Speech at the First Round Table Conference, London

[p. 28] H. H. The Maharaja of Bikaner: Mr. Chairman, we meet in no ordinary times to attempt no ordinary task. In our immediate concern is the peace, happiness and good government of three hundred and nineteen millions of people, looking to whatever government may be established for some relief from their present distresses, who I venture once again to assert—certain unhappy circumstances notwithstanding—are loyal to the core. What then would be the results if from any irresolution on our part—from unreason on one side, or reaction on the other, from timidity in one party and a refusal to recognise the essentials of constitutional government in another—we blenched from the work and failed of our duty to secure the greater contentment of India? It goes without saying that a very heavy responsibility rests on each and every one of us taking part in this Conference, and that the issues involved are really tremendous. It is impossible to minimise the magnitude of the task that lies before us; nor do I desire to under-rate the complexity of some of the problems involved. I am an optimist, but there is no use in shutting one's eyes to facts. I have seen in Bombay and elsewhere during my travels in British India how the masses in the districts are being affected. I wish I could adequately express the gravity of the situation. I have always declined to be moved by threats of dire consequences, nor have I submitted to being dictated to at the muzzle of the pistol. But undue regard for preconceived ideas and false notions of prestige or exaggerated fear of some possible consequences have, I feel it will be agreed, also to be guarded against; and I, for one—and here I feel that I speak for my Order as well as for the representatives [p. 29] of British India who are gathered round this ancient hall—refuse to be made fearful by the difficulties ahead. Rather I find in them an inspiration to put forth the uttermost that is in me, in a spirit of confidence and of courage. The very immensity of the work makes it worth doing well.

His Majesty the King-Emperor was pleased to remind us at the opening of this Conference that “the last decade has witnessed . . . a quickening and growth in ideals and aspirations of Nationhood which defy the customary measurements of time”. I venture to appeal to you, Prime Minister and other Members of His Majesty's Government, and to our colleagues here representing the British Political Parties, to take their courage in both hands, to throw their hearts over the fence and follow boldly after, in the conviction that the greater our vision and determination, the greater is our success likely to be and the richer in consequence the harvest which we all—British India and the Indian States, and Great Britain and the Empire—shall reap. The ultimate attainment of Dominion Status under the Crown is inherent in the declaration of policy in 1917, and has more recently received authoritative endorsement. Let us hitch our wagon to that star, fully realising that our sister States did not reach the end at one stride, but after evolution based on experience, that in the intervening stage certain safeguards and guarantees are imperatively necessary for the security of the body politic and all parts thereof, but looking straight on. Nothing worth having can be attained without facing some risks. These were taken when Lord Durham laid the foundations for the proud position which Canada enjoys to-day as the premier Dominion in our great Commonwealth, to the mutual benefit of Great Britain and Canada. Similar risks were run when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman secured Dominion Status for South Africa with the happiest results, for which we had every reason to be grateful during the Great War only some five years later. I am equally convinced that if this Conference will but do the right thing by India, justly and magnanimously, my country will be a willing and contented partner in the Commonwealth. She will then be only too glad, side by side with the benefits of an honourable and independent position internally, to have all the power and resources of our mighty Empire always at her back. No half-hearted measures, and no tinkering with the constitution will, I beg you to believe me, meet the situation. Many of our troubles in the past, and our troubles of the present, have arisen from these causes. Moreover when, in response to irresistible demands, some constitutional advance was made, it was often too late; and it wore the appearance of having been conceded with a bad grace and wrested from the British Government. So there never was a time in the history of India and of the Empire when courage—courage in thought, in aim, in constructive statesmanship—was more needed than now, when the great ambitions stirring India are struggling for constitutional expression. It is in the spirit of courage, confidence, imagination and liberal statesmanship, that I pray our deliberations may be guided.

[p. 30] From what standpoint then do we of the States approach this great task? I speak primarily for myself, though I believe I shall have the general agreement of the Princes and the Ministers representing our Indian States at this historic gathering. We are here specially to present the policies of the Indian States. First and foremost in those policies is an unflinching and unqualified loyalty to the Throne and Person of His Majesty the King-Emperor of India. With the traditions of centuries of kingship and with the instincts and responsibilities of hereditary rule ingrained in our being, the kingly idea and the monarchical system are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. Even if we were tempted to waken from this principle—which is impossible—the thought of the intense devotion of the Imperial House of Windsor to the interests of India would rekindle our faith. Three notable and encouraging messages from His Majesty still ring in our ears—the earnest plea for sympathy in dealing with Indian problems made at the close of the Indian tour as Prince of Wales; the watchword of hope given six years later at Calcutta; and the pledge that the Princes' privileges, rights and dignities are inviolate and inviolable renewed when the Chamber of Princes was inaugurated. In this threefold spirit of sympathy, hope and justice, encouraged by the gracious words addressed to this Conference when it was inaugurated on Wednesday, we bend with the greater optimism to the work that lies before us.

