Constitutional history of India (1765 -1984)

There is no denying the fact that British rule in India gave administrative unity to this vast country and brought about political integration which had been denied to it for nearly two hundred years, considering that the Mughal Empire had started disintegrating during the latter part of Aurangzeb's reign. Normally, our association with a nearly perfect Parliamentary Demo. cracy should have facilitated the growth of parliamentary institutions based on the liberty of the individual. What actually happened, however, was neither unnatural nor unexpected. In the words of Lala Lajpat Rai, "an appeal to the generosity, magnanimity and sense of justice of an individual sovereign or ruler may for once meet with success, but that to a nation or democracy never can. No rule over foreign people is so exacting and so merciless in its operations as that of a democracy. A democratic form of government may be good for domestic purposes, but the domina tion of a democracy over other peoples is disastrous in its effects and is fraught with possibilities of infinite mischief." This statement will become perfectly understandable if we remember what Tagore said about a nation in his lecture entitled Nationalism in the West. "A nation," he said, "is a society organised for exploitation." As an illustration of this definition we may cite Joseph Chamberlain on Britain's interest in the Indian Empire. "The Empire," he said, "is commerce and India by far the greatest and the most valuable of all the customers we have or ever shall have." No wonder Britain remained steadfastly disinclined to promote free institutions in her Indian Empire, and, before leaving this country under a historical compulsion, effectively queered the pitch for the growth of such institutions.