A leaf from history: London Plan — myth or reality?

SHAIKH AZIZ — PUBLISHED Oct 12, 2014 06:56am

It has been intensely debated as to whether there was a “London Plan” for creating a Greater Balochistan or whether it was simply a demand for getting broader provincial autonomy for the province 36 years ago. Perhaps it has become an easy smokescreen; whenever a new political movement emerges, it is termed as a ‘London Plan’.

Even last month (September, 2014), as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain argued in favour of creating more administrative units, former Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza labelled it a “London Plan to divide Sindh”. Then there is the alleged meeting between Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Pakistan Awami Tehreek leaders in London, which the incumbent Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique labelled as a conspiracy to weaken state institutions. Again, this was dubbed a ‘London Plan’

But the first mention of a “London Plan” appeared in September 1972, when Maulana Kausar Niazi of the PPP, referring to a statement issued, claimed that National Awami Party (NAP) chief Wali Khan and his colleagues had hatched a conspiracy to break Pakistan into independent units.

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Together with the Shah of Iran, Bhutto moved to quell Baloch resistance on this side of the border

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On Jan 31, 1973, speaking at a rally at Mochi Gate in Lahore, Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti claimed that Pakhtun leader Wali Khan and Attaullah Mengal, the then chief minister of Balochistan, had told him about Greater Balochistan — a plan through which Balochistan would gain independence and become a sovereign entity. Bugti also said that the implementation of the plan was the responsibility of the “Greater Balochistan Centre” in Baghdad, Iraq. During these days, an arms cache was also hauled up from the Iraqi Embassy in Islamabad, which was allegedly meant for distribution among Baloch activists.

The Plan also included a meeting between Attaullah Mengal and Ahmad Nawaz Bugti with Shaikh Mujeebur Rahman, who had been in London after being released by Pakistan. The Baloch leaders in Pakistan immediately contradicted the report, and said that it was the brainchild of Bhutto’s Interior Minister Abdul Qayyum Khan to malign Baloch leaders. When the news item broke in the UK press, Shaikh Mujeeb also immediately contradicted it.

The story of Balochistan’s demands is not new; it dates back to 1948. Regrettably, the Baloch had been complaining from day one that the federal government had been treating Balochistan as an ‘enemy country’, denying it of its rightful share from its natural resources and its place in national affairs.

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In the beginning of 1973, Bhutto was also told by the Shah of Iran that an ethnic resistance movement had been burgeoning in Iranian Balochistan, which had now found a parallel in Pakistan as well.

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After Ayub Khan’s exploitative round, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the leader who spearheaded an army operation to silence the voices that were raised for Baloch rights. It started with the formation of provincial government, with Sardar Attaullah Mengal elected as chief minister, but on Feb 14, 1973, it was dismissed for having the support of the NAP. Akbar Bugti was appointed as Governor of Balochistan on Feb 15, 1973, but at the same time, Bhutto asked the Pakistan Army to launch a crackdown on NAP workers and supporters. During the onslaught, a large number of Baloch activists were killed.

In the beginning of 1973, Bhutto was also told by the Shah of Iran that an ethnic resistance movement had been burgeoning in Iranian Balochistan, which had now found a parallel in Pakistan as well. Together, the Shah said, they aimed at creating a new sovereign country called “Greater Balochistan.”

Bhutto agreed with the assertion. With financial support as well as arms and ammunition from Iran, Pakistan launched an army operation in the province in 1973, after dissolving the Balochistan Assembly and arresting a number of activists. It was reported that Iran provided Huey Cobra helicopters and some $200 million of financial support to quell the Baloch struggle.

Bugti had reservations about the direction of Bhutto’s governance, but he worked as governor till Jan 1, 1974. He then told Bhutto that he would not be able to continue as governor, since he did not like the ruthless manner in which affairs in Balochistan were being dealt with. Subsequently, he quit as governor.

After a year of sporadic fighting between the insurgents and the army, it was reported in September 1974 that some 50,000 Baloch fighters, organised by Attaullah Mengal and Khair Bakhsh Marri, were in combat. To make the resistance ineffective, the army also got support from the air force and navy. For some time the resistance abated.

Despite many attempts by politicians to calm tempers, Bhutto continued to march ahead. He continued with the operation till the time his government was overthrown by General Ziaul Haq on July 5, 1977.

After Bhutto’s removal, Gen Zia took an objective view of the whole affair. He appointed a military governor, Gen Rahimuddin, in Balochistan. Owing to Bhutto’s actions, a number of Baloch activists had already fled to the mountains, while Sardar Mengal and Khair Bakhsh Marri had left Pakistan and gone into self-imposed exile. After reaching an understanding with Gen Rahimuddin, the Bugti tribe opted to stay calm and the anti-government process died down. Gen Rahimuddin also undertook a development programme in the province, the benefits of which were many for the Baloch people.

Next week: Kausar Niazi tries to hijack the party

shaikhaziz38@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, October 12th, 2014

http://www.dawn.com/news/1136884

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto: the forgotten villain of Balochistan

April 03, 2015, 11:37 pm

The year was 1972. The wounds of Pakistan’s breakup were fresh. For the first time in the history of the country, power was being transferred to provinces after direct elections. It was a new beginning for Pakistan.

The government of National Awami Party (NAP) was in power in Balochistan. After 25 years of struggle, finally the people of Balochistan had got the right to rule their province. Nine months into government, the dream was shattered courtesy Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

April 4 is observed as the death anniversary of former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Opportunist politicians who get votes in the name of Bhutto and some misguided “jiyalas” observe this day and remember Bhutto as a hero. Just because his government was toppled by Zia-ul-Haq, the worst dictator in the history of Pakistan, Bhutto’s antagonistic role in Balochistan has been completely forgotten.

NAP government in Balochistan took power in May 1972 and it was dismissed by Bhutto on flimsy charges in February 1973. During this short period of nine months, there was not a single day when the NAP government didn’t have to face political machinations and pressure tactics thanks to Bhutto. The bureaucracy of Balochistan was under the federal government’s control at that time and Bhutto instructed all bureaucrats to not obey orders of NAP government ministers. Bhutto through his henchmen manipulated Balochistan Police to go on strike and created problem for NAP government to rule the province.

That was not all, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was the prime minister stooped low to the level of a street thug. He engineered riots and civil disorder in Pat Feeder Canal area and Lasbela district. When a country’s premier is hell bent on creating disturbance in a city, then of course, for obvious reasons no one can stop him. Finally, he concocted the Iraqi Embassy Weapons discovery case as the final excuse to topple the first democratically elected government in Balochistan.

In the aftermath of the NAP government’s dismissal, people vehemently protested against the Bhutto regime. Proving to be a true civilian dictator, Bhutto sent in the army and started a full scale military operation that would continue for the next four years. It’s ironic that it was General Zia-ul-Haq who called off the military operation in Balochistan after toppling the Bhutto regime.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is known as a democrat and his party, PPP, claims to be the torch-bearer of democracy in Pakistan. What Bhutto did in Balochistan after dismissing the NAP government was nothing but barefaced mockery of democracy.

Of the then 21 members in the Balochistan Assembly, 14 belonged to NAP and 7 to the opposition. There was not a single member of PPP in that assembly. Bhutto nominated Jam Ghulam Qadir as the chief minister and he ruled the province with the support of seven out of the 21 members. In 1973, the budget of Balochistan was passed on Radio Pakistan because there were not enough assembly members with the government to pass the budget.

In the 1970 elections, PPP had won convincingly in Sindh and Punjab but was totally rejected in Balochistan and NWFP, now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Bhutto being an egoist and an autocratic leader could not digest this realty. As a result, he didn’t leave any stone unturned in ensuring that PPP forms government in these two provinces. By employing all undemocratic methods, Bhutto was successful in forming governments in both of aforementioned provinces within two years.

The policies of Bhutto destroyed Balochistan. Military operation in the province took its toll on the people. According to official figures 5,500 civilians died during this operation. It goes without saying that official figures are always understated in such cases. Bhutto pushed Balochistan out of mainstream Pakistan and created a problem that exists till date. If Bhutto had allowed the democratically elected government of NAP to complete its term then Balochistan would have been better integrated in the federal structure of Pakistan today.

The NAP government in Balochistan consisted of gems like Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, Ghaus Baksh Bizenjo, Gul Khan Naseer and Sardar Attaullah Mengal. Due to the villainous role of Bhutto in Balochistan these political stalwarts couldn’t effectively become a part of mainstream politics. That was not only a loss for Balochistan but also for Pakistan.

Every rise has a fall and the same was the case with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto; the forgotten villain of Balochistan. After treating Balochistan like an occupied territory for four years, Bhutto was preparing for his end. By 1977, he had become unpopular due to his autocratic attitude. In order to surprise the scattered opposition, Bhutto announced elections 18 months before time in March 1977. Bhutto massively rigged those polls and it triggered a country wide protest against him. Finally on the fateful day of July 5 1977, autocratic rule of Bhutto abruptly ended.

