The Independence of India
| Date | 01 October 1946 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070204600100402 |
| Published date | 01 October 1946 |
| Author | Graham Spry |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Independence
of India
Graham
Spry
"
6
time,
not
very
remote,
will
arrive
when
England
will,
on
sound
principles
of
policy, wish
to
relinquish,"
a
Governor-
General,
Lord
Hastings
wrote
in
1818,
"the domination
which
she
has
gradually
and
unintentionally
assumed over
this country."
This
moment
is
now
within
view,
and
the
sessions
of
the
con-
stituent
assembly,
elected
in
the
month
of
July
and
soon to
meet,
will
exercise,
in
practice,
sovereign
authority
to
draft
a
constitu-
tion
of
a
free
India,
within
or
without the
British
Commonwealth,
and
to
negotiate
with the United
Kingdom
a
treaty
to
determine
the
relations
between
the
two
states.
If, in
the
event,
the
final
act
of
transfer
be
delayed
the
cause
is
no
longer
to
be
found
in
the
principles
or objects
of
British
policy
or
in
the
impediments
and
restraints
of
British
influence
in
the
Government
of
India,
but
in
the
historic
disunity
and
solemn
conflict,
between
Hindu
and
Moslem
within
India
itself.
In
the
resolution
of
this
conflict
by
the
acts
of
Indians
themselves,
rests
the
issue
of
peace
or civil
war
in
a
numerous
and
diverse population
which
represents
almost
a
fifth
of
the
human
race.
In
the
peaceful
resolution
of
that
conflict,
and
in
the
establish-
ment
of
an
Indian
Union
with
a
constitution
which
secures
not
only
the
independence
of
India,
but,
a
far
more
difficult
task,
the
freedom
of
Indians
within India
will
also
be
found,
in
the
years
to
come,
the
final
test
of
British
rule
in
India.
Will
three
cen-
turies
of
commerce
and
influence,
a
century
of
direct
governance,
and
a
generation
of
increasing
degrees
of
self-government,
have
succeeded,
as
old
James
Mill
would have
it,
in
"engrafting
the
fruits
of
liberty
on
the
tree
of
despotism?" Macaulay,
whose
famous
minute
introduced
the
teaching
of
English
into
India,
used
no
less
grandiloquent
language:
"It
may
be,"
he
said
in
the
House
of
Commons
in
1833,
"that
the
public
mind
of
India
may
expand
under
our
system
till
it
has
outgrown
that
system;
..
that,
having
become
instructed
in
European
knowledge,
they
may,
in
some
future
age,
demand European
institutions.
. .
288
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