Motilal Nehru’s indictment

IT was a remarkable speech which Pandit Motilal Nehru made while seeking the omission of the whole demand for the Executive Council at Saturday’s meeting of the Assembly. The motion itself was, as Nehru pointed out, not an actual refusal of supply, which the House had no power under the law to make, but a vote of censure upon the Government’s policy. By carrying this motion, the House did everything in its power to proclaim to the world that the present executive Government does not enjoy its confidence and the confidence of the country. It was inevitable that the Muddiman Committee’s reports should figure largely in the speech, the President having ruled that the House would have an opportunity of discussing the reports in connection with this motion. With the indictment which Nehru made against the majority report, we are in complete agreement. As regards the minority report, however, he did not substantiate his statement that while there was much in it with which he agreed there was much more in it with which he did not agree. Perhaps a closer examination would have shown that the exact reverse of this was the case. As a matter of fact, he appears to have drawn attention to only one point of disagreement with the minority. We refer, of course, to the question of the disqualification of candidates for the Legislature, in regard to which the minority had strangely recorded their agreement with the majority, and as regards which we have ourselves condemned the minority’s action.