Edwin Montagu, Secretary of State for India, toured India in the winter of 1917–18 with the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, after announcing in August 1917 that British policy aimed at responsible government for India (the Montagu Declaration). Their joint Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms, published in July 1918, became the basis of the Government of India Act of 1919. These paragraphs give their verdict on communal electorates. The Muslims had held separate electorates since the Morley–Minto reforms of 1909, and in the Lucknow Pact of 1916 the Congress had accepted them. The report's side-headings are given in italics. It is an official report, not a speech.
The authors call communal electorates "a very serious hindrance to the development of the self-governing principle." "Division by creeds and classes," they write, "means the creation of political camps organized against each other, and teaches men to think as partisans and not as citizens." They add: "The British Government is often accused of dividing men in order to govern them." Yet they keep separate electorates for the Muslims, because those were promised and because the Hindu leaders had agreed to them, and they extend the system only to the Sikhs of the Punjab, a minority that would otherwise go "virtually unrepresented": "To the Sikhs, therefore, and to them alone, we propose to extend the system already adopted in the case of Muhammadans." Other minorities are to be represented by nomination, or by seats reserved for them under a general electoral roll.
[p. 147] Communal electorates.
227. At this point we are brought face to face with the most difficult question which arises in connexion with elected assemblies—whether communal electorates are to be maintained. We may be told that this is a closed question, because the Muhammadans will never agree to any revision of the arrangement promised them by Lord Minto in 1906 and secured to them by the reforms of 1909. But we have felt bound to re-examine the question fully in the light of our new policy, and also because we have been pressed to extend the system of communal electorates in a variety of directions. This is no new problem. It has been discussed periodically from the time when the first steps were taken to liberalize the councils. There has hitherto been a weighty consensus of opinion that in a country like India no principle of representation other than by interests is practically possible. Lord Dufferin held this view in 1888, and in 1892 Lord Lansdowne's Government wrote that:—“The representation of such a community upon such a scale as the Act permits can only be secured by providing that each important class shall have the opportunity of making its views known in council by the mouth of some member specially acquainted with them.” We note that in 1892 the small size of the councils was reckoned as a factor in the decision and that the contrary view was not without its exponents; but we feel no doubt [p. 148] that Lord Minto's Government followed the predominant opinion when in 1908 they pressed for an important extension of the communal principle. Thus we have had to reckon not only with the settled existence of the system, but with a large volume of weighty opinion that no other method is feasible.
They are opposed to the teaching of history.
228. The crucial test to which, as we conceive, all proposals should be brought is whether they will or will not help to carry India towards responsible government. Some persons hold that for a people, such as they deem those of India to be, so divided by race, religion and caste as to be unable to consider the interests of any but their own section, a system of communal and class representation is not merely inevitable, but is actually best. They maintain that it evokes and applies the principle of democracy over the widest range over which it is actually alive at all by appealing to the instincts which are strongest; and that we must hope to develop the finer, which are also at present the weaker, instincts by using the forces that really count. According to this theory communal representation is an inevitable, and even a healthy, stage in the development of a non-political people. We find indeed that those who take this view are prepared to apply their principles on a scale previously unknown, and to devise elaborate systems of class or religious electorates into which all possible interests will be deftly fitted. But when we consider what responsible government implies, and how it was developed in the world, we cannot take this view. We find it in its earliest beginnings resting on an effective sense of the common interests, a bond compounded of community of race, religion and language. In the earlier form which it assumed in Europe it appeared only when the territorial principle had vanquished the tribal principle, and blood and religion had ceased to assert a rival claim with the State to a citizen's allegiance; and throughout its development in Western countries, even in cases where special reasons to the contrary were present, it has rested consistently on the same root principle. The solitary examples that we can discover of the opposing principle are those of Austria, a few of the smaller German states, and Cyprus. It is hardly necessary to explain why we dismiss these as irrelevant or unconvincing. We conclude unhesitatingly that the history of self-government among the nations who developed it, and spread it through the world, is decisively against the admission by the State of any divided allegiance; against the State's arranging its members in any way which encourages them to think of themselves primarily as citizens of any smaller unit than itself.
They perpetuate class divisions.
229. Indian lovers of their country would be the first to admit that India generally has not yet acquired the citizen spirit, and if we are really to lead her to self-government we must do all that we possibly can to call it forth in her people. Division by creeds and classes means the creation of political camps organized against each other, and teaches men to think as partisans and not [p. 149] as citizens; and it is difficult to see how the change from this system to national representation is ever to occur. The British Government is often accused of dividing men in order to govern them. But if it unnecessarily divides them at the very moment when it professes to start them on the road to governing themselves it will find it difficult to meet the charge of being hypocritical or short-sighted.
They stereotype existing relations.
