Triumph of reaction

IF those “well-informed correspondents”, who combine business with philanthropy by prophesying evil things for India in the Anglo-Indian Press in this country and the die-hard Press in England, are to be believed, the only tangible effect of the Birkenhead-Reading conversations will be to make reaction even more triumphant than it has been so far. One of them thus sums up the policy of the future: “Firstly, there can be no revision of the Reforms before 1929. Secondly, in accordance with the recommendation of the Majority Report of the Reforms Inquiry Committee, the machinery of the present Reforms scheme will be improved. Thirdly, the Government will welcome and give sympathetic consideration to any scheme of Swaraj which leaders of various parties in India may evolve before Parliament decides upon the future of the Reforms in 1929. Fourthly, the Viceroy and the Executive are assured of full support in any measures considered necessary at any time in pursuit of the determination to root out the revolutionary movement in Bengal and elsewhere. Fifthly, the British element in the Civil Services will not be further weakened. Improved conditions of the service recommended by the Commission will be granted practically in full at the earliest possible date. Sixthly, it is recognised that the Indianisation process has reached a stage beyond which it cannot safely go for some time to come.” The policy outlined here is exactly the policy which the Anglo-Indian and the die-hard Press has again and again recommended for adoption to British statesmanship and against which the whole of political India has protested.

Advertisement