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DISTRICT ADVISORY COUNCILS.

[On 27th February 1912, Mr. Gokhale in moving a Resolution in the Imperial Legislative Council recommending the creation of District Advisory Councils, spoke as follows:-]

Sir, I beg to move that this Council recommends to the Governor-General in Council that steps should now be taken to bring district administration into closer touch with the people by creating, as far as possible, in every district in the different Provinces a District Council, composed of not more than nine members, partly elected and partly nominated, whose functions should be merely advisory to begin with, and whom the Collector should ordinarily be bound to consult in all important matters.

Sir, one of the most important and at the same time one of the most difficult problems connected with the Government of this country is how to liberalise the character of our district administration and to bring it into closer association with those who are affected by it. Leaving our local bodies for the time out of account and taking a broad survey, the fabric of our Indian administration may roughly be said to have the district administration for its base, the Provincial Governments and Administrations, in some cases with Executive Councils, in most with Legisla tive Councils, for the centre, and the Government of India with its Executive and Legislative Councils for the top, the Secretary of State with his Council standing behind all and above all, representing Parliamentary sanction, Parliamentary initiation and Parliamentary control. To put the same thing in another way, Sir, one might say that the immediate responsibilities of day to day administration rest on district officers, while the larger responsi bilities of the administration, including the work of guidance and control, as also of initiating policies and developing them, belong to the Provincial and Supreme Governments and to the Secretary of State. Now, Sir,

before the reforms of the last five years were introduced, the character of this administration was frankly and almost entirely bureaucratic. I use the term in no offensive sense, but simply to mean that it was administration by officials conducted with the aid of official light, and under merely official control. There was no provision in the whole machinery of administration, from top to bottom, for the direct and responsible representation of what might be called the Indian view of things, if one may speak of such a thing as the Indian view, in spite of our numerous differences among ourselves at any set of authority; and there was no responsible association of our people with any portion of the administration. The reforms of the last five years, however, by admitting Indians to the Secretary of State's Council, and to the Executive Councils of the Governor General and of Provincial Governments have, in the first place, provided for the direct and responsible representation of the Indian views at the principal seats of authority. Next, Sir, by enlarging the Councils, room has been found on those bodies for the representation, inadequate and unsatisfactory as it is, of different interests in the country, and lastly and above all, by the expansion of the functions of these Councils and in particular by the power of introducing Resolutions, which has been conferred upon members, we have been enabled to raise discussions on matters of public interest face to face with responsible officials; and this has on the one hand given a new sense of responsibility to the critics of the administration, and on the other it has ensured a proper and careful examination of our suggestions and our grievances at the hands of the Government, such as was not possible or was not deemed necessary before. Of course, we are yet a far way from having a real effective voice in the administration, leave alone the question of exercising a direct control over it; but what the recent reforms have achieved is that they have started a system, which tends more and more to substitute an administration conducted in the light of day, and under the eye of public criticism, for an administration conducted in the dark and this undoubtedly is a great step in advance. So far, therefore, as the centre and the top are concerned, the adminis

tration may now be said to be considerably liberalized, and we must all recognise that the fullest possibilities of these changes will have to be worked up to before the necessary momentum is gathered for a further advance. Our district administration, however, continues to be where it was not only five years ago, but, if we leave out of account the small measure of local self-government given by Lord Ripon, it continues to be where it was more than a hundred years ago. It is true that the position of the Collector-and I used the word 'Collector' to represent the head of the district, though in Non-Regulation Provinces that term is not used-has been considerably modified as regards his relations with other officials during the last 100 years and more, first by the creation of Commissionerships (that institution is itself three-quarters of a century old); secondly, by the multiplication of central departments; and thirdly, by the gradual evolution of a uniformity of administration which has rendered strong secretariat control both necessary and possible. But while the old position of the Collector in relation to other officials has thus been considerably modified so far as the people are concerned, there has been no improvement in the situation : if anything, the position has grown worse. This fact was freely admitted by witness after witness before the Decentralization Commission, and those who appointed the Commission were themselves fully alive to it, because one important object of the enquiry was stated by them to be how the district administration could be brought into closer touch with the people. There is no doubt that the present position of the Collector, so far as the people are concerned, is, in one sense, much weaker than it used to be. In the first place, owing to excessive secretariat control, he is unable any longer to grant redress on the spot. Secondly, owing to the multiplication of numerous central Departments, harassing departmental delays have become inevitable in the disposal of matters which, properly speaking, in the interests of the people, should be disposed of on the spot under the authority of the Collector. Thirdly, owing to the spread of English education in the country and other causes, there is not the same mastery of Indian languages now attempted by Collectors