In his book “Rumor and reality” Bhutto writes about casualties in Balochistan claiming that thousands of people die when military operations are conducted and that it’s not a big deal. In this context, what I am about to write might not be liked by many, but let me say that eventually, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto got what he deserved.

http://nation.com.pk/blogs/03-Apr-2015/zulfiqar-ali-bhutto-the-forgotten-villain-of-balochistan

Revisiting 1971: Fear, force, fury and a thin Bengali’s smile

TAHIR MEHDI — UPDATED Dec 10, 2016 04:20pm

Most Pakistanis feel uneasy coming to terms with the reality that is Bangladesh. They hide themselves behind a shoddy narrative of 1971, and neatly categorise the whole thing as a ‘conspiracy’. It might well have been one. But who conspired against whom and when? What were the Bengalis up to? And how did they reach breaking point?

This article is the Part 4 of a four-part series that looks back at the events of 1971 in Pakistan from the perspective of the development of democracy in this country. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

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The rule of the redoubtable Muslims in India was finally concluded in 1858, with the British Crown formally assuming control.

It wasn’t a routine one-dynasty-replacing-another kind of change. The new rulers upset the whole applecart. They were neither Muslims nor Hindus, and they introduced a different kind of government.

Within a decade of this fateful event, Muslim clergy started reorganising itself and founded Darul Uloom Deoband. Muslim civil bureaucracy led by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan formed the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference two decades later in 1886. All India Muslim League was formed at the 20th session of this Conference held in 1906 in Dacca. Indian National Congress had come into existence earlier in 1885.

Separate electorates for retaining power

In the latter half of the 19th century, Indian polity was realigning itself to the new realities, the most important of which were the prospects of people’s rule.

Now democracy feeds on numbers and survives by counting and the colonial administrative machine started crunching numbers as early as 1872.

Also read: Fall of Dhaka: Memories of a bloody December

The first census conducted between 1865-72, however, was not synchronous. The one conducted in 1881 is thus counted as the first one. The numerical facts, especially the population figures for different regions, casts and religions, soon became the biggest political realities.

Muslims could now see in quantitative terms that after around a thousand year rule, they were a minority in India. They were wary of the way the electoral system worked. They feared that in a democratic political system they will be rendered powerless.

What chances did a community with just a quarter or even less voters stand?

Muslim League thus demanded separate electorate, which ensured a quota of seats for them in the legislative bodies. The Indian National Congress opposed the demand as it wanted everyone to vote jointly.

The Communal Award of 1932 (the act of the British government) accepted the minority position and separated the electorate along religious and communal lines. The division later turned into the demand for, and then led to the creation of, two separate countries.

Separate electorates for retaining purity

Muslims were now in majority in the new country, Pakistan. They could practice democracy without the fear of numerical subjugation to an adversary, perceived or otherwise.

Conversely, the non-Muslims became a minority in Pakistan. Were they afraid of the Muslim majority? Shouldn’t they have demanded separate electorate now? Afraid they might be but they did not demand separation. In fact the opposite happened.

Explore: Various shades of green: An ideological history of the Muslim League

A section of Muslim League vehemently opposed the joint electorate system and advocated that the separation of electorate on the basis of religion shall remain intact. Did they still fear Hindus who were reduced to a miserable minority? Politically active and vocal Hindu leaders did bother them and there is no doubt that Muslim League rulers wanted to get rid of them.

But shouldn’t the joint electorate have done the trick – the minority voice lost in the loud clamor of overwhelming majority? Why then, did Muslim League keep on insisting that the non-Muslim shall vote separately?

There was another divide on the issue as well and that might help explain this:

East Pakistan was deadly against separate electorate while the central and Punjab Muslim Leagues were its biggest supporters. Almost a quarter of East Pakistan was Hindu and/or Scheduled Caste while non-Muslims in western provinces made less than five per cent of population.

In present day Punjab, non-Muslims (mainly, Christians) are barely two and a half per cent of the population. So the province that had a miniscule population of non-Muslims advocated separate electorate while the one with a sizeable and significant one wanted Muslims and Hindus to vote jointly!

See: Jinnah`s vision of Pakistan

There was an ideological dimension to the issue as well. Those who wanted to make Pakistan an Islamic state considered it important to not let the votes of non-Muslims mix up with those of the chosen faithful so that the sacred state’s mandate is not ‘polluted’.

For others, the non-Muslims started symbolising all of their identity markers other than Islam – like language and culture – which they shared with them and did not want to abandon while building the new state.

But I think more important than the ideological exegeses were the hard political facts, the hardest being that there were more Bengalis than all the rest put together.

This was worsened by the fact that ‘the rest’ were divided into too many smaller units. So under a democracy, Bengalis would always win.

And Bengalis ruling Pakistan was somehow against the blueprint of Islamic republic as laid down by its self-appointed architects. It had to be ruled by the rent-seeking jagirdars of Punjab and khandani bureaucrats hailing from northern India.

They had no respect for the Bengali political leadership comprising mainly of middle class persons who were politically conscious, articulate and quite active.

Read on: A leaf from history: When the war began

So the ghost of democracy came back haunting nawab sahab and with vengeance. This time around they fretted at the prospects of numerically dominant Bengali Muslims ruling over them. They fumed at the tenets of democracy and geared up to fix it. They engineered a two-pronged strategy:

One, was to ‘unite’ all except East Bengal into one state entity, called One-Unit scheme resulting in what was named the West Pakistan province. But even that was not enough to counter-weigh Bengalis who were a whopping 54 per cent of population.

The second part of the strategy thus was to divide East Bengal into smaller units. And Muslim League had the experience of only one kind of division, that is, along religious lines. So if Bengali voters were separated on the basis of religion, the Bengali Muslim representatives will fall fewer than the elected members of West Pakistan. Bengalis understood the plan and resisted it tooth and nail.

The first draft of the constitution presented by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1950 could not forward any proposal about the electorate system as there was sharp disagreement within the committee entrusted with the task.

The next prime minister Nazimuddin gave in to the pressure of religious right and his draft, presented in 1953, proposed a separate electorate system, but the draft was rejected after heated debate on this and other subjects.

The third draft, too, failed to broker an agreement and just to ensure that the contentious issue did not stall the finalisation of the already too delayed constitution, it decided not to make any suggestion on electorate system, leaving the subject for the National Assembly to legislate upon latter.

Explore: Does Pakistan need to rewrite its Constitution?

When the assembly took up the matter in October 1956, the division remained unabridged and the Electorate Act passed by the house provided for separate electorate in West Pakistan and joint in East.

It was embarrassing for many in the government to be unable to agree upon one system of elections in a country that wanted to take pride in its Muslim unity. The Act was soon amended to provide for the same joint system for both the wings.

However, no elections could be held under this law, as General Ayub took over and abrogated the nascent constitution. When the general was tailoring a constitutional dress for his brazen military rule, he too was advised to separate electors but he didn’t. Nor did General Yahya dare to do that while drafting his Legal Framework Order that provided the basis for the first general elections in the country held in 1970.

This, however, did not mean that the other party had abandoned their plan to separate voters. They continued to make efforts even after Bengalis had separated, and in fact, were successful afterwards only. But Bengalis persisted too and everyone had come to realise that come what may they will not compromise on this point.

Bengalis were not afraid of their fellow Hindu citizens and the ruling elite of Pakistan could not instill this fear into them either. Or maybe the Bengalis had started fearing their fellow Muslim overlords more and the state of Pakistan failed to divert their fear towards Hindus.

Whatever the case, the Bengali refusal to reject Hindus as integral part of their polity actually made our elite dread Bengalis even more, or perhaps their fear of Hindu and Bengali dominating them got mixed with each other.

Blocked effectively on the premise of democracy, they did what people who feed on fear do. They inflicted the worst possible fury on Bengalis to stir fear in their hearts and yet, the lean, placid Bengalis smiled, refusing to be afraid of their freedom.

That’s how Bangladesh was born.

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This article was first published on dawn.com on December 20, 2012.

http://www.dawn.com/news/772713

Revisiting 1971: Bengali, Indian, Muslim, Poor, Farmer

TAHIR MEHDI — UPDATED about 21 hours ago

Most Pakistanis feel uneasy coming to terms with the reality that is Bangladesh. They hide themselves behind a shoddy narrative of 1971, and neatly categorise the whole thing as a ‘conspiracy’. It might well have been one. But who conspired against whom and when? What were the Bengalis up to? And how did they reach breaking point?

This article is the Part 2 of a four-part series that looks back at the events of 1971 in Pakistan from the perspective of the development of democracy in this country. Read the first part here.

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It is but natural that every one of us has multiple identities. The many faces that we wear can peacefully coexist, complement and/or conflict with each other. Their interplay is complex and the politics that they generate is even more complicated, knotty and intriguing.

