Chapter 3

Government of India Act of 1935 and Provincial Politics

1. Government of India Act, 1935

The Government oflndia Act, 1935 was passed in the British Parliament in August

1935 after years of controversy since the appointment of Simon Commission in 1927.

The upsurge of nationalist movement during these years convinced, those in the Home

and Indian governments who had been reluctant to give any concessions to the Indians

that such a constitution was necessary. While the colonial government in India

successfully suppressed the Civil Disobedience with ruthless use of violence, they were

at the same time aware that such a violent method would be ineffective if they faced

more powerful movement. The constitutional reform was not so much the fulfilment of

the demands of nationalist movement as the necessity of the colonial rule. The Act was

expected to divide and weaken the nationalist movement into pro- and anti-

constitutional sections. There was much prospect of success for this, with the loss of

confidence of many nationalists in the agitational methods, after the failure of the Civil

Disobedience. It was, the government thought, also useful to cause antagonism between

the Right and Left wings of the Congress party, because it was likely that the Right .

wing would accept the constitutional path due to the pressure from various groups

longing for a share of power that the Act would offer. In addition, the purpose of the

Act was to mobilise a support from broader social strata and extend the social base of

their rule. The colonial rule of India depended for its existence on its elaborate system

of collaboration. Facing the strong natinnalist movement, they had to reinforce the

system. Therefore, the Act was designed to create collaborators to the colonial rule in

almost every section.

The Act had features that were introduced for the first time in the Indian

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constitution. First, the Act made India a federation compnsmg of British Indian

provinces and Princely States. The Act provided for two legislatures at the Centre: the

Council of States and the Federal Assembly. The members nominated by the princes

assumed a great part, 104 out of 276 members (37.7 per cent) in the Council of States

and 125 out of 375 (33.3 per cent) in the Federal Assembly. This clearly shows the

intention of the British Government to assign a greater share of power to the Princeiy

States, which they regarded as their biggest collaborators and to check the nationalist

movement. The Federal part of the Act included an uncertainty because these provisions

would come into effect only after 50 per cent of the princes formally consented, and in

fact, that part was not realised finally.

Second, the Act ·provided for the introduction of the ruling system based on

f)mvincial aut{o)nomy, ·under which an elected ministry was expected to perform all of

... ,the,.pr.ovjnciaL.administr.ation ... For.,the firstJime in coloniaL India, there would be .the

Indian _governments responsible to the elected legislatures. On the other hand, this

concession of provincial autonomy was essentially the same· kind that the British

Government had made so far in the face of strong upsurge of the nationalist movement.

Not only had they made concessions only in a limited field, but also kept the ultimate

power to nullity the concession itself At the centre, Indians had no control over the

subjects still reserved for the British: diplomacy and defence. In addition, the Governor­

General, Ytho was not responsible to the legislatures, was supposed to have "special

responsibility" in subjects like the maintenance of law and order, financial safeguard of

the British interests, the interests of minorities, the Public Service, the right of Indiar1

States, prevention of commercial discrimination, and any matter which affected the

administration of the Reserved Department. On these subjects, the Governor-General

could overrule the decision of the ministers whenever he felt necessary. In the

provinces, the Governors, appointed by the British Government and assuming no

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responsibilities to the legislatures, held the same special privileges in provincial

matters. 1 Furthermore, they had· the "discretionary powers" of summoning the

legislatures, giving assent to Bills, administrating certain special regions, on which the

ministers were not entitled to give advice. Moreover, under Section 93 of the Act, they

could take over and indefinitely run the administration of the province whenever they

liked.

Third, as per the Act, elections for provincial legislatures were held on an extended

franchise. The number of voters rose from 7,049,372, 2.8 per cent of the total

population in the previous Act, to 36,002,000, 14.1 per cene Despite a strong demand

from the nationalists, it was far from adult franchise. "Having regard to the prodigious

task of educating a mainly illiterate electorate, the fact that party organisation is still in

its infancy, and the burden both for the official machinery and for the candidates of

dealing with 130 million voters", argued the Indian Franchise Committee, "it seems to

us to be the course of wisdom and statesmanship not to attempt to launch the new

constitution on the basis of adult franchise, but seek a more manageable basis. "3 Besides

these official reasons, the colonial government calculatedly decided to grant favour to

the supposed collaborators selectively and to exclude the mass, who they thought would

be a source of strength to the Congress. Of course, it was a miscalculation, as the results

of the election showed.4 It meant that the contenders for power had to launch election

campaigns for a wider strata of people to win elections. Persons and parties contending

for the election were forced to take more or less populistic position in the election and if

they won, the work of th~ir government would be measured according to what they had

promised during the election campaign.

1 Government of India, Proposals for Indian Constitutional Reform, New Delhi, 1933, pp.9-12, 18. 2 The Report of Indian Franchise Committee, 1932, p.40. 3 The Report of Indian Franchise Committee, 1932, p.20. 4 For this argument, see Chandavarkar, 1998, p.322.

1 18

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We must draw attention to the effects the constitutional reform gave to the labour

policy of the government and the position of working classes in constitutional politics.

One significant effect of the reform was that the labour administration and legislation

was given significance in the provinces. In the Government of India Act, 1919 subjects

concerning labour were divided between the centre and provinces. While labour in

mines, railways and chief ports, inter-provincial migration of labour were the central

subjects, labour in factories, settlement of labour disputes, welfare of labour were

provincial subjects. Labour subjects in the province were "reserved"; it meant that they

were administered by Members of the Government, not by ministers responsible for the

legislature. Labour legislation in general was the function of the Central legislature, and

provincial legislature and local legislatures could legislate only on the subject classified

as provincial.5 In the Government oflndia Act, 1935, the allotment of power concerning

labour administration and legislation between the centre and province did not change

much from the previous Act. But with the introduction of provincial autonomy, the

responsibility of the administration of the provincial labour subjects was completely in

the hands of provincial government responsible for the legislature and labour legislation

was made by that legislature. This was in contrast to the provincial governments in the

1919 Act which the provincial governments were more or less agents of the central

government for carrying out their policies, though they were consulted by them. One

consequence of this shift of the labour policy in the Government oflndia Act, 1935 was

that the labour policy of provincial governments came to be directly affected by the

local political and economic situations. This resulted in the growing difference of labour

policy between provinces. For the provincial governments, it meant that the labour

policy might increase or decrease its popularity according to the interaction between the

local situation and their performance.

5 For the summary of the labour administration and legislation in the Government of India Act, 1919, see RCLI, p.456. ·

119

The effect of the Government of India Act, 1935 on the position of working classes

was not so simple because of the peculiarity of the representation of working classes in

the Act. In the constitutional reform of 1919, labour was represented in the central and

provincial legislatures for the first time. Labour representatives were given increased

number of seats in the legislatures in the Government oflndia Act, 1935. The number of

labour seats was raised from the previous one to eight in the Central Assembly, and

from three to eight and from two to eight in Bombay and Bengal respectively. The

number of commercial and industrial seats, that is capital representatives, was not

increased (Table 3-1 ).

However, it must be noted that this increase in labour seats in the legislatures did

not reflect, at least directly, the growing strength of labour movement during that

· period. The labour seats in the legislature in colonial India were not won by working

classes themselves through the assertion of their strength but granted by the colonial

authority due to the special "interest". 6 Labour as a special interest was partly due .,to .. the

fact that the general qualification described in the Government of India Act, 1935

deprived most of the workers from the right to vote. 7 But the promotion of special

interests in the legislature by the British had the meaning of the proof of legitimacy of

their rule in India. The composition of the legislatures and the choice of special interests

were a reflection of the order of the Indian society as the British saw it: India consisted

of a number of communities that had their own "interests". The British could rule India

by being disinterested from all of these interests. Priority should be given to

representing as many interests as possible and the number of seats allotted to each

interest - they were partisan after all - need not reflect the real strength of the interest.

6 For the evolution of the idea of "interest" in legislative institutions in the British India, see Bhattacharya, 1987. 7 For example, the qualification adopted for Bombay City was the payment of annual rental of Rs. 60 and above and the average rent in Bombay City was five- and-a-half rupees per month, thus most of the workers were out of vote. See, Report of Indian Franchise Committee, 1932, p.124.

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Table 3-1 Distribution of Seats for Commerce and Industry, and Labour in Le . 1 ~g1s atures

Centre Bombay Ben_g_al ·Government of India Act, 1919* 10 8 15 Commerce and Industry 1 3 2 Labour Government of India Act, 1935** Commerce and 8 8 15 Industry Labour 8 8 8 Source: Report of the Indian Franchise Committee, Calcutta, 1932 . *Position in 1832] ** Recommendation of the Indian Franchise Committee

Indeed, in the process of the preparation of the Government of India Act, 1935 the

function of special interests was thought to be consultatory. 8 The willingness of the

government to give the same number of seats to capital and labour in the Government of

India Act, 1935 only meant their intention to show its neutrality between them or the

pursuit of accuracy in representing all the interests.

Nonetheless, the position of working classes in constitutional politics was raised. A

principle was established in the Government of India Act, 1935 that labour should be

represented to the same extent as capital. But it wa<; more due to the overall effect of the

Government of India Act, 1935 especially of extended franchise on Indian politics.

Although the extended franchise of the Government of India Act, 1935 excluded most

of the poor peasants and agricultural workers in the villages and industrial workers in

the cities from the right to vote, the Act itself was thoughtto be a ·beginning of popular

-· politics-and created an populistic political atmosphere; perhaps,-more than the pr-ovisior.

.of.the.Gov.ernment oflndia Act, 1935 actually allowed .. Of course, politicians mightnot

think so. But they could not resist this atmosphere because, as we can see in the

discussion of the Indian Franchise Committee, the extended but still limited franchise of

the Government of India Act, 1935 was a temporary measure as a step to universal adult

franchise. The Congress particularly could not go against this, because they had

strongly demanded adult franchise. We can see a result of this atmosphere in Nehru's

Election Manifesto and the election campaign of the Congress, which were made for

indiscriminate conception of "the mass", whether or not they had the vote or not

Industrial workers, too, expected the elected government to behave like a popular

government, as we see in the cotton textile workers just after the inauguration of the

8 "We are impressed by the criticism that such special interests should not form a block of such a size or such a character as seriously to affect the balance of parties formed by representatives ... of the general mass of population. Our object is essentially to make expert knowledge available in the legislatures and not to give any particular voting strength to individual interests." Report of Indian Franchise Committee, 1932, para 321, quoted in S. Bhattacharya, 1987, pp.267-268.

