Читать книгу The Central Legislature in British India, 192147 - Mohammad Rashiduzzaman - Страница 19

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· III ·

NATURE OF THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM AND ELECTIONS

Prior to the introduction of the 1919 Government of India Reforms, the electoral franchise had been awfully restricted: in the Indian Legislative Council, 18 elected members spoke for different interest groups and 9 represented, however remotely, the people as a whole.¹ The largest constituency which returned a member directly to the Indian Legislative Council did not exceed 650 persons and most of these constituencies were decidedly smaller.² The non-official members of the legislative body in each province constituted an electoral body to elect its representatives to the central legislative council. The average number of votes in those electoral outfits was only 22, while in one case the actual number was 9.³ Montagu was convinced of the need for a broad-based franchise; but he was not yet ready for any radical extension of the electorate. In his recommendation he said that the franchise enlargement should be determined with an appreciation of the practical difficulties than to any a priori consideration.⁴ He had his share of misgivings of a sudden “breakdown of the (administrative) machinery” under the presumed burden unleashed by the “sudden extension of franchise.”⁵ Eventually, a committee was appointed under the chairmanship of Lord Southborough to investigate the franchise issues and make necessary recommendations.

The Franchise Committee (Southborough) had its own part of wavering in expanding the electorate. Evidently, one main niggle to a more stretched ← 33 | 34 → franchise was the serious load it would impose on the administrative agency dealing with elections.⁶ The Committee was also worried about the “great strain” which an extended franchise would entail on the large number of inexperienced electors.⁷ Finally, the Committee proposed an indirect election for all general and commercial seats of the Legislative Assembly by the members of the Provincial Legislative Councils.⁸ The recommendations of the Committee are summarized in the Table I.

Only three types of constituencies i.e., European Commerce, Indian Commerce and landholders were allowed to elect representatives directly by the electors. For the Council of State also, the Committee recommended indirect election by the same electors for the Legislative Assembly except for two European Commerce constituencies. The Committee was aware of the obvious shortcomings of indirect elections. It hoped that in future the indirect election would be superseded by direct method but at that moment they saw “no alternative but to face the shortcomings inherent in the indirect system.”⁹ The Joint Select Committee of Parliament, however, did not accept that recommendation for indirect election,¹⁰ and at last, the Electoral Rules made under the Government of India Act, 1919, provided for direct elections to the Central Legislature. Eventually, the size of the electorate was indeed much wider compared to the original recommendations by the Southborough Committee.¹¹

Table I. Recommendations of the Electoral Size by the Franchise Committee (Southborough).

This Table has been taken from the Report of the Franchise Committee (Southborough), 1919. Para. 34. ← 34 | 35 →

Table II. Summary of Legislative Assembly Elections From 1920 to 1945.¹²

Table III. Summary of Council of State Elections From 1920 to 1930.¹³

One striking feature of the electoral system under the 1919 Act was the bewildering variety of electoral qualifications which were based on:

(I) community

(II) residence and

a. ownership or occupation of a building or

b. assessment to or payment of income tax or

c. assessment to or payment of municipal or cantonment rates or taxes or local cesses or

d. the holding of land, or

e. Membership of a local body.

But there was no uniformity in respect to any of these qualifications: the variety of qualifications was laid down in detail in Schedule II of the Legislative Assembly Electoral Rules and Regulations. Without narrating the full details of the diverse electoral qualifications, certain features can be discussed. ← 35 | 36 → The authors of the M/C Report possibly felt that in a country like India, owing to unequal distribution of population and wealth, an array of diverse electoral rules was inevitable.¹⁴ The Southborough Committee too did not seek “uniformity” in the voters’ property qualifications in all the provinces.¹⁵ Norms in Muhammadan constituencies were different from those of non-Muhammadan constituencies: education and property qualifications in the Muslim constituencies were generally lower than those of the other constituencies because of the Muslim community’s relative backwardness. Property qualifications in the landholders’ constituencies were the highest. Residence qualification was not obligatory in European constituencies; every person registered on the electoral roll of a constituency was entitled to vote at an election of a member or members for that constituency.¹⁶ But no person could be registered as an elector in more than one constituency and consequently no person could vote at any general election in more than one general constituency.¹⁷