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that they used to acquire before. Fourthly, the writing work of the Collector has increased enormously; he is thus tied largely to his desk, and therefore unable to acquire that same acquaintance with the requirements of the people that his predecessors were able to acquire. And, lastly, his back has been stiffened by the growth of political agitation in the country, and he has been, so to say, driven more within himself. All these factors have tended to affect his position for the worse, so far as administering the district in the interests of the people is concerned. The Decentralization Commission, which freely admits the existence of these defects, and which was appointed to suggest a remedy, was, unfortunately, so constituted that its eye was fixed more on official remedies than on nonofficial remedies. There was only one Indian member on it, and he too was an ex-official. But he was one of our foremost men and he was in favour of the proposal which I have laid before the Council to-day. All the members, with the exception of two, belonged to the Indian Civil Service, and the two outsiders had no knowledge of the country. The Commission therefore started with what I would call an official bias, and it did not seriously enquire into those remedies which may be called non-official remedies for the state of things which I have already described. The Commission suggested a large measure of delegation of powers from higher authorities to the Collector-an official remedy, pure and simple. However, as the mischief is admitted by everybody, the Council will recognize that it is desirable that the question should be examined from every standpoint, and any non-official remedies that can be suggested fully discussed; and it is because, Sir, I think that the proposal contained in my resolution is such a remedy-a remedy which seeks to associate non-officials with the work of administration-that I have brought forward the matter before the Council to-day.

Sir, there are those who regret that the old order has passed away, that the old autocracy of the Collector is no longer possible. It is significant, however, that some. official witnesses themselves do not share this regret, and recognise frankly that the past cannot be recalled. The

past really never returns, and in this matter, even if the past could return, I think it would not be desirable that it should return, for things are not where they were a century or even half a century ago. There is a new element introduced into the situation by the growth of an educated class in the country--an educated class that is entirely the creation of British rule. Now, by the educated class, I do not merely mean, what many of the witnesses before the Commission meant, namely, lawyers and other members of the learned professions. Sir, it is a pity that so many officials adopt an attitude of sneering particularly towards lawyers. Such an attitude, for one thing, is singularly inappropriate from the representatives in this country of a nation, which has at the present moment for its Prime Minister, for its Chancellor of the Exchequer and for its Minister for War, three lawyers in England. Sir, however, some officials may sneer at the lawyer element in India, the non-official public will always recognize-and I can make this acknowledgment with the less hesitation because I am no lawyer myself--that we owe a debt of gratitude to the lawyers for the manner in which they have built up the public life of this country. But though our lawyers are still our most independent element in public life, they are not the only persons who came under the category of the educated class. It is not only the lawyers or the school-masters or the editors that constitute that class; the educated men of the land-owning or mercantile class are also included in the description; men like my Hon'ble friend Sir Gangadhar Chitnavis who sits behind me, or my friend Sir Vitaldas Thackersey who sits on my left. Surely men like these gentlemen, who have come under the influence of Western education in the same way as others, are as much included in the educated class as any others. It may be that the special peculiarities of their position impose special restrictions on the way they express themselves. That is another thing. But we know for a fact that they hold more or less the same views as other members of the educated class. It cannot indeed be otherwise. Now, Sir, it is a matter of regret that the attitude of many official witnesses towards the educated class should be what one finds it in the

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