230. There is another important point. A minority which is given special representation owing to its weak and backward state is positively encouraged to settle down into a feeling of satisfied security; it is under no inducement to educate and qualify itself to make good the ground which it has lost compared with the stronger majority. On the other hand, the latter will be tempted to feel that they have done all they need do for their weaker fellow-countrymen, and that they are free to use their power for their own purposes. The give-and-take which is the essence of political life is lacking. There is no inducement to the one side to forbear, or to the other to exert itself. The communal system stereotypes existing relations.
The case of the Muhammadans.
231. We regard any system of communal electorates, therefore, as a very serious hindrance to the development of the self-governing principle. The evils of any extension of the system are plain. Already communal representation has been actually proposed for the benefit of a majority community in Madras. At the same time we must face the hard facts. The Muhammadans were given special representation with separate electorates in 1909. The Hindus' acquiescence is embodied in the present agreement between the political leaders of the two communities. The Muhammadans regard these as settled facts, and any attempt to go back on them would rouse a storm of bitter protest and put a severe strain on the loyalty of a community which has behaved with conspicuous loyalty during a period of very great difficulty, and which we know to be feeling no small anxiety for its own welfare under a system of popular government. The Muhammadans regard separate representation and communal electorates as their only adequate safeguards. But apart from a pledge which we must honour until we are released from it, we are bound to see that the community secures proper representation in the new councils. How can we say to them that we regard the decision of 1909 as mistaken, that its retention is incompatible with progress towards responsible government, that its reversal will eventually be to their benefit; and that for these reasons we have decided to go back on it? Much as we regret the necessity, we are convinced that so far as the Muhammadans at all events are concerned the present system must be maintained until conditions alter, even at the price of slower progress towards the realization of a common citizenship. But we can see no reason to set up communal representation for Muhammadans in any province where they form a majority of the voters.
[p. 150] Other minority representation.
232. We have been pressed to extend the concession to other communities. Some have based their claim on their backward, others on their advanced, condition. Thus, the Sikhs in the Punjab, the non-Brahmans in Madras (although in that presidency these actually constitute a majority), the Indian Christians, the Anglo-Indians, the Europeans, and the Lingayat community in Bombay have all asked for communal representation. The large landowning classes also generally desire representation in an electorate of their own. Now our decision to maintain separate electorates for Muhammadans makes it difficult for us to resist these other claims; but, as we have said, in the case of the Muhammadans we have felt ourselves bound by promises given and renewed by Secretaries of State and Viceroys, and in their respect at all events our recommendation involves no new departure. Any general extension of the communal system, however, would only encourage still further demands, and would in our deliberate opinion be fatal to that development of representation upon the national basis on which alone a system of responsible government can possibly be rooted. At the same time, we feel that there is one community from whom it is inexpedient to withhold the concession. The Sikhs in the Punjab are a distinct and important people; they supply a gallant and valuable element to the Indian Army; but they are everywhere in a minority, and experience has shown that they go virtually unrepresented. To the Sikhs, therefore, and to them alone, we propose to extend the system already adopted in the case of Muhammadans.
For the representation of other minorities we should prefer nomination. Even in the case of the general European community, whose material interests in the country are out of all proportion to their numerical strength and on whose behalf it may be argued that no departure from principle is involved, inasmuch as unlike all other communities named they are not an integral part of the population of India, we prefer to rely upon nomination. Special electorates will no doubt be required for the representation of the planting and mining interests, for the chambers of commerce, and possibly also for the universities; but we desire that the number of such electorates should be as restricted as possible, and that minority interests should, where necessary, be represented not by class or interest electorates, but by nomination. Where the great landowners form a distinct class in any province we think that there will be a case for giving them an electorate of their own. The anomaly involved in the presence of nominated members in a council to which we are giving some responsible powers must, we think, be accepted as one of the necessary illogicalities attendant on a transitional period. Such nominations are made for a representative purpose and can be made in such a way as to secure representation. Nomination has in our eyes the great advantage over the alternative of extending the class or communal system that it can be more easily abolished when the necessity for it ceases. We look to the desire of the communities represented by nominated members to see their representatives [p. 151] in council placed upon the same footing as those of other communities to help us in securing the extension of the territorial principle of representation wherever possible. But it should be a clear instruction to the committee that the nominated element in the legislative councils is to be no larger than the exigencies of fair and adequate representation entail.
There may be cases in which nomination proves an unsuitable method of securing the representation of minorities. In such cases the committee should consider whether the needs of the case would be met by reserving to a particular community a certain number of seats in plural constituencies, but with a general electoral roll. We are inclined to look on such an arrangement as preferable to communal electorates.
Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1918; Cd. 9109), paras. 227–232, pp. 147–151. The report's side-headings are given in italics.