Commonwealth of India Bill and the AICC

WE are sorry to learn that a resolution supporting Annie Besant’s Commonwealth of India Bill was lost at the last meeting of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) for want of a seconder. This treatment of a measure the principles of which have undoubtedly the bulk of political opinion in India behind them and which the leader of His Majesty’s principal opposition in England has declared to be “an admirable basis of discussion” is as surprising as it is ill-advised. It is all the more extraordinary because the principles of the Bill are practically identical with those of the joint demand which the Assembly under the leadership of the Swarajists has within the last fortnight presented to the British Government. What prevented the AICC from according its formal support to such a measure? Is it the question of sanction? What sanction has the Assembly’s own demand behind it which can be said to be lacking in the case of the Commonwealth of India Bill? Are the Swarajists, the Independents and the Liberals, who have made common cause in presenting the joint demand, of the same mind on this question of sanction, the question of the steps by which the will of the people is to be enforced in the event of the Government’s refusal? Have the Swarajists themselves come to a definite decision on the subject? If not and if in spite of all this, they had no objection to the presentation of a joint demand on behalf of the people of India, why on earth could they not do the same thing in the case of this Bill?