord Sinha of Raipur and the Government of India Act 1919 Library Briefing Lord Sinha of Raipur and the Government of India Act 1919 Summary 23 December 2019 marks 100 years since the Government of India Act 1919 received royal assent. The Act sought to institute the declarations of Edwin Montagu, then Secretary of State for India, made on 20 August 1917. In these, he asserted that the objective of British rule in India would be “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”. The main elements of the Act were: • Transfer of some functions to provincial government, with provincial government also responsible for raising the necessary taxes to fund them. • Introduction of a system of “dyarchy” within provincial governments. Provincial governments were split into two sections, with a governor presiding over both. One, appointed by the Crown and responsible ultimately to the Secretary of State for India, was concerned with “reserved subjects”. The other consisted of ministers appointed by the Governor from the elected members of the provincial legislative council. This body would be responsible for “transferred subjects”. • Several areas, such as Bihar and Orissa and the Punjab, were given a governor and a legislative council each. The size of provincial legislative councils was increased and at least 70 percent of members were required to be elected. • Within central government there was no dyarchy. The Governor-General’s executive council was enlarged, and the legislature itself was remodelled and made bi-cameral. • A commission to examine the workings of the constitution was to be appointed by Parliament after ten years, to report on whether the extent of self-government granted was to be extended, modified or restricted. This briefing provides information about the origin of the Government of India Act 1919; an overview of some of the key provisions of the 1919 Act; and a biographical profile of the man responsible for piloting the Act through its Lords stages, the first Indian to receive a peerage, Lord Sinha of Raipur. Heather Evennett ǀ 13 December 2019 ____________________________________________________________________________ A full list of Lords Library briefings is available on the research briefings page on the internet. The Library publishes briefings for all major items of business debated in the House of Lords. The Library also publishes briefings on the House of Lords itself and other subjects that may be of interest to Members. Library briefings are compiled for the benefit of Members of the House of Lords and their personal staff, to provide impartial, authoritative, politically balanced briefing on subjects likely to be of interest to Members of the Lords. Authors are available to discuss the contents of the briefings with the Members and their staff but cannot advise members of the general public. Any comments on Library briefings should be sent to the Head of Research Services, House of Lords Library, London SW1A 0PW or emailed to [email protected]. 2 Background On 23 December 1919, the Government of India Act received royal assent.1 The Act had been foreshadowed by the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu. In August 1917, he declared the objective of British rule in India would be “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”.2 Building on this announcement, in late 1917 Montagu headed a delegation to India, working with the Indian Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, to formulate proposals about Indian government and administration. The resulting Montagu-Chelmsford report, as it became known, was presented to the cabinet in May 1918. Following discussion of the report at cabinet, two committees, chaired by Lord Southborough, former permanent under-secretary of state for the colonies, were sent to India. The committees sought to demarcate electorates and also to identify what powers should be “reserved” and which “transferred” in the new system of government proposed. A bill was then drafted and was submitted, together with reports of the two committees, to a joint committee presided over by the Earl of Selborne.3 Introducing the bill into the Lords on 11 December 1919, the Under Secretary of State for India, Lord Sinha, noted “the immense amount of care and critical examination from every possible standpoint” that had gone into the bill.4 Outlining the intentions of the bill whilst opening the second reading debate in the Lords on 11 December 1919, Lord Sinha noted: There may be those amongst your Lordships who think that the passage of this bill will not advance India’s welfare, who think that the system of government which has, with little essential change and with so many beneficial results, endured through the changes of the nineteenth century, should be continued, unchanged in essentials, through the twentieth century, and that the time has not arrived to sever the leading strings. Believe me, my Lords, that is a view which, if you wish to secure a sense of gratitude and contentment amongst the populations of India, can no longer be maintained. The whole course of your administration of India, the whole of its fruitful results, culminating in the recognition which you have accorded during the past five years to India as a real partner in the Empire, have produced expectations (and I say justified expectations) that you will now agree to treat her as having outgrown her political infancy […] I believe that this bill will enable the British Parliament to adopt that attitude towards India, and I have sufficient faith in the character of my countrymen, and in the essential wisdom and justice of the Mother of Parliaments, to believe that the results of this measure will be to inaugurate a relationship between them which will enable India in due time to reach the full stature of a prosperous, loyal, and grateful partner in the privileges and duties which belong to the great world-family of the British Empire.5 1 HL Hansard, 23 December 1919, col 537. 2 B Metcalf and T Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 2013, p 167. 3 P E Roberts, History of British India, 1952, p 581. 4 HL Hansard, 11 December 1919, cols 941–2. 5 ibid, cols 961–2. 3 Provisions of the Act The main elements of the Act are outlined below:6 • Central government remained wholly under British control and retained power over areas such as defence. Provincial governments were transferred responsibility for areas such as education and agriculture, and also the responsibility for raising the necessary taxes to fund them. • Within provincial governments a system known as “dyarchy” was introduced. Dyarchy involved provincial governments being split into two sections, with the governor presiding over both. One, responsible ultimately to the Secretary of State for India, was concerned with “reserved subjects”. This body was made up of two to four members of the governor’s executive council. The other consisted of ministers appointed by the governor from the elected members of the provincial legislative council. This body was in charge of “transferred subjects”. Reserved subjects came under the heading of law and order and included justice, the police, land revenue, and irrigation. The transferred subjects included education, agriculture, public health and local self-government. • Several areas, such as Bihar and Orissa and the Punjab, were given a governor and a council each. • The size of provincial legislative councils was increased and at least 70 percent of members were required to be elected. Councils were given the power to vote and withhold supplies, although the governor could demand grants for reserved subjects if he certified that the expenditure was essential. After four years the councils had the right to elect their own president. • Within central government there was no dyarchy and the Governor-General, also known as the Viceroy, was directly responsible to the Secretary of State and Parliament. The executive council was enlarged, and the legislature itself was remodelled and made bi-cameral. The upper chamber, called the council of state, was largely elected, with a franchise based on a high property qualification. The lower chamber, the legislative assembly, was 106 elected members and 40 nominated, with a wider franchise than the upper chamber. • A commission was to be appointed by Parliament after ten years to examine the working of the Indian constitution and to report on whether the degree of government granted was to be extended, modified or restricted. The commission promised in the Act was eventually appointed on 7 November 1927 “in reply to constant pressure”.7 The commission was made up of seven members under the joint chairmanship of the Liberal former Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, and Clement Attlee, the future prime minister. It arrived in India in 1928 to consider further reform of India’s constitution and the impact of the 1919 Act but was met with “animosity” due to its exclusion of Indian members, and was boycotted.8 6 Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Dyarchy’, accessed 30 November 2019; and P E Roberts, History of British India, 1952, pp 582–4. 7 P E Roberts, History of British India, 1952, p 598. 8 B Metcalf and T Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 2013, p 190. 4 The historians Barbara and Thomas Metcalf note: [T]he commissioners were all members of the British Parliament. Across an extraordinarily wide spectrum of Indian opinion, from Congress and the Muslim League to Hindu nationalists and modern Liberals, this all-British commission carried with it the implication that Indians were incapable of deciding their own fate, that they were still children who needed all-knowing parents to legislate for them.
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