Who wrecked the Bengal council?

Lahore, Saturday, August 30, 1924

THE communique issued by the Government of Bengal on August 27, announcing the suspension of reforms in that province for the time being, raises several issues of vital importance to the country. The proceedings of the Bengal Council that led to the final defeat of the Government and its admitted inability to work the reformed Constitution, as interpreted and worked by itself, may appear to distant onlookers like a pitched battle between the representative of autocracy and the spokesmen of the people. The people having consistently declined to ‘vote money’ demanded by the Government, the Governor has sought to punish them for this disobedience by suspending the privileges conferred on them by the Constitution. It is true that most of these privileges were not at all valued as such because their values had been much depreciated in the actual working as the result of the Bengal bureaucracy having declined to bend to the popular will and the latter being thus obliged to decline to vote supplies for objects which they consider to be of no benefit to the country. To the ordinary observer, it would seem that the enjoyment of certain constitutional privileges, even in a most depreciated form, depends on voting demands without question. “The action of the Legislative Council,” says the Bengal Government’s communique, “has had the effect of suspending the working of the reforms in Bengal for the time being.” But it may be asked why the Reforms Scheme should fail if the ministers’ salaries are refused.