In other words, one can very easily be a Bengali Muslim or a Punjabi Muslim or a Muslim farmer or a Hindu farmer or a Punjabi farmer or a Bengali farmer. Political pursuits and aspirations of each of these groups converge at certain points and diverge at others. The success of a political party or a leader depends upon its ability to cut across a multitude of political interests and ambitions and rally them for a common cause.

If you wish to see this now-it-converges and now-it-diverges phenomenon walk in our history, you need to meet Mr Abu Kasim Fazalul Haq. He was Prime Minister of the undivided Bengal when Quaid-e-Azam chose him to present the Pakistan Resolution at the general meeting of the All India Muslim League (AIML) held on 23 March 1940.

Muslim politicians from Punjab, Sindh, Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and other parts of India who had gathered in Lahore for this meeting, supported the Resolution and it became Muslim League’s cause célèbre. Only a few of these leaders were actually elected from the platform of AIML in the 1936 elections, but they made common cause with the Muslim League.

Fazalul Haq or Sher-e-Bangla (as he was popularly known as), was heading a coalition government in undivided Bengal at that time. His ‘Krishak Praja Party’ (literally meaning Agricultural People’s Party) had emerged as the third largest party of the state in 1936 elections. The top position was secured by Indian National Congress and the second by Muslim League. None had a simple majority and only a coalition government was possible.

Haq did not like the increasingly communal politics of the Muslim League and had campaigned against this party of Muslim jagirdars and nawabs during elections. He wanted to build on Bengali identity and thought that the Congress, (which was, like him, against communalism) would be his natural ally.

But Congress probably found Haq’s farmer-centred politics too ‘red’ to accommodate. Some leaders of the Praja Party were suspected to be communists. Bengali farmers identified zamindars and financiers of agriculture, most of whom happened to be Hindus, as their main adversaries, while Congress found many ardent supporters in the same privileged Hindu class. Moreover, Congress stressed more on the Indian-ness than on being Bengali, Punjabi etc.

So, Congress refused to join hands with Haq and pushed him towards Muslim League, which was actually waiting for this opportunity.

A coalition cabinet was sworn in, but in a week’s time, a section of the Praja Party joined Congress to oppose some of their own party’s budgetary measures. On the other hand, the more ‘red’ of Praja’s members thought that the party was reneging on its election agenda. Diverse ambitions gave rise to factionalism, which weakened the Praja party and Haq’s position as the leader of the coalition. He became more and more dependent on Muslim League, that was hell bent on dividing the Bengali polity along the religious lines.

Sometime after the Pakistan Resolution, Haq started opposing the two-nation theory and openly campaigned against it. That, however, doesn’t mean that he did not empathise with the Muslims’ quest for identity in the Indian political theatre.

Haq, who was three years older to Quaid-e-Azam, was the secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League from 1913 to 1916, and the President of the All India Muslim League from 1916 to 1921. He was an active member of the Khilafat Movement of the early 1920s. In 1917, Haq also served as the Joint Secretary of Congress. (It wasn’t considered a sin to be a member of both the Muslim League and the Congress till then.)

But like most Muslim politicians of that time, he saw the question of Muslim identity in the broader context of India nationalism. Over the years, many Muslim leaders took their quest to the next stage – a separate homeland for Indian Muslims, but Haq failed to reconcile with it.

Muslim League was able to project ‘the Muslim homeland’ as the panacea for all ills, and the idea clicked. Haq’s Praja Party got a severe drubbing in the 1946 elections, winning just four seats of which two were his own.

Muslim League, on the other hand, had its dream come true with 110 of 117 Muslim reserved seats in Bengal. Hussain Shaheed Suharwardee of the Muslim League formed the government in the state. Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in August 1946, with blood flowing everywhere the communal lines turned into borders. Haq joined Muslim League in September 1946 and moved to Dhaka after Partition. He started serving the East Pakistan government as Advocate General.

Haq failed in coalescing his various aspirations into the politics of his liking and was outmanoeuvred and overrun by others. Muslim League succeeded in shaping the political discourse along its preferred religious lines and achieved its main goal. But the party misunderstood the Bengali support. Bengalis did not think that being Muslim required them to stop being Bengali or being Pakistani compelled them to quit being Hindu.

A few months after the Independence, Bengali students protested against Urdu being declared as the only national language and demanded that their language should also be given the same status. Haq joined the protest and was injured when it was baton-charged by the police.

The Constituent Assembly found itself in a perpetual logjam. Bengalis were not asking all else to bow before them. They simply demanded their democratic rights – their language, culture shall be respected; their resources shall belong to them; they should get from the federal pool a share proportionate to their population.

The blue-blooded Muslim League thought that it could continue to gamble on the back of the wild card of religion. So if you demanded rights for your homeland, you were accused of narrow provincialism that was against the lofty pan-Islamist ideals, if you dared to ask for your share in resources, you were blamed for obstructing the renaissance of Islam and if you wanted respect for your language, you were definitely a traitor and an Indian stooge.

Bengal was no banana state, neither was Muslim League an imperial power. So Bengalis made up their minds to send a shut up call.

The rulers in Karachi, the then capital, probably knew what was around the corner. The tenure of the assemblies of Punjab, Sindh, Pakhtunkhwa and Bengal elected in 1946, was to expire in 1951. The Constituent Assembly had failed to build a consensus on even the broad features of the new State by that time and in the absence of a new design, the old state assemblies had to continue.

Elections to the Punjab Assembly were held in March 1951 and to the Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, then NWFP, in the latter part of that year. Sindh came under the Governor’s rule in 1951 before elections to its assembly in 1953.

Muslim League managed to win in all of these elections. It was also the ruling party in East Bengal since 1946. The writing on the wall was quite clear and all that the League could do was to delay the next elections, as much as possible.

The cow (the people) refuse any more milk to the president telling him “Oh go away, you don’t fool me any more … that stuffed thing (labeled: Muslim League today) is not my calf!”—Dawn, Karachi, 18 March 1954

Finally, elections to the East Bengal Assembly were announced for March 1954. A large number of disgruntled Bengali Muslim Leaguers had parted ways with their party as early as 1949. Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, Molana Bhashani, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and many others formed All Pakistan Awami Muslim League.

Fazalul Haq who had supported the Bengali language movement all along, formed the Sramik Krishak Party (literally meaning Workers’- Farmers’ Party) in 1953. The two decided to jointly contest against the Muslim League in the 1954 elections and chose Fazalul Haq to lead the alliance known as ‘Jugtu Front’.

Jugtu Front presented a 21-point program that promised a national language status for Bengali, rejection of the draft Constitution that had refused to give Bengalis share in parliamentary seats proportionate to their population, dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and its replacement with a new directly elected assembly mandated to draft a constitution for the country.

Muslim League frantically searched for a magic wand. It sent Fatimah Jinnah to East Bengal on a whirlwind election campaign. Bengalis had already had enough. She could do no miracle. In the 309-member house there were 237 Muslim seats, of which Muslim League could win a paltry 10, independents three, Khilafat-e-Rabbani one and the United Front 223! There could be no stronger verdict than this.

The Central government in Karachi refused to replace the Constituent Assembly with the one directly elected by the people, as demanded by the United Front and went about framing and approving a Constitution which was in no way acceptable to Bengalis.

The so-called establishment of Pakistan knew that Bengalis won’t budge; they delayed the next election for 16 long years and when these were finally held in 1970, Awami League won 160 of 162 seats allocated to East Bengal in the house of 300. The verdict again was loud and clear and yet again, the Bengalis found no one listening to them in the federal capital.

They must have realised that they can wake up someone who is asleep but not the one who is pretending to be sleeping.

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This article was first published on dawn.com on December 13, 2012.

http://www.dawn.com/news/771020

Revisiting 1971: The crow is white, Bengal is Pakistan

TAHIR MEHDI — UPDATED 3 days ago

Most Pakistanis feel uneasy coming to terms with the reality that is Bangladesh. They hide themselves behind a shoddy narrative of 1971, and neatly categorise the whole thing as a ‘conspiracy’. It might well have been one. But who conspired against whom and when? What were the Bengalis up to? And how did they reach breaking point?

This article is the first of a four-part series that looks back at the events of 1971 in Pakistan from the perspective of the development of democracy in this country.

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The political picture in 1947

The areas that constituted Pakistan in 1947 were ruled by the British under different arrangements. Bengal, Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then ‘NWFP’) were provinces with elected assemblies.

Balochistan was governed by an appointed Commissioner; tribal areas by Political Agents; and a number of so-called princely states by Rajas under the paramountcy of the British Crown.

These states came in all sizes. The princely state of Amb was so tiny that it drowned in the Tarbela Dam Lake in the 1970s. The Bahawalpur state was one of the largest princely states of India and its area now forms three large districts of Punjab. The Baloch states were very thinly populated, while Punjab was quite crowded.

But every one of these entities had a standing as a ‘state’, however rudimentary its stage might be.

When the ‘Bengali problem’ arose

It had begun in 1947 already. The people who were handed over the reigns of the new country on August 14 were tasked with working out a system which allowed all the above-mentioned entities to coexist peacefully and prosper together.