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Bombay Congress Government.

2. Bombay Congress Government

(1) Election and Office Acceptance

In spite of their official opposition to the Government of India Act, 1935 the

Congress had made a decision to contest in the provincial elections under that Act.

Nothing expressed this position of the Congress towards the Act and the election more

clearly than the Presidential speech delivered by Nehru at the Congress Sessions in

Lucknow in April 1936 and in Faizpur in December 1936. He said, "The Congress

rejected that proposed constitution, and resolved to have nothing to do with it" and their

attitude to the Act "can only be one of uncompromising hostility and a constant

endeavour to end it." But he also stated the intention to contest in the election:

I think that, under the circumstances, we have no choice but to contest the

elections to the new provincial legislatures in the event of their taking place ....

One of the principal reasons for our seeking election will be to carry the

message of the Congress to the millions of voters and to the scores of millions of

the disfranchised, to acquaint them with our (uture programme and policy .... 9

This position towards the electioa had different meanings for the different sections

of Congress. Their official reason for participating in the election was, as can be seen

from Nehru's speech, that through the election campaign it was possible to extend the

party's strength by getting in touch with the masses and thereby spreading the Congress

ideal among them. For the Congress Left wing, it was the only reason that they could

accept the idea of participating in the elections. And they actually carried out this policy

in the election campaign. But many people perceived the participation in the election in 9 Selected Works of ]awaharlal Nehru, vol.7, pp.182-183, 184.

122

a different way. The Right wing of the Congress regarded it as a first step towards

Congress governments in future though the situation on this problem was still quite

fluid at this point.

To understand this position of the Congress more clearly, we have to inquire into the

Congress politics throughout 1930s. It is well known that there was much controversy

between the Right and Left wings of the Congress over the strategy of Congress in

1930s. Apparently the current was moving towards the policy of the Left, helped by the

world events: the capitalist order in Europe was going through crisis due to the great

Depression; the confrontation among capitalist powers; the growth of Fascism. On the

other hand, the Soviet Union was steadily growing economically and politically, as

Nehru described in the same presidential speech cited above, "the socialist order of the

U.S.S.R. which went from progress to progress, ... and where the problems of the

capitalist world had ceased to exist". 10 In India, too, due to the economic distress among

the masses because of the Depression, communist -and socialist movements made their

way, despite the harsh suppression by the colonial authority. In the Independence

movement, it had become more and more important that each leader had to support a

popular cause in some way or another. As we have already stated, the introduction of

extended franchise in the new constitution helped Indian politics to assume a more

popular character, however it was only a partial extension and the other part of the

cortstitution was unacceptable to most of the nationalist leaders.

Many politicians got influenced by this trend. Some leaders put themselves closer to

the socialist cause. It is well known that in this period Nehru was the most radical

intellectually in his life. His open advocacy of radical social reform often went in direct

confrontation with the conservative leaders of the Congress. Further, the growing

influence of socialism led to the formation of the Congress Socialist Party in May 1934

under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Minoo 10 Selected Works of ]awaharlal Nehru, vol.7, p.173.

123

Masani. The Party stayed within the Congress, but it strongly opposed Gandhian party

leadership and sought the cooperation of the left groups outside the party, like Kisan

Sabha and trade unions.

But at another level, the move to bring the Congress back to the constitutional

politics was growing. This idea started from the failure of the Civil Disobedience and

later gained momentum from the prospect of responsible provincial governments

introduced by the Government of India Act, 1935. After the suspension of the Civil

Disobedience in April1934, it was almost impossible to resume the Civil Disobedience-

type politics based on mass mobilisation. Not only impossible tactically, it must have

caused doubt on the strategical effectiveness among some Congress leaders.

Furthermore, it was unlikely that the Indian business group, who hesitantly joined the

Civil Disobedience but got nothing out of it, would support the same course again. It

was natural that the strategy of council entry, which was an alternative to the Non-

cooperation, and the constructive programme in 1920s attracted the attention of such

leaders.

In October 1933, Swarajya Party, which was the organisation for council-entry in

1920s, was revived by S. Satyamurti. The All India Congress Committee held its

session on 18 and 19 May 1934 in Patna where the suspension of the Civil

Disobedience was officially declared. They decided on the formation of Congress

Parliamentary Board with M. A. Ansari as the chairman, in "as much as there exists in

the Congress a vast body of members who believes in the necessity of entry into the

legislatures as a step in the country's progress towards its goal". The Board, according to

the Committee, "shall select only such candidates as will be pledged to carry out in the

legislatures the Congress policy" .11 This decision was later accepted at the Congress

Bombay Session in October the same year.

The question of council entry became one of the most controversial points between 11

JAR, 1934, vol.l, p.290.

124

the Left and Right wing leaders. These two currents within the Congress leaders,

however, had co-existed without a direct confrontation. One reason for the coexistence

was the essential character of the Congress as a political forum. Any person could

participate in the Party and contest each its leadership. Theoretically, no one could be

excluded from that space. In addition, the political situation in the 1930s helped to keep

the coexistence. After the withdrawal of the Civil Disobedience, there was no

significant event till the introduction of provincial autonomy, which urged the Congress

to articulate its clear policy on council entry. At the point when Nehru made the speech

cited above, it was possible for these two groups with different attitudes towards the

constitution to coexist within the Party, and their relations remaining undecided. But

this character was finally to be transformed through the provincial autonomy peri.od.

The Congress Election Manifec:;to, which was drafted by Nehru and adopted at the

All India Congress Committee on 22 August 1936, was full of nationalist demands and

social reform programmes. 12 First of all it first expressed strong opposition to the

Government of India Act, 19 3 5. For peasants, it promised " a reform of the system of

tenure and revenue and rent and an equitable adjustment of the burden on agricultural

land, giving immediate relief to the smaller peasantry by a substantial reduction of

agricultural rent and revenue now paid by them and exempting uneconomic holding

from payment of rent and the revenue ... ". For industrial workers, "a decent standard of

living" and other social welfare measures were promised. 13 The social reform

programme stated in the Manifesto was almost the reiteration of a resolution originally

adopted at the Congress Karachi Session in 1931 as the Resolution on Fundamental

Rights. 14 It was also drafted by Nehru and its contents were highly sympathetic to the

lower strata of the society. Congress, in the resolution, comprehensively expressed their

12 The Manifesto was reproduced in Selected Works of ]awaharlal Nehru, vol. 7, pp.459-464. 13 See Chapter 5. 14

The Resolution was reproduced in JAR, 1931, vol.I, pp.277-280.

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concern for social and economic problems which were distressing the masses, and

declared that they should be solved in order to attain Swaraj. The Election Manifesto

inherited most of its contents as well as its spirit.

However, the Manifesto, as well as the Karachi resolution, should be read against

the features of the politics of the Congress of the 1930s. The Karachi resolution was

adopted in the midst of mass struggle waged by Congress and the shift of Congress

policy towards the masses (though not popularisation of Congress Party itself). First, in

spite of the failure of the Civil Disobedience, the need for populistic policy (again, not

necessarily the popularisation of the Party) had surely existed. And the need was

admitted by both, the Left and Right wings of the Congress, though their strategies with

the mass were quite different. The Manifesto could be accepted even by Right wing if it

was presented as goals or ideals. Second, since the Manifesto was not drafted on the

premise of the assumption of office, which Nehru opposed to the last, the sentence was

so ambiguous as to allow various interpretations and no time-limit was set for its social

reform programmes. This resulted in delay and mutilation when it was carried out.

Third, regardless of Nehru's intention, the policy of the Manifesto could be carried out

only when the Congress accepted office. Therefore, while the Manifesto was not clear

about the acceptance of office, the appeal of the Manifesto to the mass was inseparable

from it.

In its e\ection campaign, the Congress mobilised full resources for canvassing for

votes. The Congress, with provincial-wide organisations, functioned as a strong vote

"canvassing machine" .15 The volunteer workers of the Congress asked the people to

register under the new franchise rules and to vote for the Congress candidate. In

Bombay City, the Congress workers were very active in enrolling the voters. A report of

the District Magistrate described this "perfect roll campaign": "Volunteers are moving

from house to house to secure names etc., when it was found that very few persons 15 Tomlinson, 1976, pp.71-72.

126

I

enlisted themselves voluntarily." 16

But what gave the campaign the dynamics was the character of the Congress as a

movement; in this period, a mass nationalist movement. In fact, the Congress election

campaign was directed not only for canvassing votes, but also to the masses with no

votes. Both the Left and Right wing leaders of the Congress thought it better to utilise

the election for raising their popularity among the masses, though the way in which they

thought to do so was different. There appeared the need for mass politics in 1930s, that

even Congress Right-wing leaders had to admit. For the Right-wing leaders, however,

the mass support to the Congress was to be offered in the vague form of "popularity"

and sometimes votes, but no more. For them, mass politics did not mean popularising

the Congress, much less handing over political power to the masses. The Left-wing

leaders, like Nehru, thought the opposite though they also believed that the Congress

needed the middle-class leadership.

The chief method of Congress election campaign was holding public meetings,

sometimes with the presence of national leaders, where the Congress Election

Manifesto was explained. It was reported that the Bombay Provincial Congress

Committee or the District Congress Committees held many meetings in working class

areas in Bombay City. 17 Perhaps, some section of the workers coming to those meetings

did not have the right to vote. It was the character of the Congress as a movement that

the popularity of nationalist leaders was greatly exploited in the election campaign. It is

well known that Nehru made an extensive tour throughout the entire Indian continent

for the election campaign. 18

While no other party would threaten the advantage of the Congress in the election, it

failed to cooperate with parties which had an influence over industrial workers. The

16 MSA, Home (Special), 800( 106)D, Extract from the Confidential Weekly Report of the District Magistrate, Bombay Suburban District, 27 June 1936. 17 MSA, Home( Special), 800( 106)D-3. 18 S. Gopal, 1989, p.113-114.

