The Alwar firing

THE report of the Commission appointed by the Maharaja of Alwar to enquire into the circumstances leading to and attending the Nimuchana firing and the Maharaja’s own speech at a public durbar held in the city on Thursday, in which the Commission’s report was reviewed, gives us a fairly clear idea both of what the Maharaja had done and of what he has left undone in this vitally important matter. Briefly, he has not permitted an open, public or independent enquiry into the regrettable affair, and has had the matter enquired into by a Commission appointed by himself, and of which he would not himself claim that its verdict in a matter of this kind can carry anything like the weight that the verdict of an independent Commission could or would have done. Alter reading both the summary of the report, published in these columns yesterday, and the fuller statement made by the Maharaja himself, the impression is inevitably left on the mind of every impartial or disinterested critic that it is a case of a man being the judge in his own affairs. The procedure is not unlike that too often adopted by the British Government, but there are two substantial differences. There is in British India a Press which in spite of the limitations imposed on its freedom, is an undoubted safeguard against officials having entirely their own way in a matter of this kind; and ordinarily, at any rate, there would be nothing to prevent the supplementing of an official by an independent enquiry. We say “ordinarily” because in some cases, such as that of Kohat, for instance, even the British Government has placed unnecessary obstacles in the way of such an enquiry being held.