Government and Lee Commission’s report

IF the Government of India had either logic or the gift of humour among its many accomplishments, it is difficult to see how it could talk grandiloquently of the necessity of immediately “considering the Lee Commission’s report”. It has been stated again and again, and the statement has never yet been refuted, that the Commission was not appointed by the government but was virtually appointed over its head. But whether this was so or not, it is at least undeniable that things have happened since the appointment of this Commission which have made any report it could possibly submit, and certainly the report it has actually submitted, literally obsolete. The country, through the mouth of its accredited representatives in the Legislature, has asked for an inquiry into the whole question of the Reforms through a Round Table Conference with a view to the early establishment of responsible government. The Government of India, while rejecting the idea of an immediate overhauling of the reformed Constitution, has appointed a Committee to inquire into the working of the Reforms, while the Secretary of State has declared that after this inquiry has been held, “we will go on”. In the face of these facts, to insist on the necessity of giving effect to the inadequate, halting and unsatisfactory recommendations of the Lee Commission is to betray at once a lack of the logical understanding and a complete want of all sense of humour. What is the value of the Secretary of State’s assurance and the Government of India’s own action if for the next 15 years, the question of Indianisation is to be regarded as closed?

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