Qualifications for candidates usually follow closely those for electors as it is normally held that any voter is good enough to be a candidate. But the Assembly and Council of State Electoral Rules imposed certain special disqualifications. A person was not eligible for election as a member of the Legislative Assembly or Council of Sate if such a person:

a. was not a British subject; or

b. was a member of the Legislative Assembly and had made oath or affirmation as such member; or

c. having been a legal practitioner had been dismissed or was under suspension from practicing as such by order of any competent court; or

d. had been adjudged by a competent Court to be of unsound mind; or

e. was under 25 years of age; or

f. was an insolvent; or

g. being a discharged insolvent had not obtained from the Court a certificate that his insolvency was caused by misfortune without any misconduct on his part.¹⁸

No female was entitled to sit in the Council of State or vote for election to it; it was, however, open to the Council of State to remove either or both of these barriers by passing a resolution. In 1936, the Council of State passed a resolution giving women the right to vote in the election of its members.¹⁹ But the right to sit as its member was never granted to women. However, women were eligible to stand, as candidates for Assembly Constituencies in any province where they might be elected to the provincial legislature. The first woman was elected to the Assembly from Madras in 1945. ← 36 | 37 →

On or before the date fixed for the nomination of candidates, each contender either in person or by his proposer and supporter together, between the hours of eleven o’clock in the forenoon and three o’clock in the afternoon, had to deliver to the Returning Officer a nomination paper completed in specified form.²⁰ On or before the date of nomination, each candidate had to deposit the sum of Rs. 500 in cash or in Government Promissory Notes of equal value and no candidate was deemed to be duly nominated unless such deposit was made.²¹ The payment was liable to be forfeited by the Government if the candidate did not receive more than one-eighth of the total number of votes polled. The number of persons whose deposits were forfeited at various Assembly elections has been given below:

Table IV. Number of Candidates Who Forfeited Their Deposits.

Year of election	No. of candidates who forfeited their deposits
1920	No record available
1923	No record available
1926	21
1930	7
1934	27
1945	52

The number of candidates who forfeited their deposits did not necessarily indicate that they were bogus candidates; there were always a few candidates with overwhelming local prestige and great political stature against whom even a serious candidate associated with a party could get only a negligible number of votes. On the other hand, when the Congress Party swept the polls in 1934 and 1945 many experienced independent politicians forfeited their deposits. The popularity of the Muslim League in 1945 was so great that there was little scope even for the most influential Muslim landlord to be successful in the election without the League’s prop. For example, an experienced politician and influential landlord like Sir A. H. Ghuznavi forfeited his deposit contesting as an independent candidate against a Muslim League nominee.

There were seven types of constituencies in the Assembly electorate: non-Muhammadan (Urban & Rural), Muhammadan (Urban & Rural) Sikh, General, Landholders, Europeans and Indian Commerce. Such a variety of constituencies resulted from the special considerations given to the Muslims, Sikhs, Europeans, Landholders and Indian Commerce for representation. Special electoral representation was, by itself, always a controversial ← 37 | 38 → issue: communal representation of the Muslims was a topic of great controversy in Indian politics as already indicated in several chapters of this book.

The authors of the M/C Report commented that any communal electorate system would be a severe hindrance to the development of democratic institutions in India.²² But the case of separate Muslim electorate was ultimately conceded as a “regrettable necessity” which would continue till conditions altered towards the realization of a common citizenship.²³ The Southborough Committee too recommended the communal representation’s continuity and provided for the preparation of separate Muhammadan and non-Muhammadan electoral rolls.²⁴

Under the Morley-Minto Councils, the Muslims in many constituencies had double votes, but the M/C Report strongly recommended that Muslims should no longer be allowed to vote in general electorates as well as in their special ones.²⁵ The recommendation was accepted, but the more difficult task was to determine the proportion of Muhammadan and non-Muhammadan seats. Without taking the risk of raising any fresh controversy, the Southborough Committee followed the agreement reached by the Congress and Muslim League at Lucknow in December 1916 regarding the Hindu-Muslim proportion of representation.²⁶ It was recommended by the Committee that out of 80 elected seats 23 would go to the Muhammadans.²⁷ For the Council of State, the Committee proposed 7 Muhammadan seats out of 23 elected members.²⁸ Finally the Electoral Rules made under the Act arranged the distribution of seats in the Assembly and Council of State which are summarized in the following tables (set out on the next pages).