Linked with this devotion to the Crown is an unfaltering adhesion to the British Commonwealth of Nations. The old idea of Empire as signifying “dominion over palm and pine” has vanished; the concept of Empire as overlordship based on force was never true and now has not even the pale shadow of reality. The unity of the Empire was signally vindicated in the Great War. The basis of that unity was reshaped at the Imperial Conference of 1926, when it was declared that the constituent States are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any respect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown. Our attachment to the Empire or Commonwealth, call it what we may, is no mere matter of sentiment. It is based on the profound conviction that not only can each constituent State reach its full expression within these bonds and under the Crown, but a higher development, politically and economically, than it could attain as an isolated independent unit.

Thirdly, we stand without compromise on our treaty rights and all that they involve. Those Treaties are with the British Crown, and obviously cannot be transferred to any other authority without our free agreement and assent. But do not conclude from this that I am one of those people who think that things never change. The States rightly maintain that Treaties concluded in honour and friendship are binding until they may be amended, and they can only be amended by negotiation and honourable agreement on both sides. Nor must it be concluded that we of the Indian States are under the belief that changes in British India will have no reflex action on ourselves and on our relations with our own subjects.

[p. 31] The territories of the Indian States are so interwoven with British India, so many of the more enterprising of our traders have business in the new commercial centres on the seaboard, which have grown up under the Pax Britannica and the opening of the Suez Canal, that we must be influenced by the development of political ideas and institutions beyond our frontiers. But this is our affair. We know our States and our people; we live amongst our own folk and are in the most intimate contact with their needs and possibilities. We shall know how and when to adjust our system to any changing conditions; but we will do it in our own time and in our own way, free from all external interference.

Is there anything in adherence to these principles either opposed to, or inconsistent with, the fullest development of India until she takes her equal place as a constituent State in the British Commonwealth with the other Dominions, welded into an indivisible whole under the ægis of the Crown? I say, "No—a thousand times No." It is sometimes said that there are two Indias, British India and the India under the rule of her own Princes. That is true in a political sense; but India is a single geographical unit and we are all members one of another. We, the Princes, are Indians—we have our roots deep down in her historic past, we are racy of the soil. Everything which tends to the honour and prosperity of India has for us a vital concern. Everything which retards her prosperity and shakes the stability of her institutions retards our own growth and lowers our stature. We claim that we are on the side of progress. One of the most welcome signs of the times is the material weakening of the idea that the Princes are opposed to the political growth of British India, and would range themselves—or allow themselves to be arrayed—against the realisation of the just hopes of their fellow-countrymen in British India. We have, therefore, watched with the most sympathetic interest the rise of that passion for an equal position in the eyes of the world, expressed in the desire for Dominion Status, which is the dominant force amongst all thinking Indians to-day. Those of us who have grown grey under the responsibilities of rule and the practical work of administration—and thirty-two years have passed since I assumed the active governance of the State of Bikaner—deplore some of the expressions of this urge. We appreciate the fact that when contracts are broken under the impulse of revolutionary fervour, they have to be re-knit in blood and tears, and a weary path of suffering and loss trodden before society marches forward again. But behind these untoward developments, which we hope and pray is only a passing phase, lies the struggle for equality springing from our ancient culture and quickened by years of contact with the liberty-loving and constitutionally minded British people.

It is, I submit, our duty to bend our energies to the task of satisfying this righteous demand without impairing the majestic fabric of law. How best can this be achieved? My own conviction is that if we are to build well and truly, we must recognise that associated with this geographical unity India is a land of some diversity. Our starting point, therefore, must be a recognition of this diversity; [p. 32] our unity must be sought not in the dead hand of an impossible uniformity but in an associated diversity. For these reasons, the establishment of a unitary State, with a sovereign parliament sitting at Delhi, to which the whole people would look in small things as in large, is to my mind impossible. There would be no room in such a constitution for the Indian States; moreover, such a government would crack under its own imponderability. Would it not mean the harnessing of the most advanced to the chariot wheels of the least developed, and the slowing down of the general tide of progress? We of the Indian States are willing to take our part in, and make our contribution to, the greater prosperity and contentment of India as a whole. I am convinced that we can best make that contribution through a federal system of government composed of the States and British India. These two partners are of different status. The Indian States are already sovereign and autonomous of right, having the honour of being linked with the Crown by means of Treaties of "perpetual alliance and friendship" and unity of interests; British India derives whatever measure of authority it may possess by devolution. But it will not be beyond the wealth of experience available at this Table to devise a means of linking these differing units into a powerful federal administration.

As to the question whether, if a federal government is devised for India, the Princes and States will enter into association with it, the final answer must obviously depend on the structure of the government indicated and on other points involved, such, for instance, as certain necessary safeguards—constitutional and fiscal—for the preservation of the rights and interests of the States and their subjects. Federalism is an elastic term: there are several forms of federal government. Conditions in India are unique. We have no historical precedents to guide us; and the position of the Indian States is, I believe I am correct in saying, absolutely without parallel. All these and many other grave questions of policy and of detail will have to be examined and defined and settled first in Committee and in informal discussions. But, speaking broadly, the Princes and States realise that an All-India Federation is likely to prove the only satisfactory solution of India's problem. A Federation, on the lines I have attempted to sketch on other occasions, has, as I have previously said, no terrors for the Princes and Governments of the Indian States. We, however, recognise that a period of transition will necessarily intervene before the Federal Government is fully constituted, and that federation cannot be achieved by coercion of the States in any form. The Indian Princes will only come into the Federation of their own free will, and on terms which will secure the just rights of their States and subjects.