127

Congress did not make an election understanding with Communists and trade union

leaders, as they did in Bengal. The Independent Labour Party (henceforth referred as

ILP) led by B. R. Ambedkar contended with the Congress in the election. Around the

election, the ILP had been leading peasant movement- in Ratnagiri, where khot landlords

ruled the low-caste agricultural labourers, and other rural areas in the province. 19 The

party also penetrated into low-caste industrial workers, especially in Bombay City.

There is no doubt that behind the sympathy of the low-caste peasants and industrial

workers for the ILP was their inferior economic condition. However, what drove them

towards the ILP was the Congress' inability or indecisiveness to solve the problems and

the ILP's communal approach to them.

The Congress scored a great success in the election. In the five Hindu-majority

Provinces, they commanded majority (Madras, Bihar, Orissa, the Central Provinces. and

the U.P.) and came close to a majority in Bombay. The success of the Congress was not

surprising if one consider the fact that they got forty-five out of seventy-five seats

reserved for Indians in the Central Legislative Assembly in 1934 election, and it was

more likely that the Congress would win in the provincial election which required more

organisational strength in the rural area. The main reason for success was that they

could make full use of the organisational network covering the rural areas and volunteer

force, both of which were built up during the period of the Civil Disobedience. And in

most of the provinces, ther~ were no party or group which seriously threatened the

Congress, as Tomlinson rightly pointed out, because provincial governments were too

weak under dyarchy to form such a party or group.2° Furthermore, we cannot ignore the

effect of the Congress Election Manifesto and the Agrarian Programme.

In Bombay, the Congress secured about 56 per cent ofthe total votes, and won only

59 per cent of the total seats (Table 3-2). The reason for comparatively poor 19 For the activities of the ILP in the rural area in this period, see MSA, Home (Specia1),927-A; 927-A-Pt.I; 927-A-Pt.III; 927B. 20 Tomlinson, 1976, p.74.

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•

Table 3-2 Position of the Parties in the Bomba :gislative Assembly in 1937 Congress 86

Muslim League 20

Independent Muslims 10

Democratic Swaraj Party 5

Europeans, Anglo-Indians and Indian Christians 7

Independents (including Ambedkar's party and non-Brahmin) 41

Labor 5

Nationalist 1

Total 175 Source: The Political & Economic Information Department, the AICC A Brief Analysis of the Election Results, JAR, 1937, Vol. I, P. 168

Table 3-3: Position of the Parties in the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1937 Congress Caste Hindus Including an Independent Congressman

Congress Scheduled Caste Hindus (Including one who captured a non-reserved seat)

Congress Labour

Independent Caste Hindus (Including Tea Garden Labour Member)

Independent Scheduled Caste Hindus (Including one who captured a non-reserved s)

Hindu Nationalsts

Hindu Sabha (both Scheduled Caste Hindus)

Muslim League

Proja Party

Independent Muslims (Including two Muslim Labour Members)

Europeans, Anglo-Indians and Indian Christians

Total

43

7

4

14

23

3

2

40

38

43

31

248 Source: The Political & Economic Information Department, the AICC A Brief Analysis of the Election Results, JAR, 1937, Vol.l, P. 168

performance of the Congress in the election in Bombay was complex. At least,what we

could say is that parties with some degrees of strength contested the election

independent of the Congress. The Congress won only two out of seven Labour seats.

The ILP won thirteen seats totally, of which eleven were out of the fifteen seats

reserved for scheduled caste. In the Scheduled Caste constituencies, the Congress

contested eight out of fifteen seats and won only four. 21 The failure of the Congress to

cooperate 'Nith the communists and the ILP and their defeat in the Labour constituencies

meant not only that the Congress had little influence in the labour movement, but also

that the support of the working classes was in the hands of their opponents. Thus, as we

shall see, the labour problem had a significance in the policy of the Bombay Congress

Government.

The Congress declined the acceptance of office and continued to reject even after

the commencement of the Act on 1 April 1937, on the ground of the special power

vested in the Governors under the Government of India Act, 1935. In the province

where the Congress declined office, Interim Ministries consisting of various groups

were started. Congress Left-wing, represented by Nehru, did not change their critical

attitude towards the Act and were consistently and strongly opposing the acceptance of

office.

However, due to the absolute majority in the legislatures in all Hindu-majority

provinces that would allow to form ministries without allying with other parties, the

opinion for the acceptance was gradually growing both in public and within the

Congress Party. The public opinion was generally in favour of accepting office. While

there might have been a little doubt about the intention of the Congress to accept the

office after the commencement of the Act, people still seemed to think that the Interim

Ministries would not last long, and that the Congress would come to power. It is

21 A Brief, Informati,

doubtful, indeed, how much the masses, for whom the prom1ses of the Congress

Election Manifesto were made, could understand the relation between those promises

and the rejection of office. For those who had expected to get powers by Congress

assuming office, the situation was irritating. And in particular, there was "a feeling of

discontent" for not accepting office "among those Congress candidates who spent a lot

of money in the Election Campaign".22 Indian industrialists, who contributed much to

the Congress Election Fund during the campaign, were beginning to complain and put

pressures on the Congress.

As we said before, a large section of the Congress were for the acceptance even

before the election. After seeing the election results, local Congress Committee started

to express their opinion in favour of the acceptance. At the meeting of March 11, the

Bombay Provincial Congress Committee adopted a resolution for the office acceptance.

Moved by S. K. Patil, General Secretary, the resolution recommended,

as effective means to bring about entire and unqualified rejection of the

Government of India Act, 1935, and the Constitution that has been imposed on

India against the declared will of the people of the country, the formation of the

Congress Ministries under the strict supervision and control of the Working

Committee may be permitted only in Provinces where such Ministries can be

formed without coalition with any other party or group in the Legislature for a

specified period not extending over one year

The resolution also recommended that at the end of one year a convention would be

formed to decide what course to take thereafter. 23 It was a simple recommendation for

the acceptance of office because the condition of non-coalition had already ·been 22 MSA, Home( Special), 800( 106 )D-5, Extract from the Bombay Presidency Weekly Letter, No.14, dated the 10 April1937. 23 MSA, Home(Special), 800(106)D-4.

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satisfied in the Hindu-majority provinces. At this point, the question had already been

shifted from whether they should accept office or not, to how they could overcome the

obstacles to the acceptance. They began to think that the special power of governors

was the only condition to be satisfied. If the guarantee was given that the power would

not be used by the governors they were ready to accept office. The Bombay

industrialists helped the Right-wing in their negotiations with the British Government.

G. D. Birla acted as a mediator between the Congress and the governments of British

and India. 24 Eventually, the Right-ring prevailed.

(2) Bombay Congress Government

The Bombay Provincial Ministry started on 19 July 1937. B. G. Kher became the

Chief Minister with the portfolio of Labour and Commerce. The Ministry was basically

under the control of Congress Right-wing leaders and had strong connections with the

central Congress organisations, especially with the Congress High Command. K. M.

Munshi, the Home Minister, was the person who embodied the character of the

ministry. Due to his important role in the ministry, as well as the fact that he was in

charge of Home affairs, people, especially his opponents, regarded the government as

"Munshi's government", not as "Kher's government", and became a target of fierce

attack from the Communists and other left pqliticians. The Congress Left-wing, on the

other hand, had little influence on the ministry. The leftist had become an opponent to

the ministry through their activities in the labour movement.

Let us see the class aspect of the government. The most obvious feature of the

ministry was that it was dominated by the Congress politicians and it did not include

any representative of any particular class. Neither the Indian capitalists nor the labour in

Bombay, both of which were. the most organised and influential in India, was a memher

of the ministry. This evidently had to do with the character of the Congress Party as a 24 See Chapter 4.

1 31

multi-class political arena in which every class interest had a place. But within the

Congress, all the class interests were represented only indirectly; the class interests had

to act through the Congress - the Party or the Government.

This way of class representation of the Bombay Congress Government was easily

maintained by two factors. First, the political format of the Government of India Act,

1935 decreased the effectiveness of direct representation of class interests. 25 : the

widening sphere of political activities, especially owing to increasing number of

participants in constitutional politics with the extended franchise, and the increasing

specialisation of politics with provincial autonomy; now it was increasingly difficult for

any single class, with little experience in politics and limited personnel, to deal with

complicated political matters. Even Bombay industrialists had to be content with this

way of representation, as we shall see later in detail. 26 The second factor was the relative

stability of the government in terms of competing parties and social groups. Although

the Congress got less seats in the election in Bombay than the other Hindu-majority

provinces, it was easy to command majority in the Assembly. Muslims, Europeans,

Scheduled Caste Hindus, landlords, labour and others were the minorities in the

legislature, and they could not be a threat to the government, in the limit of

constitutional politics.

From the point of our study, it means that the Bombay Congress Government did

not represent any class interest or, in other words, it was not controlled, though it might

be influenced, by class interests. Thus they had more room to implement class policy

not for serving a particular interest but for adjusting class relations in the way they

thought them best than the government in which groups representing class interests

participated.

-·------------25 Indeed, one of the reasons for allotment of seats to "special interests" was the presupposed difficulty of securing representative of those interests under the new constitution. 26 See Chapter 4.

132

However, it is misleading to suppose that the Bombay Congress Government was

free in pursuing their policies. We need to look at the constraints under which the

Bombay Congress Government operated. They did not originate from the rival parties

or groups, but from the odd position of the Congress governments under provincial

autonomy: a party fighting for the nationalist movement was in charge of governance

under the colonial rulers against whom the movement was directed. By accepting office,

the Bombay Congress Government, as the other Congress governments, had dual

functions. On the one hand, the government became a ruler of the people. On the other

hand, they had to maintain the characteristics of nationalist anti-British movement. Each

characteristic gave the government both strength and weakness. As the labour policy of

the Bombay Congress Government was greatly affected by these features and the

dilemmas, we must look more carefully into these characteristics.

First, we shall see the character of the Congress Government as a ruler. If we

consider the acceptance of office under the Government of India Act, 1935 as a strategy

of the Congress for independence, one task of the Congress governments was to prove

their ability to rule under the given conditions and to demand further concessions from

the British. It makes sense when we consider the ideological aspect of the British rule in

India and the struggle of the Congress against it. It is well known that the legitimacy of

the British rule in India was under the assumption that Indians could not rule India by

themselves. It was, they claimed, the divine mission of the British to enlighten the

Indians for the ultimate goal of self-government by their efficient and benevolent rule.

