INDIA (ATTACHMENT OF STATES) BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 22 February 1944)

LORD STRABOLGI
Before the noble Earl replies, I should like to support the Amendment moved by the noble Viscount, and I am reinforced by the suspicion which some of us felt on the Second Reading that this whole matter was being rushed with inadequate explanation through your Lordships' House. Until I protested and the Lord Chancellor was good enough to say a few words there was no reply to the weighty objections put forward by noble Lords. The noble Viscount has drawn attention to a piece of retrospective legislation, thus bringing matters to a head.
Many noble Lords have no doubt had the same experience as myself, of receiving a number of lengthy cables from India protesting against this Bill, contesting the arguments put forward in its favour, and making certain grave statements which I think must have impressed your Lordships. I have received a number of these cables and have sent them on to the noble Earl, except for the last one which arrived this morning and which I should like to read. I would particularly draw attention to the fact that the argument used by the noble Earl, and I believe repeated by the noble and learned Lord Chancellor, that there were geographical difficulties in the way of attaching these States for administrative purposes to British India, is controverted in this cable.
The cable is apparently a copy of one sent to His Majesty, but it is addressed to me, and my noble friend Lord Faringdon has received a copy, as no doubt have other noble Lords. It is dated February 13, and is as follows: Intensely perturbed at Second Reading in House of Lords of India (Attachment of States) Bill, 1944. to legalize scheme of attachment. Even text of Bill vitally affecting lives 884 of 800,000 inhabitants and 200 States not cabled to India and not available here. I think that that should be explained. If it is true that this Bill has not been cabled to India and that these people do not know its terms, I think that that is a good reason for postponing any further progress with it until there has been time for this matter at any rate to be before the people concerned. The cable continues: This question is more than hundred years old. Parliament should not rush through legislation to legalize the scheme put into force without our consent and without consulting our subjects in particular when we have no effective means to represent our case and to communicate our subjects' wishes owing to war conditions. Your Lordships who were here during the Second Reading will remember that that was a point made with great force by my noble friend Lord Faringdon. No attempt has been made, apparently, to consult the 800,000 subjects of these States.
The cable then goes on: Proposed legislation not competent under Paramountcy and Foreign Jurisdiction Act. Bill postulates that our States are part of Your Majesty's dominions which they are not. That, of course, is accepted. Bill negatives long accepted legal position of States and is a reversal of Parliamentary policy towards States. Scheme is against solemn engagements, pledges and promises made from time to time and is in violation of our rights, privileges and integrity, which are guaranteed. Our status is recognized and given effect in Government of India Act, 1936. Scheme is in effect annexation of our States to larger States in time of peace and transference of our direct allegiance to Your Majesty to other rulers, and is contrary to principles embodied in Government of India Act, 1935. I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to the next sentence: It is not true as stated by Undersecretary of State for India that our States are not included in First Schedule to Government of India Act, 1935. In fact our States grouped together are given definite representation in both House of Legislature in First Schedule. We are prepared to accept immediately any scheme short of attachment evolved by Committee representing all concerned including our subjects to secure to our subjects benefits of modern administration. Scheme does not secure any benefits. On the contrary our subjects are deprived of benefits of justice by British Courts based on rule of law by transferring them to attaching States whose judicial administration is not based on rule of law. Scheme is a retrograde 885 step not accepted and entirely opposed by our subjects and is not likely to achieve the desired objects. Now I come to the argument of the noble Earl that there are geographical difficulties in the way of attaching these smaller territories to British Provinces: Under-Secretary of State for India stated that to attach these petty States to a British Province is utterly impracticable from geographical point of view alone. This statement is unwarranted. All attached States in Gujarat and some States cm the outskirts of Kathiawar are entirely contiguous with British India. Some attaching States have no contiguity or geographical connexion with attached States. Request Your Majesty only to ascertain from map the location of States to assess the official objection. That is a very grave statement to make in a cable, completely controverting the arguments put forward by the noble Earl. I think, before we proceed any further, we might have a map put in the Library showing the proposed transferences of territory. The noble Earl said that it was impossible geographically to follow my noble friend Lord Faringdon's suggestion and attach these territories to British Provinces because they were too far away; there were no communications, and so on; but here we have the exact contrary stated by the people who know where the shoe pinches because they are living in these States and I dare say that their knowledge of the local geography is greater even than that of the noble Earl.
I now come to another important matter. The cable continues: Some Hindu States are attached to Mahomedan States. Our States and our subjects are transferred to other States as if they were mere things. This is entirely opposed to principle of self-determination and is against the accepted and practised principles of British rule and justice. Governments of all attaching States are not efficient and no benefit will result to us or to our subjects by attachment. Your Majesty may be pleased to drop the scheme and allow us an opportunity to evolve a scheme in consultation with His Excellency the Crown Representative to secure the desired objects for welfare of our people. Kindly direct that Bill may not be proceeded with ex parte without hearing us and our subjects. That was the point made by Lord Faring-don on the Second Reading. The cable is signed by Fatehsinhji Dabhi, President, Western India States Agency Jurisdic-tional and Non-jurisdictional Chiefs and Taluqdars Committee, and Thakor Shri of Ghodasar State. Those are the signatories of that cable, which comes to me "Via Imperial," and which in due course I 886 shall forward, as I did the other cables, to the India Office.
I want to say this in addition, If there is anything in that cable, the attempt to rush this Bill through this House, where it originated, and to send it to another place as being passed unanimously here with only a little argument is really an abuse of Parliamentary procedure. There is too much of that in these days. We meet only two or three times a week and our times of sitting have been cut down, and that is used as an excuse for what I can only describe as an attempt to rush legislation. Unless there are protests, the whole tendency is to hurry legislation through this House without any proper explanation from the Government, although I agree that when we do protest we are met always with courtesy and sometimes with information. This is an example of rushed legislation, and if there is any truth in what Lord Faringdon was advised to say and what is in this cable, there has been no opportunity for the people concerned—numbering, apparently, 800,000—to be consulted or even to see the text of this Bill. This Bill has not even appeared in India. That is an absurd situation. If those are the facts, and if we are asked to pass a Bill which has not even been made known to 800,000 of our fellow subjects for whom we are responsible, I think it is an abuse of the procedure of Parliament.
I should like to make one remark about the Indian States. I have lived in large States and in small States. Some of them are excellently governed and administered and indeed far in advance of the similar administration in British India. That is true of several of the larger States. In all the States in which I had the privilege of living, however, large and small, I was always impressed by the fact that the ordinary country people in the villages, as compared with those in similar districts in British India, in some cases only a few miles away, seemed to be better dressed and happier. The women seemed to have more jewellery and generally they seemed to live lives of greater contentment than people in British India. I have heard a great deal of abuse of the badly governed States and I dare say it was well founded. We know that the Government have power to take action where States are maladministered and use that power freely. The impression forced itself upon me in India, 887 however, that the position was as I have stated, and I put that forward to, the Committee as a reason for pausing before uprooting and disintegrating what may be ancient and paternal and perhaps in modern parlance not very progressive administrations, which nevertheless seem to suit the people. Do not let us disrupt the whole system in the face of protests such as those which have reached us and without at any rate letting the people who arc intimately concerned know what is going on.

