‘Misleading’ statement

IT is scarcely three weeks since Sir Fazl-i-Hussain relinquished his place in the Punjab Government to take up a more lucrative office in the Government of India; and already he has discovered that Simla is not the bed of roses that Lahore or Chhota Simla was. In the latter case, the solid Mussalman bloc in the Council, aided by their unnatural allies, the official members, might be depended upon to support him through thick and thin. His speeches might contain little or nothing of any substance, but the man who dared to answer him on the floor of the House knew that he had to run his head against a solid iron wall. How different is the case at Simla! He has scarcely opened his lips as a member of the Government when the two most influential members of the more important of the two Houses publicly charge him with making a “misleading” statement. “Misleading,” indeed, is scarcely the word. What the two members, the leaders of the two largest groups of members in the House, have charged him with is nothing less than an utterly incorrect statement, while another leading member of the Assembly who has been just put on a Royal Commission has considered himself justified in charging him with “a gross misrepresentation” of the opinion of the two members. We are not aware that a charge of this particular kind has in any previous case, at any rate in recent years, been brought by men holding the position that Pandit Motilal Nehru, MA Jinnah and Sir Purushotamdas Thakurdas do both in the Assembly and in our public life, against any member of the Government, whether European or Indian.