But when they sat down to figure out this formula for an equal distribution of power, every option they considered led to the same concern: the Bengalis were more in number than all the rest put together, and under a democracy, nothing could bar them from getting a majority share in the new state.

Now that did not sit well at all with the infant country’s larger, grander designs of spearheading a new Islamic renaissance and hoisting its flag on every other building in South Asia.

The dark-skinned Bengalis, who shared their language and culture with their Hindu compatriots did not cut a figure to fit the coveted slot. This glorious feat could only be performed by the blue-blooded Muslim elite that had migrated from India, with a few others playing second fiddle and the rest serving as foot soldiers.

So, that was the first crossroad that our nation found itself at; that if the simple democratic path was to be taken, we would miss the golden opportunity to revive all of our lost glories (by losing the government to a Bengali majority). And if we stuck to this cherished goal, we would need to get around democracy and find some undemocratic solution to ‘the Bengal problem’. At the end, it didn’t turn out to be very difficult.

First draft — how an impasse was created

The ruling elite unearthed a trove of edicts, historical references and quotable quotes that allowed them to bend the rules to serve ‘the larger national interest’ and avoid rigidly following democracy, which was anyway a ‘Western concept quite unsuitable to our kind of polity’.

One of our visionaries had forewarned us about the pitfalls of democracy, which counted everyone as one without distinguishing them on the basis of their piety.

When the first draft of the Constitution (Interim Report of the Basic Principles Committee) was presented to the Constituent Assembly in September 1950, it provided for two elected houses: the House of Units where all provinces would have equal representation (as provinces have in the Senate these days) and the House of People.

The Committee did not forward any suggestion about how the provinces would be represented in the latter House, whose members were supposed to be directly elected by the people. The Bengalis, who were being offered half the seats (when population-wise, their proportionate share was more than that), were not ready to surrender their right.

Thus evolved the impasse.

Second draft — Nazimuddin’s partial ‘Principle of Parity’

Prime Minister Nazimuddin was, however, able to make clear suggestions. When he presented the second draft in the Assembly, it provided for 120 seats in the House of Units and 400 in House of People.

Half of both of these were given to Bengal in the east and the other half was divided among the nine units of western Pakistan (the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, what is now Fata, Bahawalpur, Balochistan, Balochistan States, Khairpur State and Federal Capital), roughly according to their share in population. But this principle — share proportionate to population — was not adopted in the division of seats between east and west Pakistan.

This blatant imparity and injustice was given the name, ‘Principle of Parity’.

This is how the narrative went: Pakistan comprises of two wings, East Pakistan, consisting of East Bengal and West Pakistan, constituted by nine units; and the two wings must get equal representation.

The Bengalis did not accept this and the draft was rejected.

Third draft — Bogra’s mathematical masterstroke

The next Prime Minister, Mohammad Ali Bogra, came up with an uber-complex equation to resolve the impasse.

In October 1954, he presented the third draft, which clubbed the nine units of western Pakistan into four groups and gave them and the fifth unit — Bengal — equal seats (10 each) in the House of Units. The 300 seats of the House of People were roughly accorded to each unit according to their share in the population.

In this way, East Bengal got a majority in the House of People (with 165 out of 300 seats), but not in the House of Units where it had just 10 of the 50 seats.

All the laws had to be approved by both the Houses and in a joint sitting (of 350 members). East Pakistan (with 165+10=175 seats) was in parity with the West. In a way, it offered a win-win solution to both the Bengali nationalists and the Pakistani establishment.

But a solution was not what the ruling elite was looking for. The draft was approved by the Constituent Assembly and a team was tasked to write the constitution. Governor General Ghulam Muhammad, however, dismissed the government and dissolved the Assembly the same month.

The One-Unit Scheme

The undemocratic step was sanctioned by the judiciary that innovated and employed the ‘Law of Necessity’ for the first time.

It took the Governor General a year to put in place the second Constituent Assembly. Unlike the first one, it followed the ‘Principle of Parity’, that is, only half of the members of the second Constituent Assembly (40 out of 80) were taken from East Bengal, while in the first one they had 44 of 69 seats.

The first important thing that the new Constituent Assembly did was to ‘unify’ the nine units of the western wing into one province — the amalgam was called West Pakistan, and the initiative the One-Unit scheme. That gave the parity narrative some legal and moral grounds as the country now comprised of two provinces being treated equally, instead of 10 units with one being less equal than the other nine.

The ruling elite — or ‘the establishment’ as we know it now — made it known, loud and clear, that it would not accept anything more than ‘parity’ for East Bengal. There is no surprise then, that the Constitution that this Assembly finally passed in March 1956 provided for one elected House —National Assembly — comprising of 300 members elected directly by the people with half coming from East Pakistan and half from the West.

Bengalis held faith in democracy and lost in Pakistan.

The first Assembly could not dare hold general elections. Everybody knew that given the vast disagreements, elections under the prescribed system would be disruptive. General Ayub thought that the blatant use of force was a viable alternative and jumped in. He was wrong. He held the country together at gun point.

A decade later, when he finally had to withdraw the gun, General Yahya agreed to hold direct elections under adult franchise to a National Assembly that would formulate the country’s constitution. His Legal Framework Order (since there was no constitution in place at that time) conceived a 300 member National Assembly with 162 elected from East Bengal, accepting the old Bengali demand. But perhaps, it was already too late.

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This article was first published on dawn.com on December 10, 2012.

http://www.dawn.com/news/770315

THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT 1935

• The Government of India Act 1935 was originally passed in August 1935 and was the longest British Act of Parliament ever enacted by that time. The Government of Burma Act 1935 was also included in it.

Background to the Act:

• Indians had increasingly been demanding a greater role in the government of their country since the late 19th century. The Indian contribution to the British war effort during the First World War meant that even the more conservative elements in the British political establishment felt the necessity of constitutional change, resulting in the Government of India Act 1919. That Act introduced a novel system of government known as provincial “dyarchy”.
• After the release and publication of Simon Commission Report when the new Labour Government succeeded in office, it declared that the Report was not final and in order to resolve the constitutional deadlock, the matter would finally considered after consulting representatives of all the Indian communities. This would be done at a Round Table Conference in London.
• After holding three sessions of Round Table Conference in 1930, 1931 and 1932 respectively, their recommendations were embodied in a White Paper published in 1933, which was considered by a Joint Select Committee of the British Parliament chaired by Lord Linlithgow. (However, division between Congress and Muslim representatives proved to be a major factor in preventing agreement as to much of the important detail of how federation would work in practice. So, the new Conservative-dominated National Government in London decided to go ahead with drafting its own proposals “the white paper“.)
• The government also constituted a committee of 20 representatives from British India and 7 from Indian States including 5 Muslims. The committee went in session from April 1933 to December 1934 for deliberation and submitted its report to Parliament in the end of 1934. The Parliament debated the report and passed a bill in February 1935, which got royal assent on July 24th 1935, and it was enforced on April 1, 1937 with the name of Government of India Act 1935.
• Although the Government of India Act 1935 was intended to go some way towards meeting Indian demands, both the detail of the bill and the lack of Indian involvement in drafting its contents meant that the Act met with a lukewarm response at best in India, while still proving too radical for a significant element in Britain.

Provisions of the Act:

The Government of India Act 1935 contained 32 Sections 14 Parts and 10 Schedules and consisted of 2 Major Parts. The Act introduced federal systemin the centre.

Provincial Part of the Act:-Introduction of Provincial Autonomy:

• The provincial part of the Act basically followed the recommendations of the Simon Commission.
• In the provinces Diarchy was abolished. There was no Reserve Subjects and no Executive Council in the provinces. The Council of Ministers was to administer all the provincial subjects except in certain matters like law and orders etc. for which the government had special responsibilities.
• The ministers were chosen from among the elected members of the provincial legislature and were collectively responsible to it.
• The British-appointed provincial governors (who were responsible to the British Government via the Viceroy and Secretary of State for India) were to accept the recommendations of the ministers unless, in their view, they negatively affected his areas of statutory “special responsibilities” such as the prevention of any grave menace to the peace or tranquility of a province, the safeguarding of the legitimate interests of minorities, rights of civil servants etc.
• In the event of political breakdown, the governor, under the supervision of the Viceroy, could take over total control of the provincial government. This, in fact, allowed the governors a more untrammeled control than any British official had enjoyed in the history of the Raj. After the resignation of the congress provincial ministries in 1939, the governors did directly rule the ex-Congress provinces throughout the war.
• It was generally recognized, that the provincial part of the Act, conferred a great deal of power and patronage on provincial politicians as long as both British officials and Indian politicians played by the rules. However, the paternalistic threat of the intervention by the British governor rankled.