§ THE EARL OF MUNSTER
There are two questions that arise on the Amendment which the noble Viscount has moved and in connexion with the speech which the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has made—a speech which, if I may say so, sounded to me more like a speech on Second Reading. I told the House on Second Reading that a revision application had been made to the Court of the Judicial Commissioner last year, alleging that the order of attachment was illegal and went beyond certain powers which had been conferred by Parliament on the Crown Representative. I further told your Lordships that the Court delivered judgment in favour of the appeal for reasons which I stated at that time. From that moment onwards there were two courses open to His Majesty's Government—either to appeal to the Privy Council or else to seek Parliamentary approval of new legislation. The period of time which would inevitably have elapsed before an appeal to the Privy Council could have come up for hearing normally ruled out that method, but it will be appreciated—and I ask the noble Viscount to note this—that if in fact it had been practicable for an appeal to be made to the Privy Council, and if that appeal had been allowed, the effect would automatically have been retrospective.
As it was, however, immediate action was obviously necessary, for reasons that were fully stated on Second Reading, and legislation would have to be introduced. If this legislation meets with the approval of Parliament I, quite frankly, can see no sound reason why it should not also be retrospective in character as well. The noble Viscount will realize that both before and after the doubt which had been cast upon the powers of the Crown Representative by the judgment in question, 888 many acts will have been done both in the Courts and out of the Courts, and many contradictory and inconsistent orders will have been made, all this in good faith, in some cases on the validity and in other cases on the invalidity of the attachment. It thus follows that there are bound to be many anomalies waiting to be cleared up, and the only result of leaving the situation as it is without having retrospective legislation, would be additional litigation and a great deal more friction. It was for this reason, and this reason only, that it was felt necessary to insert subsection (2) of Clause I in the Bill which, as the noble Viscount will observe, confers power on the Crown Representative to render valid or lawful acts done before the passing of the Bill, which will in fact enable him to ensure that the retrospective effect of the measure docs not work unfairly or harshly. That is really all that this subsection is designed to do—to enable the Viceroy to clear up outstanding difficulties.
I turn to the second point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, who comes down to the House with a telegram received at a late hour this afternoon and endeavours to try to prove that on the Second Reading of this Bill I deliberately misled your Lordships. When I come to the House to move a Second Reading of a Bill, what I state is the truth, and I am not prepared that the noble Lord on the Committee stage of a Bill should dispute what I have said or cast doubts on the accuracy of the statements I have made. Honestly I do not think that on this occasion the remarks of the noble Lord are really worth replying to. If the noble Lord had read the Bill he would have seen that these small States are not mentioned in Divisions I to XVI of the Table of States in Part II of the First Schedule of the Government of India Act, which apparently he has not looked at. If he had taken the trouble to inquire he would have found that this Bill is fully known throughout India and that the Indian Press, for a long time, has contained the whole story and a description of what has taken place since the attachment scheme was first mentioned. I cannot believe that the noble Lord himself thinks that because this measure is going to be passed 800,000 people in India will be cast aside without any thought for their wishes. The Bill is designed to improve the lot of 889 these very people. That seems to me a truly democratic way of going about it, although it was not considered appropriate by the noble Lord. It is in this way that His Majesty's Government are showing their interest and attention in this matter.

