Lord Reading’s mistake

THE Viceroy is entirely mistaken in his assumption that the difficulties and complexities of the problem of Indian self-government are not adequately realised by Indian public men. Most of them realise them as fully as any official. What they do demand is that the British Government and its agents should neither add to these difficulties and complexities, as they have so often done in the past, nor make their existence a pretext for following a policy of virtual inaction, but should make a genuine effort to solve the riddle and press forward to the goal. If His Excellency sincerely desires India’s cooperation as we believe he does, he can have it the moment he and his government convince India of the genuineness of their efforts in this direction. It is just because they have not so far been able to produce this conviction that the atmosphere is still charged with that mistrust and suspicion which the Viceroy rightly regretted and of which he rightly said that no good could possibly come out of it. Such unwillingness to cooperate with the government, such desire to not cooperate with the government, whether from without or within the Council, is also to be traced to this fountain source of all evil in India. The moment this obstacle is removed from the path, Indian politicians will not only readily avail themselves of all the help which Great Britain, with her long experience of parliamentary responsible government, is capable of giving is ready to give them; but will see, even more clearly than they do now, that before India can be a self-governing nation in the modern sense of that expression, she must solve the problem presented by the diversity of races and religions.