It is my pleasant duty to make a few grateful acknowledgements. I express my sincere gratitude to Professor W. H. Morris-Jones, University of Durham, England under whose scholarly and sympathetic guidance I had the privilege of doing this work. I would like to thank University of Dacca for granting me study leave for doing this research leading to a Ph.D. degree. I am also grateful to the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Commission in the U.K. ← xxvi | xxvii → whose financial grants enabled me to live in England with my family. I found it necessary to interview a few ex-members of the Central Legislature who are still alive in Britain and I am grateful to them for kindly sparing their time to talk to me (the names have been added to the Bibliography). I would like to thank particularly Sir Jeremy Raisman, the former Finance Member, Viceroy’s Executive Council who kindly read Chapter VIII and made useful suggestions. I must also thank the staffs of the India Office Library at the Commonwealth Relations Office, the British Museum, the India House Library and the London School of Economics and Political Science for their kind cooperation and help.
I am indebted to Mr. James S. Chaffey and Mr. David R. Bradley and T. J. Maughan of the British Council, Dacca who rendered valuable suggestions at the time of publication of this work. I am thankful to Professor G. W. Choudhury, Head of the Department of Political Science, University of Dacca for his encouragement in publishing this book. I am most grateful to Mr. Enamul Karim, Lecturer in English and Dr. M. Ali, Lecturer in History, University of Dacca who helped me immensely in going through the proofs and made useful suggestions. I take this opportunity of thanking my other colleagues in the University of Dacca who helped me in various ways towards its publication.
In spite of my best efforts, some typographical errors have crept in for which I crave the indulgence of my readers.
M. Rashiduzzarnan
Dacca,
August 2, 1965.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FOR THE SECOND EDITION
• In writing a new Preface for this edition of the book, I wanted to explore why the Central Legislature did not attract so many scholars and writers on this important institution compared to, for example, the Bengal’s provincial legislature. Dr. Taj Hashmi, a prolific scholar on South Asian history, helped me in appreciating the factors behind this intellectual phenomenon.
• I wish to acknowledge Dr. Nizam U. Ahmed, Professor of Public Administration, Chittagong University, Bangladesh for sharing his research on the Bangladeshi Parliament that helped me to compare the post-Colonial South Asian legislative encounters in the new Preface for this volume (see his book: The Parliament of Bangladesh, Ashgate, 2006).
• Professor Al Masud Hasanuzzaman, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh shared his writings and thoughts on Bangladeshi legislative politics, which too assisted me in comparing the British Indian legislature with the contemporary South Asian parliaments.
• I received a great deal of support and cooperation from my wife Maliha, two daughters Lilya and Faria and my son Asif while I was involved in the long process of revising and rewriting for this book’s new edition. My wife deserves double recognition here: for her sacrifices when I was ← xxix | xxx → working on the thesis and also for putting up with my long hours on the computer to prepare this text.
• My younger brother Dr. M. Waheeduzzaman, at the Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee helped in locating a few of the latest publications on the subcontinent’s legislatures.
• I received a solid support from a young couple Orlando Almonte and Rachel Mancini who skillfully transcribed the old book into digital formats: it helped me enormously to polish the manuscript and bring it to its present shape;
• My son-in-law Dr. Andrew L. Thorne-Lyman at the Johns Hopkins University was readily available to help me in the manuscript preparation.
• Finally, I wish to recognize a few persons at the Peter Lang without whose help, this publication would not have been possible. First, it was Ms. Kristine Purdy, the former acquisition editor at the Peter Lang who took initiative to consider this book for publication. And then, it was Ms. Michelle Smith and Mr. Luke McCord who offered me enormous support towards its publication.
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L.A. Deb. Legislative Assembly Debates.
C.S. Deb. Council of State Debates
I.L.C. Imperial Legislative Council.
M/C Report Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms, (Montagu-Chelmsford) 1918.
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DEVELOPMENT OF THE CENTRAL LEGISLATURE FROM 1861 TO 1920
The historic but failed Indian revolt in 1857, downgraded by the British Raj as little more than the Sepoy (soldiers) Mutiny save for the Indians who cherished the episode as the “first war of independence,” signified a change in the British Colonial imagination: the imperial government grasped that the great gap between the ruler and ruled in India should be bridged for better administration and peace in the subcontinent. Several British leaders felt that an institutionalized process of associating the Indians with the country’s law making process was essential for peace and stability of India.1 The Legislative Council under the Act, 1853 had six “legislative members” but none of them were Indian. It was hardly possible for the Government to know the Indian views on the legislative measures except through indirect sources. To remove this shortcoming, the Indian Councils Act, 1861, enabled the Governor-General to associate the “sons of the soil” with law-making. In addition to the ordinary members of the Council, not less than six and not more than twelve additional members (of whom at least one half were not government officials) could be appointed by the Governor-General. The additional non-official members were appointed for a two-year term. For the first time in the British period, the Indian members were directly associated with the legislative bodies: it was the significant new British Colonial stratagem. It is for this reason ← 1 | 2 → that the Indian Councils Act, 1861, is regarded as an important milestone in the Indian constitutional history, but as a matter of practice, those bodies were functionally restricted. Their role was decisively limited to legislation and they were even forbidden to ask questions or criticize executive policy.
The Indian lawmakers nominated to the Central Legislative Council from 1861 to 1891 were either the Indian Princes or big landowners or rich merchants or retired high officials. By modern standards of representative institutions, they could hardly be called the spokesmen of the Indian people at large. The Council proceedings indicated that the Indian members had hardly shown sufficient interest in the debates except on rare occasions: their speeches were, as a rule, short, read out of the manuscripts prepared before the actual debate. As a rule, they showed keener interest only in serious discussion of the Bills relating to property, taxation and inheritance, and most legislative proposals were passed with little deliberation,