The attitude of the Congress towards the British rule changed from appealing to the

generosity of the colonial government to exposing the falseness of the assertion of their

benevolent rule and pointing out the exploitative and repressive character of the British

rule. The claim of the Congress that they represented the whole of India had the purpose

of disproving the inability of the Indians to rule, and would logically lead to the

133

conclusion that they could replace the British rule. The Congress rule under provincial

autonomy was an opportunity to prove this. An address of Vallabhbhai Patel, at a

meeting of this period, suggested the relation between the Congress governments and

the proof of their ability to rule:

When we went to the Round Table Conference, the person conducting affairs of

the empire were of the view that Congress will not be able to run the

government. . . . They thought we could go to jails, we could do picketing, we

could suffer ]athi-blows but Congress could not run the Government.

Congressmen fight with each other. 27

However, the Congress as a ruler had another burden to bear. Since they had

attacked the repressive measures of the British rule they could not employ the same

methods in their rule. More than that, they had to emphasise the differences from the

British rule.

The second characteristics of the Bombay Congress Government was the one as the

nationalist movement. The victory of the Right-wing of the Party and the acceptance of

office under the Government of India Act, 1935 did not result in a complete

transformation of the Congress into a ruling political party: it never shed their character

as an organisation for mass mobilisation. For the Congress as an organisation for mass

mobilisation, provincial autonomy was a good opportunity to extend their ability of

mass mobilisation for the independence struggle. 28 In addition, continuation of the

character of the movement was the best way to resist the calculation of the colonial

authority in introducing the Government oflndia Act, 1935 that once they had power, it

27 Collected Works ofVallabhai Patel, vol.7, p.156. 28 This aspect of the Congress governments under provincial autonomy has not been fully studied. For this feature of the Congress government in U.P., see Yisalakshi Menon, 1980.

134

would be difficult to go back to the agitational politics.

The two characteristics of the Bombay Congress Government were linked with each

other in two ways. On the one hand, they supplemented each other in several policies.

The nationalist mobilisation gave a popularity to the government by converting the

nationalist feeling of the people to the support for the government; the government

could help the mobilisation by giving financial support to the programme.

On the other hand, these two characteristics, put together, created a highly difficult

situation for the Government: as a nationalists movement, some kind of agitational

activity was inevitable, but it would always cause a threat to the social order, as was

shown in the Civil Disobedience; that would be an obstacle to the character as a ruler,

especially in the attempt to prove the ability of good governance. The failure of the

government would obviously prove their inability to rule. An1uug vlll~rs, disturbance or

disruption of law and order situation would be taken as an obvious evidence of the

failure. For example, in the controversy relating to the provincial autonomy of the

Government oflndia Act, 1935, the possibility of the "state ofunruling" was used as the

pretext for maintaining the emergency power vested in the governor, to which the

Congress was fiercely opposed. The Congress governments had to avoid disorder or

disruption of law and order, whether due to the communal or labour questions. At the

same time, nationalist demands restricted the option to cope with the threat to law and

order. For the Bombay Congress Government, la.bour movement, as well as communal

matters, was always a source of difficulty.

The rule of the Bombay Congress Government was characterised by a number of

measures with such contradictory purposes. We will use the term "nationalist measures"

to refer to the measures that the Congress governments, often on the orders from the

party, took in this period to fulfil the two purposes and make themselves a nationalist

government. We will examine several nationalist measures taken by the Bombay

135

Congress Government to understand how those two contradictory tasks affected the

working of the government.

(3) Nationalist Measures of the Government

The defence and extension of civil liberties was one of the most important

nationalist measures taken by the Bombay Congress Government. The question of civil

liberties had a nationalistic character, partly because civil liberties traditionally had been

the sphere of conflict between the colonial authority and the Congress. But the question

assumed a greater significance in the 1930s because most of the restrictions on civil

liberties during this period had been introduced to suppress the nationalist movement

during the Civil Disobedience. It is well known that the British authority took repressive '

measures on quite a large seal~ rluring the movement: just between January 1932 and

March 1933, as many as 120,000 persons were arrested,·in addition to 90,DOO,in 1930-

31.29 The repressive measures did not confine themselves .. to the arrests of participants in

the movement but accompanied systematic restriction on civil liberties like the freedom

of speech, association and the right to properties. Non-payment of revenue was met by

confiscation of properties and lands.

Civil Disobedience left two problems for civil liberties which lasted till the later

period. One was a large number of political prisoners detained in jails and detention

camps throughout the country, out of which the most notorious was in the Andaman

Islands. Part of them were released thereafter, but many people were still detained there

at the beginning of the provincial autonomy.

The other problem was the continuous existence of repressive laws. After the

movement ended, the Ordinances issued during that period were converted into the

Bombay Special Emergency Powers Act. It was openly stated that the principal object

of this Act was "enabling Government to deal effectively with the civil disobedience 29 Sarkar, 1983, p.3 21.

136

movement". 30 Special Powers Acts of the same kind were enacted in other provinces,

too. With the growth of comml!nist movement in mid-1930s, those Acts began to be

used against communists and communist organisations. In the general strike of the

Bombay textile industry in 1934, the Bombay Government arrested the labour leaders

under the provision of the Act. When those Special Powers Acts were to expire around

1935 as they were time-bound Acts, they were all extt:nded as permanent Acts. In the

debates in Bombay, the government stated that the necessity of the Act still remained

because of the growing communist movement whereas the danger of the Civil

Disobedience had disappeared that time.31 In spite ofthe fact that the immediate object

of those Acts was shifted from the Congress to the Communists, the Congress thought

that they still had been the object of their prot~st, as, for one thing, it could be used as a

symbol of the repressive character of the colonial authority. Nehru founded the Civil

Liberties Union after the Congress Lucknow Session. The fact that the Union was

organised "on,. non-party lines" shows that the question of civil liberties could easily

have a national character even across the party lines. 32 But the more important reason

was that the Congress feared the possibility that the Acts would be employed again

when they resumed the movement later. In fact, when the Act was amended in 1935, the

Civil Disobedience was not excluded from the purview of the Act, since the movement

had important advocates and there was no certainty that the movement would not be

revived in future. 33 It was for these reasons that the question of civil liberties had been

taken up in the Congress sessions. In the Lucknow Session in 1936, a resolution

~--------------.----

30 NAI, Home(Political), 6/1136, Bombay Special (Emergency) Powers (Amendment) Act, 1935, Statement of Objects and Reasons. 31 On the extension of Special Powers Act in provinces, see Ibid. and NAI, Home(Political), 6/3/36, United Provinces Special (Emergency) Powers (Amendment) Act, 1935; 6/9/36, Bihar and Orissa Public Safety (Extending and Amendment) Act, 1936. 32 Gopal. 1989, p.111. 33 NAI, Home(Political), 6/1/36, Bombay Special (Emergency) Powers (A..•nendment) Act, 1935.

137

regarding "Suppression of Civil Liberties" was adopted. 34

As soon as the Bombay Congress Government was formed on the 19 July 1937,

they undertook the question of Civil Liberties. On 30 July, an order was issued to cancel

the ban on 227 political and other associations declared unlawful in 1932 "including

Ashrams, Chhavis, Hindustan Seva Dal, Youth League, Navajavan Bharat Sabha,

Prabhat Pheri organisations, Panchayat Courts and various volunteer organisations"; On

1 August, the Government issued a communique announcing that they would do their

best to maintain civil liberties; securities were refunded to the presses and newspapers

and the notice demanding securities was cancelled; On 26 August the ban on twenty-six

films was cancelled. 35

When the Government started functioning, five organisations including Gimi

Kamgar Union (Red Flag) and twenty-seven individuals in the labour movement were

under the ban imposed by the previous provincial government under Section 16 ( 1) of

the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908 for the former and under Section 4 of Bombay

Special (Emergency) Powers Act, 1932 for the latter. A resolution adopted at the

meeting of the Bombay Provincial Congress Comittee on 16 August particularly

mentioned about the prohibitive orders imposed under the Bombay Special

(Emergency) Powers Act on Communists such as Deshpande, Joglekar and others. 36 In

the event, all of the bans were removed between August and October.37 The ban on the

CPI was not withdrawn because, the government explained, the ban was the central

order and hence out of their power to withdraw it. But the Communists acted almost

freely in the Congress-provinces. The repeal of repressive laws was an important part of

34 IAR, 1936, vol.I, pp.247-248. 35 Report of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee, for July; August; September, AICC Papers, P-26/1937; "The Bombay Government and its Work: Review of Past Six Months (1938)", AICC Papers, C-2/1938. 36 Report of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee, for August, AICC Papers, P-26/1937. 37 MSA, Home(Special), 550(2S)III-A, Brief Note on Communist Activities in Bombay City since the assumption of office by the Present Ministry.

138

the policy. The Bombay Provincial Congress Comittee adopted a resolution requesting

the Bombay Government to "withdraw all restrictions imposed on political and labour

workers and labour organisation and repeal all repressive laws"38 The Bombay Special

(Emergency) Powers Act, 1932 was repealed in April 1938.39

The release of political prisoners was a point of direct confrontation with the

colonial authority. The confrontation arose when the Congress governments demanded

of the Governors the release of political prisoners detained in jails and detention camps,

and the governors rejected it. The demand of the Congress and the Congress

governments with regard to this question was so determined that the confrontation

developed to the point in February 1938 that the U.P. and Bihar governments gave in

their resignations. 40 In Bombay, the question did not take such a dramatic turn, as the

majority of prisoners were held by the UP., Bihar, Punjab, and Bengal governments.

But due to massive reports on hunger strikes by the prisoners of Andaman Jail and the

organised propaganda of the Congress for their release, it had become a question of all-

India importance. The local Congress organisation and the Congress members in

legislatures in Bombay also took up the question.