Federal Part of the Act:-All India Federation:

• The India Act 1935 proposed to set up All Indian Federation comprising of the British Indian Provinces and Princely States. The constituent units of the Federation were 11 Governor’s provinces, 6 Chief Commissioner’s provinces and all those states that agreed to joint it. The States were absolutely free to join or not to join the proposed Federation.
• At the time of joining the Federation the ruler of the state was to execute an Instrument of Accession in favour of the Crown. On acceptance of that Instrument, the state was become a unit of the Federation. The ruler was however authorized to extend the functions of the federal authority in respect of his state by executing another instrument in its internal affairs.
• The act proposed that federation of India could come into existence only if as many princely states were entitled to one half of the states seats in the upper house of the federal legislature.
• The terms offered to the Princes included:
  • Each Prince would select his state’s representative in the Federal Legislature. There would be no pressure for Princes to democratize their administrations or allow elections for state representatives in the Federal Legislature.
  • The Princes would enjoy heavy weightage. The Princely States represented about a quarter of the population of India and produced well under a quarter of its wealth.
• Unlike the provincial portion of the Act, the Federal portion was to go into effect only when half the States by weight agreed to federate. This never happened due to opposition from rulers of the princely states and the establishment of the Federation was indefinitely postponed after the outbreak of the Second World War. The remaining parts of the Act came into force in 1937, when the first elections under the act were also held.

Division of Federal Subjects:

• The scheme of federation and the provincial autonomy necessitated proper division of subjects between the centre and the provinces.
• The division under 1919 Act was revised and the 1935 Act contained three lists i.e. (1)Federal, (2)Provincial(3) Concurrent Legislative Lists.

Introduction of Dyarchy at the Centre:

• The India Act 1935 introduced Dyarchy at the centre. The Federal Subjects were divided into two categories, the Reserved and the Transferred.The reserved subjects were to be administered by the Governor-General on the advice of executive councilors, while transferred subjects were to be administered on the advice of the ministers.
• The Reserved included defence, ecclesiastical affairs, external affairs and administration of Tribal Areas. These were to be administered by the Governor General with the help of executive councilors not exceeding three in number.
• The rest of the subjects were Transferred ones. These were to be administered by the Governor General with the help of a Council of Ministers, the number of which was not to exceed 10.  The Governor General by his special powers and responsibilities could dominate the ministers.
• The British Government, in the person of the Secretary of State for India, through the Governor-General of India(Viceroy) , would continue to control India’s financial obligations, defence, foreign affairs and the British Indian Army and would make the key appointments to the Reserve Bank of India and Railway Board.
• The Act stipulated that no finance bill could be placed in the Central Legislature without the consent of the Governor General. The funding for the British responsibilities and foreign obligations (e.g. loan repayments, pensions), at least 80 percent of the federal expenditures, would be non-votable and be taken off the top before any claims could be considered for social or economic development programs.
• The Viceroy, under the supervision of the Secretary of State for India, was provided with overriding and certifying powers that could, theoretically, have allowed him to rule autocratically.

Protection of Minorities:

• A very significant provision was the safeguards and protective armours for the minorities. It was argued that the minorities needed protection from the dominance of the majority community. But the so-called provisions in the Act relating to safeguards were merely a trick to empower the Governor Generaland the Governors to override the ministers and the legislators.

Bicameral Legislature:

• The proposed federal legislature was bicameral body consisting of the Council of States (Upper House) and the Federal Assembly (Lower House).
• The strength of the Upper House(Council of States) was 260 out of which 104 nominated by the rulers were to represent the Indian States. 6 by the Governor General and 150 were to be elected.(Out of 260 members 156 were to represent the provinces and 104 to the native Indian states.)
• Out of the 156 which were to represent the provinces, 150 were to be elected on communal basis. Seats reserved for Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, were to be filled bydirect elections and Seats reserved for Indian Christians, Anglo Indians and Europeans was to be filled by indirect method of a electoral college consisting of their representative members
• The lower House was to consist of 375 members, out of which 250 were to be the representatives of the British India and 125 of the Indian States. The members from the British India were to be indirectly elected who were composed of the members of the Lower Houses of the Provincial Legislatures but were to be nominated by the rulers in case of the Indian States. Its life was 5 years unless dissolved earlier by the Governor General.
• 6 out of 11 provinces were given bicameral system of legislature. The Act not only enlarged the size of legislature, it also extended the franchise i.e. the number of voters was increased and special seats were allocated to women in legislature.
• Membership of the provincial assemblies was altered so as to include more elected Indian representatives, who were now able to form majorities and be appointed to form governments.

Establishment of a Federal Court, Federal Railway Authority and Reserve Bank:

• The India Act 1935 also provided for the establishment of a Federal Court to adjudicate inter-states disputes and matters concerning the interpretation of the constitution.
• It was however, not the final court of appeal. In certain cases the appeals could be made to the Privy Council in England.
• A federal court was established which began its functioning from October 1, 1937. The chief Justice of the federal court was Sir Maurice Gwyer. It consisted of One Chief Justice and not more than 6 Judges.
• Federal Railway Authority: The Government of India Act 1935 vested the control of the railways in federal railway authority , a new 7 member body. This authority was kept free from the control of ministers and councilors. The idea was to assure the British Stakeholders of the railways that their investment was safe
• Reserve Bank of India was established.

Communal and Separate Electorate and Reservations:

• The Act not only retained the separate electorate(of previous act of 1919) but also enlarged its scope. The Anglo-Indians and the Indo-Christians were also given separate electorate.
• Women were granted reservation in 41 seats in provincial legislatures as well as limited reservations in central legislature. But women reservation was subdivided in religious lines.
• The reservation of seats for the Depressed Classes was incorporated into the act,

Supremacy of the British Parliament:

• The supremacy of the British Parliament remained intact under the government Act of India 1935. No Indian legislature whether federal or provincial was authorized to modify or amend the constitution. The British Parliament alone was given the authority to amend it.

Burma Separation from India:

• Another important feature of the Act was that Burma was separated from India with effect from April 1937.
• Aden was also transferred from the administrative control of the Government of India to that of the colonial offices. Thus Aden became a Crown colony.

Abolition of the Indian Council of the Secretary of State:

• The Government of India Act 1935 abolished the Council of the Secretary of State for India,which was created in 1858. The Secretary of State was to have advisers on its place.
• With the introduction of the provincial autonomy the control of the Secretary of State over Transferred Subjects was greatly diminished. His control, however, remained intact over the powers of Governor General and Governors.

Reorganisation of Provinces and Creation of Two New Provinces:

• A partial reorganization of the provinces:
  • Sindh was separated from Bombay
  • Bihar and Orissa was split into separate provinces of Bihar and Orissa
• Hence, the Act provided for the creation of two new provinces of Sindh and Orissa.The new provinces together with the NWFP formed the Governor provinces making 11 in all.

Analysis of the Act:

• The basic conception of the act of 1935 was that the government of India was the government of the crown, conducted by authorities deriving functions directly from the crown, in so far as the crown did not itself retain executive functions. His conception, familiar in dominion constitutions, was absent in earlier Acts passed for India.
• The experiment of provincial autonomy under the act of 1935, definitely served some useful purposes, thus we can say that the Government of India Act 1935 marks a point of no return in the history of constitutional development in India.

No preamble: the ambiguity of British commitment to dominion status:

• While it had become uncommon for British Acts of Parliament to contain a preamble, the absence of one from the Government of India Act 1935 contrasts sharply with the 1919 Act, which set out the broad philosophy of that Act’s aims in relation to Indian political development.
• The 1919 Act’s preamble quoted, and centered on, the statement of the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu (1917–1922) to the House of Commons on 20 August 1917, which had pledged: “…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.”
• Indian demands were by now centering on British India achieving constitutional parity with the existing Dominions such as Canada and Australia, which would have meant complete autonomy within the British Commonwealth. A significant element in British political circles doubted that Indians were capable of running their country on this basis, and saw Dominion status as something that might, perhaps, be aimed for after a long period of gradual constitutional development.
• This tension between and within Indian and British views resulted in the clumsy compromise of the 1935 Act having no preamble of its own, but keeping in place the 1919 Act’s preamble. This was seen in India as yet more mixed messages from the British, suggesting at best a lukewarm attitude towards satisfying Indian desires.

No “Bill of Rights / Fundamental Rights”:

• In contrast with most modern constitutions, but in common with Commonwealth constitutional legislation of the time, the Act does not include a “bill of rights” or “fundamental rights” within the new system that it aimed to establis as the draft outline constitution in the Nehru Report included such a bill of rights.
• However, in the case of the proposed Federation of India there was a further complication in incorporating such a set of rights, as the new entity would have included nominally sovereign (and generally autocratic) princely states.

Safeguards:

• The Act was not only extremely detailed, but it was riddled with ‘safeguards’ designed to enable the British Government to intervene whenever it saw the need in order to maintain British responsibilities and interests.
• To achieve this, in the face of a gradually increasing Indianization of the institutions of the Government of India, the Act concentrated the decision for the use and the actual administration of the safeguards in the hands of the British-appointed Viceroy and provincial governors who were subject to the control of the Secretary of State for India.

