INDIA: Sword For Pen

About 270,000,000 people, nearly six times the population of the British Isles, live in British India and last week they were given an entirely new setup of their provincial governments. The province called "Bombay Presidency" is by itself two-and-a-half times the size of England and five times more populous than Scotland. Thus a change of greatest magnitude was performed last week at New Delhi by the Viceroy & Governor General of India, an able Scottish banker, His Excellency the Most Hon. the Marquess of Linlithgow. Instead of saying presto-chango, the Viceroy caused his weekly Gazette to swell up for the occasion into a big book.

By a few choice pages the huge province of Burma, nearly seven times the size of England, was detached from India alto gether and set up as a separate British realm. Its ruler was appointed last week by the Emperor, George VI, his choice for Governor of Burma lighting upon Sir Archibald Cochrane, Knight Commander of the Star of India, D. S. O. Also de tached from India and set up last week as a Crown Colony was small, highly strategic Aden, only 80 sq. mi. in area.

Long in advance His Majesty's Government chose to make this epochal change on April Fools' Day. Not thousands but millions of the Indian people rose that morning last week to don black armbands and break out black flags and bunting.

They thus went into nation-wide mourning to emphasize the Indian view of what has been taking place since the Mother of Parliaments enacted in London a new Constitution for India (TIME, Aug. 12, 1935). The most recent key event was for the Indian National Congress Party, long headed by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, to win elections giving it a majority in the legislatures of Bombay Presidency, Madras, Bihar and Orissa, the Central Provinces and the United Provinces (TIME, March 8). Together these make up three quarters of the population of British India. Taking returns from all provinces into account, the Party of Gandhi won a nation-wide majority as impressive as that won last autumn by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.* This popular mandate went to a party which had gone to the polls with a platform of opposing the new Constitution.

In Indian eyes the feature of this document which permits the white British Governor of any province to act not only with the advice of the local native cabinet but also without their advice or against their advice, is the feature most open to question. In British eyes it means that each white Governor can be trusted to allow each native cabinet all proper latitude and scope toward development in India for the first time of representative democracy, while vigilantly curbing any cabinet activities of an unfortunate or subversive nature.

To most dwellers in Great Britain this translation of "Mother Knows Best" into a system of government for the Indian Empire is just about the most admirable achievement of modern times, if indeed His Majesty's Government have not been too generous with the Indian people, those "Lesser Breeds" as Poet Kipling dubbed them in Queen Victoria's day.