A question of a special national importance in Bombay was the return of the lands

confiscated in the Civil Disobedience to the original holders. The lands were

confiscated and sold by the colonial authority as a result of the no-tax campaign in the

Civil Disobedience and more than half of such lands were in Gujarat, where the

campaign was the most severe. 41 An official resolution was adopted in the first Budget

session of the Legislative Assembly. It read as follows: 38 MSA, Home( Special), 922( 1), Police Report, Bombay Special Branch, 17 August 1937. 39 NAI, Home(Political), 13/2/38. 40 The governments resumed only after ten days when the Viceroy hinted a concession. AICC Papers, C-3/1938; Chander, 1987, pp.76-79. 41 According to the Revenue Minister, the lands included: Gujarat 3,500 acres; Kamatak 2,200 hissas; Dharwar 25 acres; Bijapur 2 acres. Report of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee, for August, AICC Papers, P-26/1937. For the no-tax campaign in Gujarat, see Hardiman, 1981.

139

This Assembly accepts the policy of repurchasing, at the cost of Government,

lands and other immovable properties forfeited and sold in consequence of the

Civil Disobedience movement, with a view to their restoration to the original

holders or their heirs, free of occupancy price. 42

In the event, the restoration of the lands was realised only after a year long conflict with

the colonial authority.

The defense and extension of civil liberties derived from the character of the

government as a nationalist movement. It was expected, as the Congress Party had done

so far, to expose the repressive character of the colonial government and to prove itself

to be the alternative. It also created an atmosphere of freedom with which the Congress

had identified themselves. It was due to this expectation that they were not afraid of a

collision with the colonial authority on this question, as the case of the release of

political prisoners showed.

On the other hand, the removal of ban on Communists and the repeal of repressive

laws surely aggravated the law and order situation. As we shall see, the Communists

who were freed from the repressive laws and jails were very active in the labour

movement and they were not as friendly to the government as the latter expected.

Probably, the Government had anticipated the result of the removal or repeal, and this

caused inconsistency in their policy. Behind the delay in the repeal of the Bombay

Special Powets Act must be a fear of the breakdown of the law and order; The CWC

justified the use of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code: a contradiction with

the policy on civil liberties. Nevertheless, it was due to the strong demand which

derived from their political position as a nationalist government, that they were forced

42 "The Bombay Government and its Work: Review of Past Six Months ( 19 3 8) ", p.4, AICC Papers, C-2/1938.

140

to take this dangerous step.

Prohibition was another nationalist measure on the agenda of the Bombay Congress

Government. Prohibition had assumed a nationalist character since Gandhi regarded it

as a part of his constructive programme. First, in 1937, it was announced that total

prohibition should be realised in three years, and as a first step, "a considerable

reduction of toddy booth was carried out in Bombay City and several shops which were

within 100 yards ofand in the same street as temples, mosques, schools and hospitals

were either cancelled or removed" .43 Then, a complete prohibition was enforced in the

entire city of Ahmedabad and other selected areas the following year. And they

announced their plan to remove the liquor shops from the mills and factories. 44 Finally,

complete prohibition in the whole province was started from August 1939. We can see

how keen the government was for this measure from the fact that it was carried out in

spite of the huge loss to the revenue, which had been already strained. But the loss was

compensated by the support given to the Government by the local Congress

organisations and the masses. According to police reports, political conferences at

Byculla (E Ward of the Bombay City) and Dadar (G Ward) adopted resolutions for

prohibition. 45 24 July 1939 was celebrated as Prohibition Day and about 50,000 people

participated. As one newspaper reported, "Great enthusiasm prevailed in the city and

crowds of people from different wards joined it. "46

As in the election campaign, the popularity of the Congress leaders was exploited.

Visits of the leaders were greatly publicised and accompanied by number of ceremonies

and public meetings. Celebration of various "Days" was an effective way of 43 Times of India, 18 August 1937; Review of the Past Six Months (1938), AICC Papers, C-3/1938. 44 Review of the Past Six Months ( 19 3 8), AICC Papers, C-3 I 19 3 8. 45 At Byculla, the resolution stated: "Calling upon the public in general, and the residents of "E" Ward in particular, to take a vow not to touch liquor of any kind." At Dadar, it was resolved that they accorded "support to the Bombay Ministry in its decision regarding prohibition". Report of Bombay Special Branch, 25 October 1937, MSA, Home (Special), 922(1). 46

Bombay Chronicle, 25 July 1939.

141

mobilisation in this period. Local Congress Committees, often in cooperation with other

organisations like trade unions, held ceremonies and public meetings, which were

utilised for propagating nationalist ideas among the masses. For example, a report of the

Provincial Congress Committee described Tilak Anniversary in August 1937 as

follows:

In almost all the Wards in the City, several Flag hoisting functions were held by

the respective Districts Congress Committees. In the Labour area, the

B.P.T.U.C. joined hands with the "F" Ward Congress Committee in making the

programme of the Day a grand success. In "G" Ward, there was a public

meeting, which was also presided by Sjt. Bhulabhai J. Desai.

A special pamphlet giving the resolutions of the Working Committee on office-

acceptance, two articles on the subject written by Mahatmaji in "Harijan" and

the resolution of August 1, was brought out by the B.P.C.C. in four different

languages and was distributed in thousands in different localities throughout the

Day.

They also observed All India Andaman Prisoners' Day, Prohibition Day, and National

Week. Some of the "Days" were held every year, and gradually assumed an importance

as national celebrations. 47

All these measures were required for the Bombay Congress Government to be a

nationalist government. The Government could utilise them to translate the nationalist

feelings among people into the support for the Government and the nationalist

movement as a whole. This seemed to have succeeded to some extent when we see the

reaction of people to the measures. However, the Government did not enjoy the same

47 For the analysis of such "Days" in European countries as an invented tradition, see Hobsbawm and Ranger (~ds.), 1983.

142

easiness in employing nationalist measures when they affected the class questions or the

maintenance of law and order. Such measures must have reminded the government of

the contradiction and difficulty of being a nationalist government under the colonial rule

and at the same time being a government ruling well. Indeed, there was much delay in

the repeal of the Bombay Special (Emergency) Powers Act, 1932. As we shall see, for

the Bombay Congress Government, the contradiction emerged in the most serious form

when it came to the labour and agrarian questions. And the problem had significant

effects on the labour policy of the government.

(4) Resignation of the Government

In October 1939, all the Congress governments resigned. The reason for the resignation

was the involvement of India in the war in Europe without consulting the Conf,rress

Party or the Congress governments.

Behind this official reason for the resignation was the ideological tension: within the

Congress Party which easily found its way out in the war issue, even if that was not the

immediate reason for their resignation. As long as they held the ultimate goal of

independence in sight the condition for keeping office was that it should be productive

for the goal. It is true that the Congress extended the organisation during the provincial

autonomy. And also in this period, the control of the organisation by the Central and the

Right-wing leadership was significantly strengthened. The fact that the resignation was

a concerted action in all the provinces shows that the central control of local Congress

organisations had already been strengthened and probably the system of control was

also established by the time of the resignation.

At the same time, however, an inherent contradiction of the Congress governments

came to the surface. Factional infighting within the governments and local Congress

organisations gFew so serious as to prevent the governments from working well. And

143

they had to face the reality of class conflicts. Agrarian reform came to a standstill due to

a furious resistance from the landlords. Their nationalist mobilisation might divert the

attention of the masses from the inadequacy of land reform, but the agrarian question

would be a threat to the social order. As we shall see later, the ideal class relations of

the Congress were not realised so far as the labour questions were concerned: they had

to resort to the same repressive measures as the British colonial authority had employed;

working classes did not come under the hegemony of the Congress even though they

risked their relations with the Indian capitalists; it was likely that working classes or

Indian capitalists could get alienated from the Congress in their struggle for independent

India.

All this was enough to throw doubt on the Congress leaders about the merit of

keeping the office. From the beginning, the Congress leaders had described the office

acceptance as an experiment, but when the advantages of keeping the office decreased,

they began to emphasise the experimental character, which meant that there was a

possibility of failure. Even Vallabhbhai Patel, a leading figure of the Congress High

Command, said at the AICC meeting in June 1939: "After all the Congress Ministries

are more in the nature of an experiment than anything else. "48 This shows that the

Congress leaders, at least at the centre, began to see the possibility of giving up the

governments. When the question of war arose, the Congress, which maintained the •

character as a nationalist movement, was ready to quit.

3. Bengal Coalition Government

(1) Short History of Bengal Politics

In Bengal, a completely different political composition emerged under the Government

of India Act, 1935. The Congress could not command a majority in the Legislative

Assembly and did not accept office. The government was run by a coalition between the 48 Hindustan Times, 27 june, 1939.

144

KPP and the Muslim League joined by other interests. It is easy to suppose that this

resulted from the provision of the Government of India Act, 1935: the provision for

larger number of seats in the legislatures to Muslims worked against the Congress in the

province where the majority of the population was Muslims. This supposition should be

based on the premise that communal politics was irretrievably prevalent before the

introduction of the Act. In fact, however, communal politics intensified under the Act,

by the policies of the Coalition Government which were not communal at the point of

its formation. Too much focus on communal character of the Government makes its

character and its policies from the viewpoint of class quite vague. The formation of the

coalition government in Bengal under the Government oflndia Act, 1935 was the result

of complicated political process in Bengal and its interaction with all-India politics.

In contrast to other provinces, the Bengal Congress gradually declined in the 1920s

and 1930s. 49 At the end of this trend was the failure of the Congress to form a

government under provincial autonomy and, at the furthest end, the Partition. The fact

that Muslims dominated the majority of the population, and the calculation of the

British in designing the Government of India Act, 1935 to divide the nationalist

movement certainly contributed to the trend. But they were not the only reasons. The

decline had a close relation to the character of local politics and of the organisation of

the Bengal Congress: the domination of bhadralok politicians in local politics and the

Congress organisation.

We have already seen that the city of Calcutta gave an extraordinary importance to

economic and cultural activities in the provi;tce, and that bhadralok, who nearly

monopolised the educational, administrative and professional opportunities which were

offered by the British rule, dominated the city. 5° The dominance of bhadralok was also

true of Bengal politics. Taking advantage of their status as the only literate class, they

49 Gallagher, 1973; Joya Chatterji, 1995. so Chapter 1, Section 3.

145

began to join politics in the latter half of the nineteenth century. They played a

significant role in the movement against the Partition of Bengal in 1905 and since then

dominated the nationalist politics in Bengal. 51 The Bengal Provincial Congress

Committee, established in the period of the anti-Partition movement, had always been

the base of bhadralok politicians.

