The Assembly’s answer

THE expected has happened. The Assembly has given the only possible, the only right answer to Lord Birkenhead’s insulting and insolent challenge. It has not only rejected the official proposal for carrying out the recommendations of the Muddiman majority, which political India has condemned with one voice, but has recorded a virtually unanimous Indian and non-official vote in favour of Pandit Motilal Nehru’s alternative proposal. It is not merely a case of the Swarajists and the Independents being in complete agreement. Even the few real Liberals in the House, such as Sir Sivaswami Iyer, voted in favour of the joint amendment. An analysis of the votes cast in favour of or against the amendment shows that of the 45 members who voted against the amendment, only 16 were Indians, and most of them were either officials, or men who could under no circumstances be expected to go against an official proposal in a matter of this kind. The 72 members who voted for the amendment, on the other hand, were all Indians, and included everybody who is anybody on the Indian non-official benches. Equally, if not even more, significant is the fact that all the Indian communities were fully represented on the majority. Of the 22 Muslim members, for instance, who appear to have participated in the division, only four voted on the official side. Nor finally is the fact to be overlooked that it was no silent vote which the more important and more influential of the Indian members gave on the occasion. We do not remember a single previous case in which a debate in the House reached so high a level of intelligence or was carried on both sides with so much earnestness and animation.