An obstructive second chamber

WHAT to do with the Council of State is a question which must seriously engage the immediate attention of all patriotic Indians. Even since the inauguration of the Reforms, and barring only exceptional occasions, it has lost no opportunity in vital matters of thwarting the will of the people, as expressed in the Legislative Assembly. The latest illustration of this obstructive tendency is the rejection by the Council of the motion of RP Karandikar that the Bill passed by the Legislative Assembly in September at the instance of Dr Gour, repealing Part II of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1908, be taken up for consideration. If ever there was a proposal which might have been expected to be adopted with a virtual unanimity by a legislative body with any pretensions to a representative character, it was this proposal; not only because there was clear and unmistakable evidence that the powers conferred by the Act had been gravely abused by the Executive, but because both for this reason and on account of those powers being fundamentally opposed to one of the elementary and deeply cherished rights of the people, political India had almost with one voice demanded its repeal. Yet such was the measure which this utterly unrepresentative chamber, consisting for the most part, as a member of the Assembly aptly said, of fossils, rejected by the astounding majority of 26 against 6. In vain did the mover and his supporters, particularly Sir Devaprasad Sarvadhicari and GA Natesan, bring forward unanswerable arguments in support of the Bill. In vain did Sir Sarvadhicari ask the House to realise the great responsibility it would be assuming by rejecting the motion for the consideration of the Bill.