Reforms was the separate electorate for the Muslims; in addition to the general unrest in the country, Lord Minto had to face the discontent among the Muslims in India. The main grievance of this community was their inadequate representation in the legislative councils under the 1892 Reforms.35 The Muslims constituted about 23 % of the total population, but the percentage of the “elected” Muslim members from 1893 to 1903 was only 12 %. A similar ← 7 | 8 → anomaly existed also in the Provinces: in Bengal the Muslims constituted nearly 52 % of the population, but only 5·7 % of the elected representatives were Muslims.36 Perhaps it was the failure of the Muslims to get adequate representation in the Councils that caused frustration or distrust about the vast Hindu majority in India. On October 1, 1906, a Muslim deputation under the leadership of Aga Khan met the Viceroy and demanded a separate electorate for the Muslims and ultimately that was granted”37 which raised a vehement criticism by the Hindu leaders of the Congress as well as the Hindu elite of the Indian civil society.
An excellent review of the working of the Morley-Minto Councils given in the M/C Report is summarized under the following heads.38 Firstly, the franchise was exceptionally restricted and as such it failed to give adequate political training to a larger segment of the population. Secondly, the elected members were predominantly lawyers. Thirdly, the official bloc that maintained its characteristic rigidity caused irritation to the non-official Indians. Fourthly, the presence of a very small number of elected members contributed to the “unreality in the proceedings.” Fifthly, the Indian Legislative Council showed an apparent lack of interest in legislative business: over a stretch of eight years, 1910–17, the Council passed 131 laws of which no fewer than 77 or 59 % were passed without any discussion whatsoever. Sixthly, the privilege of asking questions and moving resolutions was more frequently used; while the number of resolutions moved from 1909 to 1917 was 168, only 24 were accepted by the Government. Seventhly, the elected and nominated Indian members developed a certain amount of common outlook on all major issues. Lastly, for the first time the Indians were admitted as members of the Executive Councils at the centre and the provinces.
The chief contribution of the Morley-Minto Councils was the parliamentary experience that the Indian members gathered from the process.39 Evidently, the quality of speeches in the Councils improved; there was less reading of manuscripts prepared earlier without any reference to the actual debates and there was less repetition of points and the non-officials were on the whole precise in their speeches. In the old Councils, members made their speeches sitting, but the Morley-Minto Councils changed the rules requiring the members to stand up to make any speech. Under the Rules of the Imperial Legislative Council (1862–1920), the President could suspend any of the rules and procedures to expedite the passage of a Bill. But this power was less frequently exercised under the 1909 Reforms; by and large more discussion of legislative Bills was possible. The non-official members also showed a great ← 8 | 9 → eagerness to discuss measures of technical importance; however, the legislative record of nearly 59 % of the Bills passed without discussion was unimpressive. But that figure ignored the fact that a lot of discussion was also done in the Select Committees. Non-official members tried to discuss very elaborately certain Bills of great importance; for example, the Indian Court Fees Bill, 1910; Indian Factories Bill, 1911; Indian Patent and Design Bill, 1911; the Criminal Tribes Bill, 1912; the Indian Companies Bill, 1912 which were also modified by their amendments. To give one specific example, as many as 30 non-official amendments were moved to the Indian Factories Bill, 1911, and 7 of them were accepted by the Government.40 Private Members’ Bills had been rather scanty; only 5 private Bills were passed by the Council up to 1917.41 Nevertheless it shows that even within a very narrow sphere, the non-official Indians could initiate legislative policy. As a result, a legislative tradition had grown side by side with the bureaucratic tradition.42 Public interest about the role of the Indian Members was also increasing; if any repressive measure was supported by the elected members, the nationalist press habitually came out with strong criticism.43 The more elaborate discussion of the budget and other financial measures helped the Indian members to learn more about the administrative intricacies; a lot of information about bureaucratic policies was also elicited by way of questions.
In spite of the general step-forward in the country’s constitutional evolution, the Morley-Minto Councils soon failed to satisfy the escalating “political hunger” of the country. It was because the fundamental purpose of the Reforms was not to train Indians in self-government but only to enable the government to realize better the wants and sentiments of the governed.44 In a sense, the Morley-Minto reforms refused to face the basic question posed by the Indian nationalism: What is the goal of the British Rule in India?45 Morley’s insistence on retaining the official majority further circumscribed the ambit of the Indian Legislative Council. The control of the Whitehall over the Indian Government was not even slightly relaxed under those changes, and, as a result, even the provincial governments could not respond to the pressure of the Indian representatives where they constituted a majority.
For some time after the introduction of the Reforms, the Councils gained the utmost prominence in the country as the moderate leaders believed they could be used as effective instruments to make the Government amenable to non-official demands. But the failure of the Government to make greater concessions to nonofficial opinion caused their frustration. Writing of his experience in the provincial as well as the Indian Legislative Councils, one ← 9 | 10 → member said in 1917 that resolutions and questions were on many occasions arbitrarily disallowed by the President.46 He also complained that the rules and regulations were too inelastic to allow the Indian members to exert their position and, as a result, there was a growing frustration and a sense of helplessness among Indian representatives.47 And certain repressive measures were passed in defiance of the Indian opposition. The worst of them was the notorious Rowlatt Bill passed in 1919: as many as 150 amendments were moved to modify the Bill’s spirit but the government refused to alter the measure in any substantial mode. Gradually the role of the Indian members came to be one of criticism only, which was often futile. World War I accelerated the political impulse of the country; India’s political horizon was widened. There was no more enthusiasm left for the Morley-Minto Councils; in October, 1916, nineteen members of the Indian Legislative Council submitted a memorandum to the Government outlining the need for post-war reforms. The memorandum could be called the country’s mandate supported by the Congress leaders.48 It was in these circumstances that the proposals of the 1919 Reforms were being shaped. The famous declaration of August 20, 1917 outlined the general goal of British Rule in India; in elaborating the announcement, Lord Chelmsford declared that any advance in India would also make further advance in the legislatures.49
Up to 1920, the Indian Legislative Council played, for all practical purposes, the role of an advisory body; it could not press any proposal against the official majority. Nor could it be successful in censuring the Executive. Furthermore; the financial powers were virtually restricted to the discussion of budgets. With a non-official majority and all the paraphernalia of a modem legislature, the new Central Legislature created under the 1919 Reform came to use greater power. It marked a new milestone in the growth of Indian Legislatures, which was the avowed purpose of the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms. The autocratic power of the Government of India and the local governments was veiled, not impaired by the legislative councils of the Morley-Minto period. But the changes wrought by the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms was, as Sir Frederick Whyte, the Central Assembly President once wrote, so substantial as to amount to a political revolution.50 The new legislatures, both at the Centre and the provinces, were no longer mere consultative committees with a modicum of powers; they were legislatures with larger political opportunities.51 ← 10 | 11 →
Notes
1. In 1860, Sir Bartle Frere, a member of the Executive Council, made the following comment: “The addition of the native element has, I think, become necessary owing to our diminished opportunities of learning through indirect channels what natives think of our measures and how the native community will be affected by them….It is a great evil of the present system that the Government can rarely learn how its measures will be received or how they are