Reality of Responsible Government Under the Act – Is the Cup Half-Full or Half-Empty?

• A close reading of the Act reveals that the British Government equipped itself with the legal instruments to take back total control at any time they considered this to be desirable. However, doing so without good reason would totally sink their credibility with groups in India whose support the act was aimed at securing.
• Contrasting view of Lord Lothian, in a talk lasting forty-five minutes, came straight out with his view on the Bill: “If you look at the constitution it looks as if all the powers are vested in the Governor-General and the Governor. But is not every power here vested in the King? Everything is done in the name of the King but does the King ever interfere? Once the power passes into the hands of the legislature, the Governor or the Governor-General is never going to interfere.”

False Equivalences:

• Under the Act, British citizens resident in the UK and British companies registered in the UK must be treated on the same basis as Indian citizens and Indian registered companies unless UK law denies reciprocal treatment.
• The unfairness of this arrangement is clear when one considers the dominant position of British capital in much of the Indian modern sector and the complete dominance, maintained through unfair commercial practices (Like: Insignificance of Indian capital in Britain and the non-existence of Indian involvement in shipping to or within the UK).
• There are very detailed provisions requiring the Viceroy to intervene if, in his view, any India law or regulation is intended to, or will in fact, discriminate against UK resident British subjects, British registered companies and, particularly, British shipping interests.

British Political Needs vs. Indian Constitutional Needs – the Ongoing Dysfunction:

• From the moment of the Montagu statement of 1917, it was vital that the reform process stay ahead of the curve if the British were to hold the strategic initiative. However, imperialist sentiment, and a lack of realism, in British political circles made this impossible. Thus the grudging conditional concessions of power in the Acts of 1919 and 1935 caused more resentment and signally failed to win the Raj the backing of influential groups in India which it desperately needed.
• There is evidence that Montagu would have backed something of this sort but his cabinet colleagues would not have considered it. Considering the balance of power in the Conservative party at the time, the passing of a Bill more liberal than that which was enacted in 1935 is inconceivable.’

Relationship to a Dominion Constitution:

• In 1947, a relatively few amendments in the Act made it the functioning interim constitutions of India and Pakistan.

Objectives of the British Government:

• The federal part of the Act was designed to meet the aims of the Conservative Party. Over the very long term, the Conservative leadership expected the Act to lead to a nominally dominion status India, conservative in outlook, dominated by an alliance of Hindu princes and right-wing Hindus which would be well disposed to place itself under the guidance and protection of the United Kingdom.
• The Act aimed to:

1. Win the support of moderate nationalists since its formal aim was to lead eventually to a Dominion of India which, as defined under the Statute of Westminster 1931 virtually equalled independence;
2. Retain British control of the Indian Army, Indian finances, and India’s foreign relations for another generation;
3. Win Muslim support by conceding most of Jinnah’s Fourteen Points;
4. Ensuring that the Congress could never rule alone or gain enough seats to bring down the government This was done by over-representing the Princes, by giving every possible minority the right to separately vote for candidates belonging to their respective communities (separate electorate), and by making the executive theoretically, but not practically, removable by the legislature.
5. By giving Indian politicians a great deal of power at the provincial level, while denying them responsibility at the Centre, it was hoped that Congress, the only national party, would disintegrate into a series of provincial fiefdoms. But, the congress High Command was able to control the provincial ministries and to force their resignation in 1939. The Act showed the strength and cohesion of Congress and probably strengthened it.
6. Convince the Princes to join the Federation by giving the Princes conditions for entry never likely to be equaled. It was expected that enough would join to allow the establishment of the Federation.The Federation, as planned in the Act, was not viable and would have rapidly broken down with the British left to pick up the pieces without any viable alternative.

Why Princes did not join Federation:

• It was hoped hat the Princes would see that their best hope for a future would lie in rapidly joining and becoming a united block without which no group could hope, mathematically, to wield power. However, the princes did not join, and thus exercising the veto provided by the Act prevented the Federation from coming into existence.
• Among the reasons for the Princes staying out were the following:

1. They did not have the foresight to realize that this was their only chance for a future.
2. They were not a cohesive group and probably realized that they would never act as one.
3. Each Prince seemed consumed by the desire to gain the best deal for himself were his state to join the Federation: the most money, the most autonomy.
4. Congress had begun, and would continue, agitating for democratic reforms within the Princely States. Since the one common concern of the 600 or so Princes was their desire to continue to rule their states without interference, this was indeed a mortal threat. It was on the cards that this would lead eventually to more democratic state regimes and the election of states’ representatives in the Federal Legislature. In all likelihood, these representatives would be largely Congressmen. Had the Federation been established, the election of states’ representatives in the Federal Legislature would amount to a Congress coup from the inside. Thus, contrary to their official position that the British would look favorably on the democratization of the Princely States, their plan required that the States remain autocratic. This reflects a deep contradiction on British views of India and its future.

Indian Reaction to the Proposed Federation:

• So little was offered that all significant groups in British India rejected and denounced the proposed Federation. A major contributing factor was the continuing distrust of British intentions for which there was considerable basis in fact.
• No significant group in India accepted the Federal portion of the Act. After all, there are five aspects of every Government worth the name: (a) The right of external and internal defence and all measures for that purpose; (b) The right to control our external relations; (c) The right to control our currency and exchange; (d) The right to control our fiscal policy; (e) the day-to-day administration of the land.”
• But under the Act, external affairs, defence, currency and exchange were all under Governor General effectively. Reserve Bank Bill just passed has a further reservation in the Constitution that no legislation may be undertaken with a view to substantially alter the provisions of that Act except with the consent of the Governor-General…. there is no real power conferred in the Centre.
• However, the Liberals, and even elements in the Congress were tepidly willing to give it a go. Linlithgow asked Sapru whether he thought there was a satisfactory alternative to the scheme of the 1935 Act. Sapru replied that they should stand fast on the Act and the federal plan embodied in it.
• Birla said that It was not ideal but at this stage it was the only thing.He thought that Congress was moving towards acceptance of Federation. He said that Gandhi was not over-worried by the reservation of defence and external affairs to the centre, but was concentrating on the method of choosing the States’ representatives. Birla wanted the Viceroy to help Gandhi by persuading a number of Princes to move towards democratic election of representatives.

The Working of the Act:

• The British government sent out Lord Linlithgow as the new viceroy with the remit of bringing the Act into effect. Linlithgow was intelligent, extremely hard working, honest, serious and determined to make a success out of the Act. However, he was also unimaginative, stolid, legalistic and found it very difficult to “get on terms” with people outside his immediate circle.
• In 1937, after the holding of provincial elections, Provincial Autonomy commenced. From that point until the declaration of war in 1939, Linlithgow tirelessly tried to get enough of the Princes to accede to launch the Federation. In this he received only the weakest backing from the Home Government and in the end the Princes rejected the Federation en masse.
• In September 1939, Linlithgow simply declared that India was at war with Germany. Though Linlithgow’s behaviour was constitutionally correct it was also offensive to much of Indian opinion that the Viceroy had not consulted the elected representatives of the Indian people before taking such a momentous decision. This led directly to the resignation of the Congress provincial ministries.
• From 1939, Linlithgow concentrated on supporting the war effort.

THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT 1935

Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms and Government of India Act, 1919

• In line with the government policy contained in Montagu’s statement (August 1917), the Government announced further constitutional reforms in July 1918, known as Montagu- Chelmsford or Montford Reforms.

• The Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms were reforms introduced by the British Government in India to introduce self-governing institutions gradually to India. The reforms take their name from Edwin Samuel Montagu, the Secretary of State for India during the latter parts of World War I and Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India between 1916 and 1921.
• The reforms were outlined in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report prepared in 1918 and formed the basis of the Government of India Act 1919.
• Edwin Montagu became Secretary of State for India in June 1917 after Austen Chamberlain resigned. He put before the British Cabinet a proposed statement containing a phrase that he intended to work towards “the gradual development of free institutions in India with a view to ultimate self-government.” Lord Curzon thought that this phrase gave too great an emphasis on working towards self-government and suggested an alternative phrase that the Government would work towards “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.” The Cabinet approved the statement with Curzon’s phrase incorporated in place of Montagu’s original phrase.

The main features of the Montford Reforms:

(1) Provincial Government—Introduction of Dyarchy:

(a) Executive:

1. Dyarchy, i.e., rule of two—executive councillors and popular ministers—was introduced. The governor was to be the executive head in the province.
2. Subjects were divided into two lists: “reserved” which included subjects such as law and order, finance, land revenue, irrigation, etc., and “transferred” subjects such as education, health, local government, industry, agriculture, excise, etc.
3. The “reserved” subjects were to be administered by the governor through his executive council of bureaucrats, and the “transferred” subjects were to be administered by ministers nominated from among the elected members of the legislative council.
4. The ministers were to be responsible to the legislature and had to resign if a no-confidence motion was passed against them by the legislature, while the executive councilors were not to be responsible to the legislature.
5. In case of failure of constitutional machinery in the province the governor could take over the administration of “transferred” subjects also.
6. The secretary of state and the governor-general could interfere in respect of “reserved” subjects while in respect of the “transferred” subjects; the scope for their interference was restricted.

