Sir John Maynard’s evidence

Lahore, Thursday, October 23, 1924

ALTHOUGH Sir John Maynard appeared before the Reforms Enquiry Committee with the avowed object of removing the ‘misapprehensions’ caused and the ‘misstatements’ made by some witnesses, the evidence actually given by him contains more than one statement which serves a different and, from the public point of view, more important and useful purpose. We have, first of all, the interesting statement made by the witness in reply to Dr Sapru that the Government of Punjab really depends upon the Muslim bloc. Does this not mean that there has all this time been what so many in the province regard as an unholy alliance between the official and Muslim members of the Punjab Council, unholy because whatever may be the case when the country becomes self-governing, the only legitimate place for all patriotic and independent members in our legislatures at present, so far as the reserved subjects are concerned, is on the Opposition benches? Secondly, there is the statement also corroborative of the general view on the subject, that the line of coverage in the Punjab Council is both Hindu versus Muslim and rural versus urban, and the still more significant statement that even on questions not raising communal issues, the “voting somehow took a communal line”. Of course, the official explanation of this fact is that the state of things in the Council is a more or less accurate reflection of the state of things in the province. But the question which disinterested contemporaries as well as the impartial historian will ask is whether the communal bitterness which existed in the province when the reforms were introduced was not accentuated by what took place in the Council.