THREE ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMMES

THE passing by the Bombay Reforms Conference of a resolution urging the immediate voluntary recognition of executive responsibility to the Central and Provincial Legislatures reminds us once more of both the agreements and the difference subsisting between the Liberals and the rest of the progressive party in India. If anything, the agreement is now carried a step further. For the first time, as far as we are aware, a body of politicians has passed a resolution urging the immediate establishment of Dominion Home Rule in India. Whether Dominion Home Rule can be established, as the Conference seemed to think, by the mere “voluntary recognition of executive responsibility to the Central and Provincial Legislatures without burdening the Imperial Parliament with further unnecessary legislation” may be open to serious dispute. For our part, we fail to see how the Executive in India can be made solely responsible to the Indian Legislature so long as the British Parliament does not relinquish its authority and its power of interference in regard to all subjects in the case of the Central Government and of reserved subjects in the case of the Provincial Governments. The only effect of the voluntary recognition of responsibility in India would be that for a considerable time, the executive in India would be exposed to two cross-fires, one from the progressives and the other from the representatives of British vested interests, the champions of Anglo-Indian prejudices and aspirations in the British Parliament. But this question of modus operandi is really the second and not the first question and belongs more to the sphere of difference than of agreement. What is clear is that the identity of views between the Liberals and Congressmen regarding the immediate end of their political endeavour, which has always been substantial, is now practically complete.

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