LORD STRABOLGI
I did not accuse the noble Earl of deliberately misleading your Lordships—certainly not. I said he had been ill-advised or wrongly advised. That is what I intended, at any rate. The noble Earl is incapable of misleading your Lordships as a deliberate act. It is not in him to do so. But his information is wrong if that telegram is right. That is what I wanted him to answer and that is what he has not answered. This Bill appears in a worse light than ever. This is an Act of Indemnity for certain illegal actions by officers or officials in India. Instead of going to the Privy Council to have a judgment against them reversed the Government think it is cheaper and quicker to pass this Bill through the House of Lords. That is what we are asked to do this afternoon—to pass an Act of Indemnity so that the Government need not use the ordinary legal processes. It is to cover up the wrong deeds of certain functionaries of the noble Earl and his associates. This is an Act of Indemnity against illegalities committed in India, and that is why the Bill is being made retrospective. The noble Earl talks about the urgency of providing roads and health services and the like for these ancient States. I wish we would pay more attention to what is going on in Bengal where millions of our fellow subjects have been starving. That is a matter of urgency where the Government have failed. It is not for the noble Earl to affect indignation here in connexion with these little States. There is no starvation there, and people there are not dying in the streets. Look after your own bailiewick. The Government are responsible for Bengal and to us in Parliament for the atrocious conditions which are disgracing the British name throughout the world.

LORD STRABOLGI
Pay attention to that. Pay attention to your own incompetence.

LORD STRABOLGI
There is nothing disorderly in what I have said. I said the conditions in Bengal disgrace our name, and that is true. No one regrets it more than I do, and I wish the noble Earl would pay more attention to these things. In the meantime I hope the noble Viscount will insist on his Amendment.

§ VISCOUNT SAMUEL
My comparatively small Amendment has given rise to a speech which is not strictly concerned with subsection (2) of Clause 1 of the India (Attachment of States) Bill. My Amendment was moved only in order to give the noble Earl an opportunity for stating why this retrospective provision should be put into this Bill. He has given these reasons, and I beg leave to withdraw.