The interests of bhadrulok-dominated Bengal Congress concentrated on urban

affairs. The Calcutta Municipal Corporation had been the main arena of their political

activities, since the Corporation was transformed from the consultant body of the

propertied class of the city into a representative organisation with the introduction of the

Calcutta Municipal Act of 1876. From the outset, the Corporation had greater power in

the affairs of the city, compared to other municipal bodies in India, and it became even '

greater.

The concentration of Bengal politics in Calcutta resulted in the neglect of mofussil.

The stake in city politics was so great that the politicians did not have to pay attention to

the mofussil. In addition, there was a geographical reason. The deltas of the Ganga and

the Brahmaputra spread through the southern and eastern Bengal: communication

between Calcutta and the hinterland was difficult, if not impossible. It gave rise to the

decentralised administrative tradition since the days of Nawabs who prevented rural

affairs from being taken up by the centre. 52 However, the neglect of mofussil in Bengal

politics also had to do with the social origin of hhadralok and the social structure of

rural Bengal. Although the social status of bhadralok was derived from the city, they

had their origin in landlord class in the country. Thus, the landlords were traditional

supporters for the Bengal Congress politicians in the provincial politics. The bhadralok

politicians in the city thought that the involvement of mofussil in politics would shake

up the existing social order and threaten the class from which they had originated and

51 Sarkar, 1973. 52 Gallagher, 1973, p.S91.

146

whose support was essential in the Provincial Legislative Council. They just wanted

status quo in mofussils. As a result, the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee, in

contrary to its name, had been dominated by Calcutta-based politicians and its concern

was only for the city politics. Most of the District Congress Committees had been only

nominal well into the 1930s. In spite of the advent of the era of mass politics in the

1930s, they possessed a very narrow social base.

The Bengal Congress was far from monolithic. It was suffering from the constant

rivalry inside. After the death of C. R. Das in 1925, the Bengal Congress was divided

into two factions led by his successors: J. M. Sen Gupta and Subhas Chandra Bose. In

this discord, the support of the Congress at the centre was an important weapon to dash

rivals; Sen Gupta had the support of Gandhi against Bose, v:rho had the support of local

magnates like the Big Five. 53 The rivalry within the city politicians naturally isolated

Calcutta from the mofussil. Since the goal of both factions was the control of city

politics, their concern for mofussil was confined to the employment of its voting

strength for undermining the domination of rival faction in the city when they were at a

disadvantage. Basic organising activities in the mofussil were almost neglected. The

result showed in the low response of the Bengal mofussil to the call for action in the

Civil Disobedience.

The monopoly of politics by the small circle of bhadralok politicians in the city and

the neglect of mofussil not only deprived themselves of the power to defend their

position in politics in the face of growing importance of mofussil but also resulted in the

alienation of other important sections of the society. Moreover, the conservativeness of

bhadralok on caste issues estranged the Scheduled Caste. When the Untouchability

Abolition Bill was discussed in the Central Assembly in 1933, the main opposition to

the Bill came from the Hindu members from Bengal. 54 Congress-dominated Calcutta

53 Gallagher, 1973, p.597. 54 Joya Chatterji, 1995, p.40.

147

Municipal Corporation did not accept the demands from the Depressed Class. 55 The

attitudes of Bengal Caste Hindus towards the Poona Pact made the alienation of the

Scheduled Caste inevitable. The Pact, originated from the opposition of Gandhi to

separate electorates for Scheduled Castes and at last signed in September 1932,

provided for the larger number of seats reserved for the Scheduled Caste in the

legislature under the Government of India Act, 1935 in exchange for the abandonment

of separate eiectorates. In Bengal, thirty seats out of eighty Hindu seats were reserved

for Scheduled Caste. Bengali caste Hindus opposed the Pact by denying the presence of

caste problems in their province. 56 The opposition of the Bengal caste Hindus to the

improvement of lower castes either in religious or political position created the rift

between the Caste Hindus and the Scheduled Caste. 57 Later, the rift led to the formation

of the separate Scheduled Caste Party in the Bengal Legislative Assembly under the

Government oflndia Act, 1935 and their independence from the Congress Party. By the

time of the election, the Bengal Congress had become a party whose interests were

limited and had less influences. It was far from the self-image of the party representing

all the sections of the society.

When we consider the election in Bengal under the Government of India Act, 1935,

we should not overlook the important role that the krishak movement played. In the first

few decades of the twentieth century, this new social force was gradually growing in

rural Bengal, which the bhadralok politicians had neglected for long. The rise of

prosperous peasants, called jotedar, was the result of a slow but steady social change

55 Ray, 1979, p.199. 56 Joya Chatterji, 1995, pp.33-44. 57 When the intensification of communal politics forced them to emphasise or create the unity of the Hindu community, it seemed that they had the reformist view to this question. But it did not go beyond the old framework of caste system. See Joya Chatterji, 1995, pp.180-190.

148

which was transforming rural Bengal in the first half of the twentieth century. 58

Zarnindars, once the powerful pillars of the Bengal rural administration, had been in a

bad plight since the end of the nineteenth century. The management of the estates had

became difficult due to the fragmentation of estates, inelastic revenue demand, huge

expenditure on litigation concerning inheritance or enforcement of rent collection and

growing indebtedness. In contrast, jotedars were able to accumulate wealth from the

increase of productivity due to technical innovation, the extension of lands under

cultivation by reclamation, and the rise of agricultural prices at the expense of

z8mindars. The term jotedar was rather generic and they consisted of peasants which

were diverse in religions and castes: most of them were Muslims, especially in the

eastern Bengal, but then: were also Hindu peasants like Mahisyas in the western

districts and Namasudras in the eastern districts. If the zamindars could extract more

rent from this section of peasants, they might have escaped the decline. But they could

not do this not only because jotedars made persistent resistance in some parts of Bengal,

but also because in the course of time their property rights came to be protected by

various measures of the colonial government. They gradually obtained de facto

propriety rights under the declining zamindars: they possessed the right of inheritance;

they were acquiring the right of mortgage of their land and the transfer without the fee

to the landlords. On the other hand, the rich peasants could keep or enhance control over

under-raiyats and sharecroppers who were outside the legal protection. The impact of

the depression on the agrarian economy in Bengal enhanced the two tendencies - the

declin~ of zarnindars and the rise of jotedars. ~y the middle of the 1930s, the balance of

economic power between zamindars and jotedars had been reversed.

As their status in the agrarian economy was rising, jotedars began to demand

political power. The movement called Krishak or Proja movement first took the form of

caste sabhas or peasant conferences in the early twentieth century. With the reform of 58 For a detailed case study of Midnapur district, see Panda, 1996.

149

local self-government after the First World War, rich peasants increased their share in

local political institutions such as Union Boards, local boards, and municipalities. The

percentage of Muslim members increased from 33.13 per cent in 1920-21 to 47.0 per

cent in 1934-35 in local boards and from 31.78 per cent in 1920-21 to 41.8 per cent in

1934-35 in district boards. 59 As Muslims constituted a large part of the Krishak

movement, the increase shows the growing participation of peasants in local politics.

When it became clear that the Bengal Tenancy Amendment Act of 1928 realised

their demands only partially, and that there could be no possibility of compromise with

the landlords with the support of the Congress, which was in favour of the retention of

their privileges in the Bill, the rich peasants must have felt the need of another way of

political articulation. After the enactment of the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1929, the

Tenant Party was formed at the suggestion of Fazlul Huq in July 1929. The party

became the nucleus of the Nikhil Banga Praja Party, which was later renamed the

KPP.60 And it was for the followers of this party that the extended franchise of the

Government oflndia Act, 1935 opened the way to the provincial politics.

(2) Election Campaign

As the negotiation between the Congress and the Muslim League in the centre on

the Communal Award broke down, the election of the Bengal Legislative Assembly

unde~· the Government of India Act, 1935 was to be contested on separate electorate. 61

The Bengal Congress decided not to the contest Muslim seats. Behind this decision was

a problem common to the Congress at the all-India level: a difficulty in finding

adequate number of Muslim candidates. Indeed, in Bombay, Sind, UP. and Bihar, they

59 Gallagher, 1973, pp.600-607. 60 Shila Sen, 1976, pp.66-67. 61 For the development of the negotiation on the allotment of seats in provincial legislatures and its final breakdown, see Gallagher, 1973, pp.615-632.

150

did not contest any Muslim seat The Congress with this avoided the election being

contested along the communal lines and so did the Bengal Congress.

In Bengal's case, however, there was also a class implication behind that decision.

As stated, bhadralok-dominated Bengal Congress neglected the mofussil because of the

fear that agitational politics in rural areas would change the balance of land relations

and threaten the interests oflandlords who had been their political supporters. But it was

clear to all that with the extended franchise under the Government of India Act, 1935

every candidate in the election had to mobilise the lower strata of the society. It was

highly dangerous for Bengal Congress to do that as that would disturb the social

tranquility in the Muslim constituencies where candidates for the newly franchised

Muslim peasants intended to defeat the candidates of the landlords. The Congress could

stand for neither side: to support the peasants' cause would harm the interests of the

landlords who were the traditional supporter of the party and to side with the landlords

contradicted with their apparent commitment to the popular cause. Hence, they simply

refrained from contesting the seats on the pretext of communal concern. However, this ·

also meant that they gave up a certain number of seats which they could have won and

that, in view of the number of seats allotted to Muslims in the A ward, they could never

command majority in the Assembly. It was also inconsistent with the claim of the

Congress that they represent the whole of India.

As a result, ~ . .1uslim seats were contested between the KPP and the Muslim League.

The KPP with their social and econo~ic programme appealed to the newly franchised

peasants. They attacked the zamindari system and promised a reduction of rent. Their

candidates took "prominent part" in some areas in their contest with the candidates of

the Muslim League backed by the landlords. The lower-class character of the KPP was

evident by the fact that in Noakali district "all but one of the successful candidates were

not even matriculates".62 The League candidates often resorted to communal feeling by 62 NAI, Home (Pol), 132/38.

