Self – Government for India

Speaking in support of the Self – Government Resolution at the Calcutta Congress of 1917, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya said:-

We ask that the representatives of the people should have power to determine how the taxes should be raised as otherwise representation would be meaningless. The next demand that we make is that the representation of the people whom the Government admitted into the Councils should have power to control the executive. When the Government introduced representative institutions in this country they must have foreseen, and if they have not they were very unwise, that representative institutions are a misnomer, if they did not carry with them power and responsibility of the people’s representatives in control the action of Executive Government. With that power follows the power of the purse. Our English fellow-subjects have taught us through their glorious literature that it is the people who pay the taxes, who ought to determine, through their representatives in the Councils, how these taxes should be spent. That power of the purse is a national growth and development of representative institutions. We have dealt with the realities of the situation and we have to deal with the facts as you find them here to-day. The Congress League scheme is a rational advance upon the lines under which political institutions have been working so far in this country. It is therefore no good telling us that our scheme does not fit in with the schemes formulated in other countries. The Congress – League scheme is suitable to the conditions in India. Some of our critics tell us that responsible government means a government which is responsible to the representatives of the people and removable at the pleasure of the representatives. I wish these critics showed a little more consideration, a little more generosity, in dealing with us and credited us with a little more common – sense. Self government means that the Executive is responsible to the people. When we spoke of Self-Government we spoke of Self-Government on colonial lines. In the Colonies the Executive is responsible to the Legislature. That being so it is entirely wrong to say that in asking for Self-Government we are asking for something less than responsible Government. It is said that we might have put into our scheme a little more generosity and a little more enthusiasm but you must remember that when they who put it forward bad not only to think of you and me, but of the bureaucracy and all those who are represented by Lord Sydenham and the framers were probably wiser in couching it in a language which may not satisfy us, but which has in it all the promise of the realization of responsible Government in the near future. The resolution says that Self-Government should be introduced by stages. The Congress did not ask that Self-Government on colonial lines should be introduced at once. The next stage would be conferring of responsible Government to this country. The Congress programme is not inconsistent with the pronouncement made in the Parliament in August last. But you must remember that there are some who would make these stages occur at longer intervals than we desire. Let us, however, hope that our united voice and judgment will prevail against the voice of those who want to delay the period when full responsible Government should be established in this country.