I would not venture on the impertinence of even suggesting what course is best for British India. As we demand freedom from interference in our own affairs, equally we shall refrain from thrusting our oars into matters which are not our direct concern; the arrangements between the Central and Provincial Governments in British India are matters primarily outside the purview of the Indian States. If our co-operation is sought, it will, I am sure, be gladly [p. 33] and freely and honestly given. Our duty is to contribute so far as we can to the evolution of a system of government which will lead to the close and effective association of the Indian States with British India whose constitution is to be hammered out here. At the same time the rights in certain directions of the Rulers of the Indian States arising from their Treaties require to be more precisely defined. The Princes and States naturally want to know where they stand. However sincerely desirous of making their contribution to a happy settlement, they will obviously find it difficult to enter into new bonds so long as their rights are left tottering on the shifting sands of expediency deemed paramount at the moment. I think I can best elucidate what is referred to by quoting from a speech I made in the Chamber of Princes on behalf of my Order, on the 27th February last:—

"New-fangled theories about the ultimate powers regarding Paramountcy, and such matters, before the appointment of the Butler Committee, and the extravagant and exaggerated imperialist claims, inconsistent with the plighted word and good faith of Great Britain, or sound statesmanship, advanced on behalf of the Paramount Power—claims more wide, more frequent, more insistent and, I respectfully submit, based on varied and not infrequently untenable grounds and opposed to constitutional and historical facts and to the provisions of our Treaties and other Engagements, and in direct contradiction of the solemn and clear pledges and assurances in the famous gracious Proclamation of Queen Victoria, repeatedly reiterated and affirmed by successive British Sovereigns in numerous Proclamations—have not helped to ease the situation or to allay the anxieties of the States or their Rulers, Governments or people."

The Princes and States fortified by the legal opinion obtained from some of the most eminent Counsel in Great Britain have found themselves unable particularly to accept such claims on the principles enunciated in this connection by the Indian States Committee, and have already taken up the matter with the Viceroy and British Government. Starting with the basic recognition that our Treaty Rights exist and must be respected; that they are with the Crown and cannot be transferred to any other authority without our agreement; and that they can be modified only with our free assent; three developments of the existing administrative machinery are essential for the smooth working of the new system, and indeed of any system. It is an open matter of complaint that our Treaty Rights have been infringed. I need not stress this point, for it has been publicly admitted by no less an authority than the Viceroy and Governor-General of India that the Treaty Rights of the States have been encroached upon, and that in some cases an arbitrary body of usage and political practice has come into being. The time has passed when issues of this importance can be decided ex parte by any government. We therefore attach the utmost importance to the establishment of a Supreme Court, with full powers to [p. 34] entertain and adjudicate upon all disputes of a justiciable nature as to our rights and obligations guaranteed under our Treaties. This is another point which I need not labour, for it is a principle to which the leaders of political thought in British India have, I believe I am right in saying, lent their full support. Next, we claim that in the questions which arise concerning the purely internal affairs of the States their case should not go by default. That will be of still greater importance in the future. The King's Vicegerent in India is even now burdened with many and grievous responsibilities, which will be weighted under the new system of government; and here I would once again like to be associated in a respectful tribute to, and to express our deep admiration and gratitude for that great Viceroy, Lord Irwin. We think that it will be impossible for any man, however able, amid these grave pre-occupations, to give adequate personal attention to those questions affecting the States which come up for day to day decision, and for which he will be directly responsible to the Crown. For these reasons some of us press for the appointment of an Indian States Council, to work with the Political Secretary and to advise the Viceroy of the day. Thirdly, there will be the need for the classification of those administrative questions which are of common concern to British India and the Indian States. This classification will require the previous consent of the States. As we advance further on the road to Federation there are other issues which will need safeguarding; as they are in the nature of details they are not our main concern to-day.

With this contribution to the common task before us I have done. Before I sit down, may I ask forgiveness if, as an old soldier, I have unwittingly given offence to anyone by any bluntness of speech? I am inspired by one thought—service to my beloved King-Emperor and devotion to my Motherland. Akbar, the greatest of the Moguls, when he set out on the crowning adventure of his crowded life placed his foot in the stirrup of opportunity and his hands on the reins of confidence in God. I would commend to you on the threshold of our great enterprise—the conquest of anarchy and reaction in Hindustan and the assurance of our contentment and prosperity as a co-equal partner in our great Commonwealth—the words of Abraham Lincoln in circumstances not altogether remote from these:—

“With malice towards none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work that we are in.”