Education of the Electorate

THE February number of the Vedic Magazine has a series of thought-provoking editorial notes on the subject of the Government of India Act and connected issues. No question, as we have repeatedly pointed out, is more important or of more paramount urgency in this country and at the present time than the question of the education of the electorate, and it is gratifying to observe that on this question, our contemporary voices the considered opinion of all who have given any thought to the subject. Most of us have been congratulating themselves, and very rightly, upon the fact that the Councils are to have substantial elected majorities and that the franchise has been conferred upon five million people. The writer contends that both the things may prove illusory, that unless the political leaders of the country will realise their duty and bestir themselves in time, there is positive danger of the electorate in rural areas returning only or mainly not-ables to the Councils, men who are “under the thumb of local officials” and “are bound to exercise their local influence” and thus “reducing the elective majorities to a farce.” There may be a difference of opinion as to how long either the local influence not-ables or the influence of the local officials upon them is likely to continue in an effective form under the new order of things, but there is no doubt that for the moment, at any rate, the danger to which the writer draws attention is both real and serious, and those who have been either ignoring or minimising this danger and at the same time making frantic efforts to keep some of the best and ablest men in our public life out of the Councils, are not only not making a profitable use of their own time but also doing a positive disservice to the country some of them love so well.

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