Revision of the Constitution

IN our leading article yesterday, we drew particular attention to that part of Lord Birkenhead’s speech in the House of Lords which appeared and still appears to us to be its essence and foundation, the part in which he declared that India was not and never had been a nation, any more than Europe was a nation. Today, we will examine the part in which he dealt with the allied questions of the date of revision of the Constitution, the conditions of acceleration, and the framing of a Constitution for the future. In all these cases, the phraseology was carefully chosen, as was, indeed, to be expected from one who has been making a lot of money by journalism, but the choice was directed not to the statesmanlike purpose of pacifying a discontented people thirsting for self-fulfilment, but to the radically different purpose of cleverly evading the whole issue, of making a parade of liberal and generous sentiments, without doing or meaning to do anything. Take the question of the date. Could any declaration seem bolder or sounder than the following: “Wise men are not the slaves of dates; rather are dates the servants of sagacious men”? Or the following: “It would have been an assumption of omniscience alien to the Anglo-Saxon tradition for Parliament to assume so high a degree of prescience as to declare that in no circumstances should be the date of the Commission be accelerated. In fact, the door was never closed. It is, on the contrary, open today.” “How generous,” the unwary or superficial reader will say. “What more can India want?” And yet only a moment’s reflection shows that this gives absolutely nothing to India.

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