1 51

•

r

employing religious rhetoric, but with no success. 63 The election in Bengal under the

Government of India Act, 1935 was never contested on communal terms, in the sense

that communal antagonism was not strong nor clear-cut enough to be exploited for other

political purposes.

As for Labour seats, the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee made an election

understanding with Communist labour leaders. Sibnath Banetjee, Niharendra Dutta

Mazumdar, Bankim Mukherjee, A. M. A. Zaman, all well-known and influential

Communist labour leaders in Bengal, were given "Congress ticket" as candidates in the

labour constituency. The cooperation became possible for several reasons. First, it was

due to the change of communist policy in the United Front, as we mentioned before.64

Thus the AITUC supported the Congress candidates ,except in Bombay and Nagpur. 65

Second, ta.e domination of bhadralok in politics and their dislike of industrial workers

prevented them ·from creating followers among them. It was impossible to contest

successfully in the labour constituencies without the support of industrial workers. The

Bengal Congress, therefore, required the help of labour leaders to get the votes of

workers. Third, the collaboration with labour leaders suited the character of leadership

in the labour movement in Bengal. It is pointed out that the labour leaders in Bengal

wielded strong personal influences among workers as ifthey were their "zamindari". 66 It

was natural that the Bengal Congress found it effective to have labour leaders on their

side, along with their "zamindari". Fourth, it was also advantageous for Communist

labour leaders to get Congress tickets, because the CPI had been banned since 1934 and

it is not legal to give the party tickets in the name of the CPl. Last, the penetration of the 63

In Patuakhali North, a muslim rural constituency, Fazlul Huq defeated Khwaja Nazimuddin, an influential landlord in spite of the latter's appeal to communal feeling. Patuakhali was a part of the estate of Dacca Nawab and the place of communal riot in 1927. No other place would be better for Nazimuddin to make an effective communal appeal. Joya Chatterji, 1995, p.85-87. 64 Chapter 1, Section 3. 65 Sukomal Sen, 1997, p.314. 66 Chakrabarty, 1984, pp.138-140.

152

Left into the organisation of the Bengal Congress gave them significant sway in the

election campaign. If the main section of the Bengal Congress - the Boses - was able to

reject the demands from the Left members in regard to general constituencies, they had

to accept their demands about the affairs of Labour constituencies.

The Bengal Provincial Parliamentary Committee, established on 27 July 1936,

received demands . for cooperation from the labour movement. The one from the

People's United Front Parliamentary Board was important. It was formed, Bankim

Mukherji, the Secretary of the Board stated, by "the different labour and peasant

organisations of the province" with a view to coordinate "the electioneering activities of

its constituent organisations and to present in collaboration with the Indian National

Congress, a national United Front both inside the Legislature and outside." And the '

Board "aims at preparing a suitable list of labour and peasant candidates for the

forthcoming election conjointly with the Bengal Provincial Congress Parliamentary

Committee." At last, the BPTUC, trusted as "the final authority in setting up candidates

in Labour Seats", nominated five communists - Sibnath Banerjee, Suresh Banerjee,

Niharendra Dutt Mazumdar, A M. A. Zaman and Bankim Mukherjee - as the

candidates. 67 The nominations were accepted by the Bengal Provincial Parliamentary

Committee.

(3) Bengal Coalition Government

The election was conducted in Bengal in January 1937. Table 3-3 shows the results

of the election. In general constituencies, the Congress won more than halfthe seats, but

67 Bankim Mukherji, Secretary, People's United Front Parliamentary Board to Secretary, Bengal Provincial Congress Committee, 27 September 1936, AICC Papers, P-6(Pt-l). The Board was constituted by "the eight anti-imperialist organizations, namely, the Bengal Provincial Trade Union Congress, Bengal Kisan Committee, Bengal Congress Socialist Party, Labour Party, Bengal Labour Association, Gana-Shakti, Gana-Bani and Workers' League.", Bengal Provincial Trade Union Federation to Bidhan Chandra Roy, Chairman, Bengal Congress Parliamentary Board, AICC Papers, P-6(Pt-l).

153

most of the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes went to the Independent Scheduled

Caste Hindus: a reflection of their alienation from the Congress. In Muslim

constituencies, the KPP and the Muslim League shared the seats. None of the three

parties won majority and hence they had to seek a coalition partner to form a ministry.

It is important to notice that there was a possibility of a coalition between the

Congress and the KPP in the negotiation started just after the announcement of the

election results. It was already clear, at the point of the decision not to contest the

Muslim seats which had a large share in the Assembly, that coalition was only option

left for the Bengal Congress if they wanted to form a ministry. And the KPP was the

only possible partner for the Congress, because cooperation with the Muslim League

was almost impossible.68 For the KPP, too, the Congress was better as a coalition partner

than the League whose social and economic programme was quite different from theirs

and with whom they fought a severe battle in the election. Both of them, therefore, were

ready for a coalition. Indeed, it was said that the negotiation for the purpose between

them in February 1937 "had reached a stage when signatures on the final agreement

were awaited" and that the only disagreement was on the implementation of the

programme of the ministry, particularly on the question of political prisoners. 69 In the

end, the negotiation broke off

But what really wrecked the negotiation was not the question of political prisoners

or any other question of the programme but the policy of the Congress at the centre and

its influence on the Bengal Congress. In other words, the policy of the Congress at the

centre, which was made in view of the interests of the whole of India, prevented the

Bengal Congress from doing what they thought was best in provincial context. In

68 There was a talk between Surendra Mohan Ghose and Khwaja Nazimuddin about the Congress-League coalition. Leonard A. Gordon, 1979, p.283. But such coalition could never be easier than the Congress-KPP coalition. For the coalition talks in the U.P. and its failure due to "vital difference" of opinions, see Deepak Pandey, 1978, pp.630-637; Gopal, 116-119. 69 Shila Sen, 1976, pp.89-90.

154

February 1937, the demand of the Bengal Congress for permission to form a coalition

ministry with the KPP was rejected by Nehru. 70 One Congressman of the Bengal

Provincial Congress Committee admitted later that the decision came from the centre. 71

The central influence over the provincial opinion prevailed again when Subhas Bose's

attempt to dethrone the Muslim-dominated ministry and form a Congress-KPP ministry

was rejected by Gandhi. 72 There were two reasons why the Congress at the centre

opposed the coalition in Bengal. First, the Congress at the centre had not decided about

the acceptance of office at all. Second, if they were to accept office, it was only in the

provinces where the Congress held a majority.

It was only after the negotiation with the Congress ruptured that the KPP began to

think of the possibility of its coalition with the Muslim League. For the KPP, the

coalition with the Muslim l.eague was the second option. The KPP was a cross-

communal party and, as a party of krishak, had a completely different class interests

from the Muslim League. Those who witnessed the election campaign in Muslim

constituencies would be surprised at the coalition even as the second option. The

coalition, therefore, was not communal but was tactical. It was the combination between

the second and third largest parties in the Assembly with the prospect of attracting

Independents who were willing to join any ruling party.

Since the coalition between the KPP and the League was not strong enough to

command a majority in the Assembly, they had to keep Independents on their side. As a

result, the portfolios were distributed in the interests of landlords and businessmen, and

the ministry was dominated by various vested interests. Nazimuddin (Home), Babar

Muhammed Habibullah (Agriculture and Industry), Khan Bahadur MusharruffHossain 70 9 Gallagher, 1 73, p.643. 71 "Due to congress decision of Ministry acceptance, we have refrained from negotiating any alliance or coclition as directed by the Congress President." ]. C. Gupta to Jawaharlal Nehru, 12 August 1937, AICC Papers P-5/1937. 72 A. L. Gordon, 1979, pp.283-285. As Gordon pointed out, the confrontation between Gandhi and Bose concerning presidential post exposed in Tripuri Congress must have this regional aspect.

155

(Judiciary and Legislature) were all landlords. The Hindu ministers were not necessarily

unimportant persons: Narini Ranjan Sarkar (Finance), the President of Bengal National

Chamber of Commerce and once the Mayor of Calcutta; Bijoy Prasad Singh Roy

(Revenue) was a landlord ofBurdwan.

In the process of the formation of the ministry, the KPP was markedly marginalised.

The number of ministers from the KPP was reduced to only one except Huq. 73 Although

Fazlul Huq held the post of the Premier, it was impossible to carry out the economic and

social programme which they promised in the election campaign. Huq was isolated

from the other members of the KPP who complained about the composition and the

performance of the ministry. Shamsuddin and other KPP members of the Assembly

accused Huq of breach of the election pledge. On 1 September, Huq responded to this

criticism by expelling seventeen members from the party. The expelled members started

a new group and joined the Opposition. It weakened further the position of Huq in the

ministry. He chose to give up the KPP and its programme in September and joined the

Muslim League publicly at the Annual Conference held in Lucknow in October 1937. 74

With the exclusion of the Krishak elements from the ministry, the ministry worked

solely for the vested interests. The prospect of the KPP initiative in the government had

gone.

There was a further difficulty for the Huq ministry. The existence of the Congress as

the largest single opposition party in the Assembly must have been the factor which

affected the course of the policy of the government. The Congress Parliamentary group

led by Sarat Bose opposed the measures of the government and severely attacked the

government on a number of occasions. As their only purpose was to throw out the

government, it was difficult to expect that they give up the attack for the concessions

73 Nausher Ali, the Minister for Local Self-Government and Shamsuddin Ahmad from the KPP were dropped from the cabinet just before the submission of the list to the Governor. Shila Sen, p.94-95. 74 Shila Sen, 1976, pp.97-99.

156

from the government. The only thing they could do in this situation was to consolidate

their own side: the government as a collection of various interests was constrained to

confine themselves to the policies that would not harm any constituent interest of the

Government.