(b) Legislature:

1. Provincial Legislative Councils were further expanded—70% of the members were to be elected.
2. The system of communal and class electorates was further consolidated.
3. Women were also given the right to vote.
4. The Legislative Councils could initiate legislation but the governor’s assent was required. The governor could veto bills and issue ordinances.
5. The Legislative Councils could reject the budget but the governor could restore it, if necessary.
6. The legislators enjoyed freedom of speech.

(2) Central Government—Still Without Responsible Government:

(a) Executive:

1. The governor-general was to be the chief executive authority.
2. There were to be two lists for administration– central and provincial.
3. In the viceroy’s executive council of 8, three were to be Indians.
4. The governor-general retained full control over the “reserved” subjects in the provinces.
5. The governor-general could restore cuts in grants, certify bills rejected by the Central Legislature,summon, prorogue, dissolve the Chambers, and issue ordinances.

(b) Legislature:

1. A bicameral arrangement was introduced. The lower house or Central Legislative Assembly would consist of 144 members (41 nominated and 103 elected—52 General, 30 Muslims, 2 Sikhs, 20 Special) and the upper house or Council of State would have 60 members (26 nominated and 34 elected—20 General, 10 Muslims, 3 Europeans and 1 Sikh).
2. The Council of State had tenure of 5 years and had only male members, while the Central Legislative Assembly had tenure of 3 years.
3. The legislators could ask questions and supplementaries pass adjournment motions and vote a part of the budget, but 75% of the budget was still not votable.
4. Some Indians found their way into important committees including finance.

• The secretary of state would control affairs relating to Government of India
• In 1921 another change recommended by the report was carried out when elected local councils were set up in rural areas, and during the 1920s urban municipal corporations were made more democratic and “Indianized.

(3) Review:

• The Montagu-Chelmsford report stated that there should be a review after 10 years.
• Sir John Simon headed the committee (Simon Commission) responsible for the review which recommended further constitutional change.
• Three round table conferences were held in London in 1930, 1931 and 1932 with representation of the major interests. Gandhi attended the 1931 round table after negotiations with the British Government. The major disagreement between Congress and the British was separate electorates for each community which Congress opposed but which were retained in Ramsay MacDonald’s Communal Award.
• A new Government of India Act 1935 was passed continuing the move towards self-government first made in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report.

Drawbacks:

1. Franchise was very limited.
2. At the centre, the legislature had no control over the governor-general and his executive council.
3. Division of subjects was not satisfactory at the centre.
4. Allocation of seats for Central Legislature to provinces was based on ‘importance’ of provinces for instance, Punjab’s military importance and Bombay’s commercial importance.
5. At the level of provinces, division of subjects and parallel administration of two parts i.e. Dyarchy was irrational and hence unworkable.
6. The provincial ministers had no control over finances and over the bureaucrats, leading to constant friction between the two. Ministers were often not consulted on important matters too; in fact, they could be overruled by the governor on any matter that the latter considered special.
7. On the home government (in Britain) front, the Government of India Act, 1919 made an important change the secretary of state was henceforth to be paid out of the British exchequer.
8. While, on the one hand, the Government dangled the carrot of constitutional reforms, on the other hand, it decided to arm itself with extraordinary powers to suppress any discordant voices against the reforms.In March 1919, it passed theRowlatt Act even though every single Indian member of the Central Legislative Council opposed it. This Act authorised the Government to imprison any person without trial and conviction in a court of law, thus enabling the Government to suspend the right of habeas corpus which had been the foundation of civil liberties in Britain.

Reception in India:

• The Congress met in a special session in August 1918 at Bombay under Hasan Imam’s presidency and declared the reforms to be “disappointing” and “unsatisfactory” and demanded effective self-government instead.
• The 1919 reforms did not satisfy political demands in India. The British repressed opposition, and restrictions on the press and on movement were re-enacted in the Rowlatt Acts introduced in 1919. These measures were rammed through the Legislative Council with the unanimous opposition of the Indian members. Several members of the council including Jinnah resigned in protest. These measures were widely seen throughout India of the betrayal of strong support given by the population for the British war effort.
• Gandhi launched a nationwide protest against the Rowlatt Acts with the strongest level of protest in the Punjab. An apparently unwitting example of violation of rules against the gathering of people led to the massacre at Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar in April 1919. This tragedy galvanised such political leaders as Nehru and Gandhi and the masses who followed them to press for further action.Montagu ordered an inquiry into the events at Amritsar by Lord Hunter. The Hunter Inquiry recommended that General Dyer, who commanded the troops, be dismissed, leading to Dyer’s sacking. Many British citizens supported Dyer, whom they considered had not received fair treatment from the Hunter Inquiry.

Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms and Government of India Act, 1919

MORLEY-MINTO REFORMS, 1909

• The Indian Councils Act 1909, commonly known as the Morley-Minto Reforms, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that brought about a limited increase in the involvement of Indians in the governance of British India.The Act amended the Indian Councils Acts of 1861 and 1892

• The Morley-Minto Reforms, so named after Morley, the secretary of state, and Minto,the viceroy at that time, were preceded by two important events.
• In October 1906, a group of Muslim elites called the Shimla Deputation, led by the Agha Khan, met Lord Minto and demanded separate electorates for the Muslims and representation in excess of their numerical strength in view of ‘the value of the contribution’ Muslims were making ‘to the defence of the empire’.
• The same group quickly took over the Muslim League, initially floated by Nawab Salimullah of Dacca along with Nawabs Mohsin-ul- Mulk and Waqar-ul-Mulk in December 1906. The Muslim League intended to preach loyalty to the empire and to keep the Muslim intelligentsia away from the Congress.
• John Morley, the Liberal Secretary of State for India, and the Conservative Viceroy of India, The Minto, believed that cracking down on uprising in Bengal was necessary but not sufficient for restoring stability to the British Raj after Lord Curzon’s partitioning of Bengal. They believed that a dramatic step was required to put heart into loyal elements of the Indian upper classes and the growing Westernised section of the population.

The Reforms:

1. The member of the Legislative Councils, both at the Center and in the provinces, were to be of four categories i.e. ex officio members (Governor General and the members of their Executive Councils), nominated official members (those nominated by the Governor General and were government officials), nominated non-official members (nominated by the Governor General but were not government officials) and elected members (elected by different categories of Indian people).
2. The Governor-General, with the approval of the Secretary of State for India, made regulations for how members of legislative councils were nominated or elected nominated, and their qualifications. Regulations made in accordance with the Act could not be exercised until laid before both Houses of Parliament, so that either house might object.
3. The number of elected members in the Imperial Legislative Council and the Provincial Legislative Councils was increased.
4. In the Provincial Councils, non-official majority was introduced, but since some of these non-officials were nominated and not elected, the overall non-elected majority remained.
5. In the Imperial Legislative Council, of the total 68 members, 36 were to be the officials and of the 32 non-officials, 27 to be elected and 5 were to be nominated. Of the 27 elected non-officials, 8 seats were reserved for the Muslims under separate electorates (only Muslims could vote here for the Muslim candidates), while 6 seats were reserved for the British capitalists, 2 for the landlords and 13 seats came under general electorate.
6. The elected members were to be indirectly elected. The local bodies were to elect an electoral college, which in turn would elect members of provincial legislatures, who in turn would elect members of the central legislature.
7. Besides separate electorates for the Muslims, representation in excess of the strength of their population was accorded to the Muslims. Also, the income qualification for Muslim voters was kept lower than that for Hindus.
8. Powers of legislatures (both at the centre and provinces) were enlarged and the legislatures could now pass resolutions (which may not be accepted), ask questions and supplementaries,iscuss the budgets, suggest the amendments, and even to vote on them; excluding those items that were included as non-vote items. Also they could vote separate items in the budget but the budget as a whole could not be voted upon.
9. One Indian was to be appointed to the viceroy’s executive council (Satyendra Sinhawas the first to be appointed in 1909).
10. Two Indians were nominated to the Council of the Secretary of State for Indian Affairs.
11. The Indian Councils Act served as the governance structure of India for a decade. It was modified by the Government of India Act 1912, to clarify the authority of the Governor of Bengal, to create a legislative council for the new province of Bihar and Orissa, to dispense with Parliamentary review of the creation of new legislative councils for provinces under a lieutenant-governor and to permit the creation of legislative councils in provinces under chief commissioners.

