Essays in Liberalism: Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the; Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922Various
General
Essays in Liberalism: Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the; Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922
Various
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1910-1936; Liberalism -- Great Britain
As things stand at present, there is a remarkable lull. It would be
futile to predict whether it will last. It is due in part, as I have
suggested, to general political weariness, in part to the drastic action
taken against the smaller agitating fry, in part to the depletion of the
coffers of the extremists, in part to the fact that the extremists are
quarrelling amongst themselves as to their future programme. Some are
for continuing a boycott of the Councils; others are for capturing all
the seats and dominating the legislature; others are for re-beating the
dead horse of non-co-operation. Meanwhile, with disunion in the
extremist camp, the Councils conduct their business on moderate lines,
and, so far as one can judge, with marked temperance and sanity.
The work of the first Councils has indeed been surprisingly good, and
augurs well for the future. India has not yet, of course, by any means
grasped the full significance of representative government. The party
system is still in embryo, although two somewhat vague and nebulous
parties calling themselves the "Nationalists" and the "Democrats" do
exist. But these parties have no clear-cut programme, and they do not
follow the lead of the Ministers, who are regarded, not as representing
the elected members of the Council, but as newly-appointed additional
members of the official bureaucracy. There will doubtless in time be
gradual sorting of politicians into definite groups, but there are two
unbridgeable gulfs in the Indian social system which must always
militate against the building up of a solid political party system:
first, the gulf between Hindu and Moslem, which still yawns as wide as
ever, and second, the gulf between the Brahman and the "untouchables"
who, by the way, have found their fears that they would be downtrodden
under the new Councils completely baseless.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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