Moreover, there was another interest that the government could not ignore: the

European Group. Originally, the function of the European Group was said to protect the

British commercial interests in the dyarchy. In the making of the Government of India

Act, 1935, too, the Europeans and Eirropean commercial interests were given large

number of seats in local legislatures; in the Bengal Legislative Assembly, they formed

the European Group· consisting twenty-three members. The Government required their

support in every measure they attempted to pass in the legislature. For the Government,

the support of the European Group was a matter of life or death. They could not have

survived the attacks from the Opposition without the support of the European Group in

the Assembly. This was shown in August 1938, when the Opposition submitted the no-

confidence motions against the Ministers of the ministry. On 8 August the Assembly

met "in an atmosphere of wild excitement in and outside the House", with the crowd

numbered about a lakh. The motions were submitted against every Minister

individually. The first of those motions, no confidence in Maharaja Srish Chandra

Nandy, Minister for Communications, was defeated by 130 voters to 111. All the

members of the European Group opposed the motion. 75 After that, other motions except

against Suhrawardy, Minister for Commerce and Labour, were withdrawn. It was said

that the survival of th~ Ministers was due to the European Group's opposition to the

75 Out of 111 voted for the motion, 53 were voted by the Congress, 18 the KPP,

14 Independent Scheduled Caste Party, 14 Independent Proja Party (led by Maulvi Tamizuddin and Syed Nausher Ali who had resigned as the Minister), 5 Nationalist Party, 2 Indian Christians, 2 ILP, 1 Anglo-Indian, 1 Representative of tea garden labour. Of 130 voted against the motion, 82 were by Coalition Party, 23 European Group, 9 Scheduled Caste members, 10 Ministers, 4 Nationalist Party, 2 Anglo-Indians. IAR, 1938, vol.2, pp.118-123.

157

motions. 76 In that situation, it was quite natural that the government was vulnerable to

the influence of the European Group.

The Government of India Act, 1935 required those in power to seek the support of

the lower classes. But the Bengal Coalition Government had two limitations to do this.

One significant limitation came from its intrinsic instability. It was unstable, because it

came into existence as a result of a complicated process of negotiation for a coalition of

three parties -the Congress, Muslim League, KPP, none of which could be dominant in

Bengal in the newly introduced constitutional system. The Muslim League-KPP

coalition thus formed had to face the strong opposition of the Congress. Another

limitation on the Government to carry out class measures was a domination of the

government by the vested interests, landlords and capitalists. The KPP interests being

marginalised in the cabinet, no interests were left which considered class measures to be

a benefit, at least, for their own. In addition, the government was under the influence of

the European Group, including European capitalist interests. Although they were

outside the government, they could wield a great influence on the government, through

their position as the casting vote in the Assembly, or, as we shall see in the next chapter,

through their connection with the government officials and the pressure groups outside

the legislatures.

Those two limitations on the coalition government were interrelated. The instability

of the government due to its narrow social base and the existence of strong opposition

made the support of, and solidarity among, the constituent vested interests. But the

dominance of the vested interests narrowed the social base of the government

indispensable. It was disadvantageous, if not fatal, under the Government of India Act,

1935, and made the government unstable even further.

Under these circumstances, the Bengal Coalition Government could not afford to

give concessions to lower classes in class relations. Any policy in the interest of lower 76 JAR, 1938, vol.2, p.120.

158

classes, if it was given as concession in class terms, was not compatible with other

interests of the coalition. The questions about class could not be tackled squarely. All

they had to do was to defuse the threat from lower classes, if possible at all, by means

other than class terms. The communally-biased measures of the coalition government

were the way to evade or to replace the concessions in class terms. In the questions such

as land relations, rural indebtedness, it worked well in the existing social structure in

Bengal. Apparently, the measures which the coalition without Krishak elements adopted

were for the benefit ofjotedars. But they were not due to the initiative by the KPP, nor

were they genuine class measures as the KPP promised earlier.

4. Comparison and Conclusions

For the purpose of comparison, we should observe the common factors in the

politics of both provinces under provincial autonomy. Extended franchise of the

Government of India Act, 1935 brought new social groups into the sphere of

constitutional politics. For the vested interests, whoever they were, it was essential to

get support of the new entrants by giving concessions to them to keep their influence in

the provincial politics. The failure to do this meant that the new group itself would

become a contender for power, or that other contenders utilised them to oust the vested

interests out of power. In addition to this, there were other factors helping popular

politics in the 1930s. The Civil Disobedience proved the effectiveness and necessity of

the participation of the mass in the nationalist ni.ovement. The Depression, which hit the

rural India in the late 1920s, gathered attention as an object ot sympathy or by their self­

expression through labour and peasant movement.

As we have said, the franchise provided in the Government of India Act, 1935

excluded the lowest strata of the societY - small peasants, agricultural labourer, and

industrial workers. But even then the government under the Act must have felt the need

159

to appeal to those classes. It was supposed that the restricted franchise was for

convenience and was just short of the universal franchise. Of course, that was an the

official reason; the real intention of the British Government was to exclude the mass

who they thought were to be the supporter of the Congress. Nonetheless, this official

reason was received by those who followed the constitutional politics of the

Governmeut oflndia Act, 1935. For them, the Government of India Act, 1935 was the

reward of their struggle in the past and one step before the Independent India where

everybody would entertain universal right as a citizen. The rejection of office meant the

denial of their way of struggle in the past and future. That situation gave the policies of

provincial governments more populistic tendency than they actually were. It is for this

reason that populistic phrases dominated the discourse of provincial politics in this

period: either in speeches of politicians and in measures adopted.

At the same time, there were differences in the attitudes of the government towards

class relations. How much the government was able to accept the general tendency of

mass politics depended on the relations between the government and various class

interests.

The class policy of the Bombay Congress Government reflected the vision on class

question of the Congress party, though it was not the perfect realisation of it. One

important political advantage of the Congress was the ability to draw strength from its

presence as the only political party of all-India character. In other words, they could

connect the local problems with the all-India level and control it beyond the local

context. This ability was based on the premise that the Congress represented not any

particular region but India as a whole. It is not intended to say that the Congress did not

depend for their existence on local politics. In fact, they did. But they gradually

developed the central organisations of the Party, which were independent from any local

interests and, therefore, was supposed to be able to coordinate local interests. The

llJO

growmg influence of the Congress High Command in the 1930s shows that the

authority of the Centre over local matters was strengthened.

The same thing can be said about the attitude of the Congress towards class

relations. The reason why the Congress, whose leadership doubtlessly came from

middle class, could mobilise the mass and why they could do this without losing the

support of landlords and capitalists, was their dissociation from any particular class

interest. They always gave a guarantee that their concern with a class would never be

harmful to the interests of others. It is true that there were deviations from this

neutrality: Inside the party, there were groups which represented the interest of

particular classes. But the very fact that such groups could coexist in the party proves

the multi-class character of the Congress. Indeed, it was not those who represented any

particular class interest but those who did not admit the multi-class character of the

Congress who were forced to quit the party. The multi-class character was essential for

their existence as the leading and the only nationalist party representing all the classes.

The Bombay Congress Government, which was run by the political party which, it was

supposed, could yield influence on large part of newly enfranchised as well as on the

vested interests, necessarily had a function of adjusting or balancing of all class

interests.

Of course, it was not an easy task to balance all the class interests in the face of

different and often contradictory demands from various classes. If the multi-class

character of the Congress as a party could be made possible by maintaining an elastic

organisational form, the Congress in power was often forced to express a clear position

in a particular question. In this sense, provincial autonomy, when the Congress came in

power for the first time, could have caused a change in their class policy. Nevertheless,

the Congress Government could not change this balancing class policy, because it

would mean the loss of the nationalist character o(the Government which reflected the

1 61

character of the Congress as a political party, and from which the Government derived

its popurality among the masses. It was due to the difficulty of pursuing the balancing

of various class interests in real politics that the Bombay Congress Government felt the

tension in handling the class questions.

In Bengal, it was the parties representing particular class interests that came to

power under the provincial autonomy. The KPP was the party of rich peasants, who

gradually strengthened their position vis-a-vis zamindars and newly enfranchised by the

Government of India Act, 1935. The Muslim League was not a class party. But without

a contact with the mass, they actually represented Muslim capitalists and landlords.

Besides these two main parties, the Coalition Government included various vested

interests; each of them represented the interests of commerce or landlords. In addition,

the European Group, whose support was essential for the Government, was working for

the British commercial interests. All of them were concerned with their own interests

only and lacked the idea or plan for multi-class society.

In addition, the Bengal Coalition Government was unstable because of the existence

of the Congress as a strong opposition. Although the Bengal Congress was essentially a

political party of bhadralok and cooperation with the Left in this period was only

tactical, their attacks on the government were mainly on class questions. For the

Government, there was no room for compromise on the class question. All that the

Govemment could do under those circumstances, was to protect the interests of the

constituent interests from the attack of the Congress which was more and more Left­

oriented in its tone. They could not afford to look for a solution to class question in

longer terms; at least it was not their immediate concern. The Government was so weak

in relation to the constituent interests that they could not put forward measures which

were harmful to the interests, even for a peaceful solution of class conflict.

The difference in the way of representing class interests between the Bombay and

162

Bengal Governments resulted in the difference in the definition of threats to the

government which had to be fought and eliminated. As the Bombay Congress

Government claimed to represent all the classes of the society, no particular class could

be a threat of the Government in theory. It was maintained that if one class had a

complaint against the Government, it could neither be fundamental nor insolvable

because the interest of the class was represented by the Government. Moreover, it was

claimed that any conflict between classes was solved by the Government as the

impartial authority, and peaceful representation was enough to have their complaints

heard by the Government which would be willing to do so. As a result, those who

would not subject themselves to the conciliatory authority of the Government and resort

to violent methods were perceived by the Congress Government in Bombay as a threat

to the order.

For the Bengal Coalition Government, which represented several particular

interests, other class interests could be more or less potential threats to the Government.

And the Government could not appease the opponents nor convert them to their allies:

the Government was so unstable due to the existence of a strong opposition party that

they could not alienate the constituent interests and weaken themselves. The constituent

interests, in their tum, had strong influence on the Government; Thus they were not be

able to carry out measures which would benefit those groups at the expense of the

constituent interests. Under the circumstance, the only choice left to the Government

was either to suppress those opponents by violent methods without regarding the

complete alienation of those classes or to mobilise the members of those classes by

other non-class methods, both of which the Bengal Coalition Government actually did.

Whether working classes or labour leaders of various characters came under those

definitions of threats in each provinces will be discussed later.

163