Indianisation agenda

IT is impossible not to contrast the tone and temper of the official speeches during this year’s budget discussion in the Legislative Assembly with those made on the same occasion about this time last year. The reason for the difference is perfectly obvious. Last year, in spite of formal assurances of support on the part of the Labour Government, officials in India were not absolutely sure as to what the ultimate attitude of that government would be and how far it would be prepared to go in resisting the will and the considered judgment of the people of India. With the Conservatives firmly seated in power, there is no longer that uncertainty regarding the attitude of His Majesty’s government. Between the general attitude of that party in regard to Indian affairs and the official attitude in India, there never has been and never can be any substantial difference, for the simple reason that both want the same thing, the perpetuation or indefinite prolongation of the bureaucratic form of rule in India. A glaring illustration of the change in the official angle of vision was afforded by the Home Member the other day when during the discussion on a resolution in the Council of State, with which the European members of the Services had nothing to do, he went entirely out of his way to give an assurance to those members, which they could scarcely be said to need, that the Indianisation of the Civil Service and other All-India Services would not be by the door of supersession. An even more conspicuous illustration of the same truth was afforded in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday by a similar declaration in regard to the Army by the Commander-in-Chief.