Limited scope of reference

THE expected has happened. After a debate lasting three days, the Legislative Assembly has by a large majority rejected the official motion for the adoption of the Lee report and accepted the nationalist amendment. It was practically a solid India vote, only a few Indians, mostly officials, voting in favour of the Home Member’s resolution. The significance of such a vote cannot possibly be either misunderstood or minimised by any right-thinking or fair-minded person, especially as it is in complete accord with the view that has found strong and unanimous expression in the Press, which has justly been described as the people’s Parliament. It shows that the country, divided as it is into diverse classes and communities and differing as it does in so many things mostly non-essential, is of the same mind in this vital and essential matter. An attempt has been made in some quarters to discount the value of this vote on the supposed ground that the atmosphere in which the debate took place was unreal. A more palpably and demonstrably false assertion was never made even by an irresponsible scribe. One has only to go through the speeches of Pandit Motilal Nehru and his supporters to find that they were never more earnest or more serious in their lives than when they spoke on this subject. It is true that they did attach the same importance to the details of the matter that the other side did, that some of them were not inclined to consider the recommendations on their merits at all. But the reason was obvious. They were opposed to the very principle on which the Commission, with its extremely limited scope of reference, had been appointed.