Evaluation:

• The reforms of 1909 afforded no answer and could afford no answer to the Indian political problem. Lord Morley made it clear that colonial self-government (as demanded by the Congress) was not suitable for India, and he was against introduction of parliamentary or responsible government in India. He said, “If it could be said that led directly or indirectly to the establishment of a parliamentary system in India, I, for one, would have nothing at all to do with it.”
• The ‘constitutional’ reforms were, in fact, aimed at dividing the nationalist ranks by confusing the Moderates and at checking the growth of unity among Indians through the obnoxious instrument of separate electorates.
• The Government aimed at rallying the Moderates and the Muslims against the rising tide of nationalism. The officials and the Muslim leaders often talked of the entire community when they talked of the separate electorates, but in reality it meant the appeasement of a small section of the Muslim elite only.
• Muslims had expressed serious concern that a “first past the post” electoral system, like that of Britain, would leave them permanently subject to Hindu majority rule. The Act of 1909 stipulated, as demanded by the Muslim leadership

• 1. that Indian Muslims be allotted reserved seats in the Municipal and District Boards, in the Provincial Councils and in the Imperial Legislature;
  2. that the number of reserved seats be in excess of their relative population (25 percent of the Indian population); and,
  3. that only Muslims should vote for candidates for the Muslim seats (‘separate electorates’).

• Congress considered separate electorate to be undemocratic and hindering the development of a shared Hindu-Muslim Indian national feeling.
• Besides, system of election was too indirect and it gave the impression of infiltration of legislators through a number of sieves.
• And, while parliamentary forms were introduced, no responsibility was conceded, which sometimes led to thoughtless and irresponsible criticism of the Government. Only some members like Gokhale put to constructive use the opportunity to debate in the councils by demanding universal primary education, attacking repressive policies and drawing attention to the plight of indentured labour and Indian workers in South Africa.
• The reforms of 1909 gave to the people of the country a shadow rather than substance. The people had demanded self-government but what they were given was ‘benevolent despotism’.

The Act of 1909 was important for the following reasons:

• It effectively allowed the election of Indians to the various legislative councils in India for the first time, though previously some Indians had been appointed to legislative councils.
• The introduction of the electoral principle laid the groundwork for a parliamentary system even though this was contrary to the intent of Morley.

MORLEY-MINTO REFORMS, 1909

The Indian Council Act, 1892

The Indian Council’s Act, 1892

• The Indian Councils Act 1892 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that authorized an increase in the size of the various legislative councils in British India. Indian Councils Act 1892 was the beginning of the parliamentary System in India.
• Before this act was passed, the Indian National Congress had adopted some resolutions in its sessions in 1885 and 1889 and put its demand. One of the demand was: Reforms of the legislative council and adoption of the principle of election in place of nomination.This demand reflected the dissatisfaction of the Indian National Congress over the existing system of governance. The Indian leaders wanted admission of a considerable number of the elected members. They also wanted the creation of similar councils of North western Province and Oudh and also for Punjab
• The Indian leaders also wanted a right to discussion on budget matters.
• Viceroy Lord Dufferin set up a committee. The committee was given the responsibility to draw a plan for the enlargement of the provincial councils and enhancement of their status. The plan was drawn, but when it was referred to the Secretary of State for India, he did not agree to introduction of the Principle of election.
• Following provisions were made in the Act:

1. The Indian Councils Act 1892 gave the members right to ask questions on Budget or matters of public Interest after giving six days’ notice.But no right to ask supplementary questions.The act was 1892 can be said to be a First step towards the beginning of the parliamentary system in India, where the members are authorized to ask questions.At least, they were enabled to indulge in a criticism of the Financial Policy of the Government.
2. Additional members could be indirectly elected to the Legislative Council. For the very first time, an element of election was sought to be introduced for the first time. The universities, district board, municipalities, zamindars and chambers of commerce were empowered to recommend members to provincial councils. Thus was introduced the principle of representation.
3. India was divided into provinces for administrative convenience. Bengal, Bombay and Madras were presidencies which had more powers than the provinces.
4. The Indian Councils act 1892 increased the number of the additional(non-official) members in councils to between 10 and 16. The Council now had 6 officials, 5 nominated non-officials, 4 nominated by the provincial legislative councils of Bengal Presidency, Bombay Presidency, Madras Presidency and North-Western Provinces and 1 nominated by the chamber of commerce in Calcutta. The law member was made a permanent member. In case of Bombay and Madras 8-20 and In case of the Bengal 20 and In case of North Western province and Oudh 15. In 1892, the council consisted of 24 members, only five being where Indians
5. The British reorganized the Indian Army but it was dominated by the European branch of the army. In addition the maximum age for entry into the Civil Services was gradually reduced from 23 to 19. The princely states were rewarded for their supportive role for the British in 1857 revolt. Their right to adopt heirs could be respected and integrity of their territories granted against future annexation.

• Thus British made several changes with the objective of gradually involving Indians in the British administrative structure with the object of preventing any major upsurge from the nationalist front by creating a permanent group of loyalists.
• Contrary to the Congress faith in the policy of petition, prayer and protest, the Indian Councils Act did not satisfy the public demand. The congress way of demand was seen as a weakness by the British Government. This was evident from the following note by BG Tilak:“……political rights will have to be fought for. The moderates think that these can be won by persuasion. We Think that they can only be obtained by strong Pressure…”

The Indian Council Act, 1892

The Government of India Act, 1858 and The Indian Council Act, 1861

The Government of India Act, 1858

• The Revolt Of 1857 gave a severe jolt to the British administration in India and compelled it to reorganise its structure
• This act is coterminous with Queen Victoria’s declaration, 1858
• The British prime Minister, Palmerstone had introduced a Bill in 1858 in the parliament for the transfer of Government of India to The crown. However, before this bill was to be passed, Palmerstone was forced to resign on another issue.
• Later Lord Stanley introduced another bill which was originally titled as “An Act for the Better Government of India” and it was passed on August 2, 1858. This act provided that India was to be governed directly and in the name of the crown.
• Following changes were made:

1. Transferred powers from the East India Company to the Crown.The Company’s territories in India were to be vested in the Queen. India was to be governed in the Queen’s name.
2. All the property of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown. The Crown also assumed the responsibilities of the Company as they related to treaties, contracts, and so forth
3. A member of British Parliament was made secretary of state of India to exercise powers on behalf of the Crown and was responsible to the British Parliament.
4. The Crown was empowered to appoint a Governor-General and the Governors of the Presidencies.
5. Provision for the creation of an Indian Civil Service under the control of the Secretary of State.
6. The Governor General for India was provided with an Executive Council, whose decision he was empowered to override.

• The Act ushered in a new period of Indian history, bringing about the end of Company rule in India. The era of the new British Raj would last until Partition of India in August 1947, at which time all of the territory of the Raj was granted dominion status within the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India.

The Indian Council’s Act, 1861

The Indian Councils Act 1861 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

1. This act is known to have made notable changes in the composition of the Governor General’s council for executive & legislative Purposes.
2. The council of the Governor General of India performed dual functions of executive and legislature.
3. For executive functions the notable change was that Council of the Governor General was expanded and a fifth member of law (Five members: home, revenue, military, law, finance, and after 1874, 6th member of public work) was added.With the Indian Councils Act for the first time Portfolio system started (Cabinet type). Each member of the Council of the Governor General was allocated portfolio of a particular department. Lord Canning was the First to start a Portfolio system.
4. For the purpose of Legislation, the Governor General’s Council was restructured and enlarged. Now the additional new NOT less than 6 and NOT more than 12 members were now to be nominated by the Governor General and they were to hold the office for two years. Out of these, not less than half were required to be Non-Official (English or Indian). This was a beginning towards the establishment of legislative system by adding legislative non official members to the Council of the Governor General. However, the functions were limited to the legislation and it had not to do any other function except the consideration or enactment of legislative measures.
5. It was laid down that without the assent of the Governor General a bill relating to the public revenue or debt, religion, military, naval or foreign relations cannot be passed. However, any such act might be dissolved by the crown acting through the secretary of State of India.
6. The Viceroy was allowed, under the provisions of the Act, to overrule the council on affairs if he deemed it necessary – as was the case in 1879, during the tenure of Lord Lytton.
7. The Governments of Madras and Bombay were deprived of their power of legislation by Charter act of 1833. The Indian Councils Act 1861 restored the power of legislation to the governor-in-councils of Madras and Bombay in respective matters. The legislative council at Calcutta was given extensive authority to pass laws for British India as a whole, while the legislative councils at Bombay and Madras were given the power to make laws for the “Peace and good Government” of their respective presidencies.
8. The act also laid down the provision for the formation of legislative councils in other provinces.
9. The Governor General was given the power to create new provinces for legislative purposes. He also could appoint Lt. Governors for the same
10. Imperial legislative Council was merely an advisory body.

• The Secretary of State for India at the time the Act was passed, Sir Charles Wood, believed that the Act was of immense importance: “the act is a great experiment. That everything is changing in India is obvious enough, and that the old autocratic government cannot stand unmodified is indisputable.
• However from India’s point of view the act did little to improve the influence of Indians in the legislative council. The role of council was limited to advice. No financial discussion could take place.

The Government of India Act, 1858 and The Indian Council Act, 1861