Up to 1947, the Muslim representation as indicated in those tables did not undergo any significant change; one General seat was given to N.W.F.P. from 1934 which in fact returned a Muslim candidate. There was no representative from Burma in 1945 as it was already separated from India.

Special representation to various interests such as Landholders, Commerce, Europeans and Sikhs was too a contentious issue. Montagu took it for granted that landholders deserved special representation for a number of reasons: they generally stood for the “ancient and well-born families” and by “influence, position and education” they were fitted to take a leading part in public affairs.²⁹ To Montagu, the landed aristocracy represented the “natural and acknowledged leaders in the country.”³⁰ The Southborough Committee did not face any serious opposition for offering special representation to the landed aristocracy. But in 1932, the Indian Franchise Committee (Lothian) confronted an opposition to this idea. The irrelevance of the landholders’ representation was pointed out in a minute of dissent by three Indian members, ← 38 | 39 → ← 39 | 40 → namely S. B. Tambe, C. Y. Chintamani and G. K. Gokhale. One core position was that many landlords were frequently returned by the general elections for the Central and Provincial Legislatures and as such their special legislative seats were unnecessary. The Committee half-heartedly agreed to the idea of retaining the existing number of seats but did not accept the demand of the landlords to increase their special representation.³¹ Finally, the Federal Assembly, envisaged under the 1935 Act, retained the earlier 7 seats for the landholders.

Table V. Distribution of Seats in the Legislative Assembly.

*Excluding one non-Muhammadan constituency in Berar. Table constructed from the official records and newspaper reports.

Table VI. Distribution of Seats in the Council of State.

It was recommended in the M/C Report that “special electorates” would be required for representation of the plantation and mining interests and chambers of Commerce.³² One main justification for more special electorates for commerce and industry was to bring in some members with specialized knowledge in those fields. In the Legislative Council under the Morley-Minto Reforms, there were only two elected commerce seats. While recommending a larger number of seats for commerce and industry, the Southborough Committee pointed out that elections through associations had worked well in the ← 40 | 41 → past and should therefore be recommended for the future.³³ The commercial constituencies were associational instead of being territorial like other general constituencies. Since the introduction of the Reforms, there was a growing demand for more legislators speaking for Indian and European Commerce. But it became a debatable issue. The demand was driven on the assumption that representation of commerce and industry could not be obtained through general territorial constituencies. Special seats for European commerce were stressed as the European businessmen were reluctant to stand for election by mixed European and Indian voters.³⁴

There were, however, numerous arguments put forward against special representation of commerce and industry. Firstly, there were several businessmen in the Assembly as well as the Council of State elected through ordinary territorial constituencies. So the separate representation for their interests was excessive. The proceedings of the Central Legislature also revealed that the House did not face any dearth of expert opinion when the commerce and industry matters were debated on the floor.³⁵ Secondly, a common objection was that special representations created a cleavage among the non-official members in the House as well as the larger electorate. Potentially, it also encouraged those representatives to ascertain issues from their respective narrow and selfish points of views. The minute of dissent to the Franchise Committee (Lothian) Report pointed out that members elected by special electorates might not be able to make “a wholly dispassionate examination of particular economic issues.”³⁶ Thirdly, the idea of granting separate electorates for European Commercial bodies was criticized as superfluous. Furthermore, the note of dissent to the Lothian Committee argued that no separate European electorates should be created and in each province all associations representing commerce, trade and industry should be combined into one special commercial constituency for election purposes.³⁷ But the Committee (a majority of the members) found it unacceptable and the existing separate European representation was recommended “until a mutual understanding was reached.”³⁸ The procedure of conducting the elections was very much the same as in the Western countries. If the number of candidates nominated was greater than the number of vacancies in a particular constituency, a poll was taken.³⁹ But in case the number of such candidates was equal to the number of vacant seats, all the candidates were declared to be elected.⁴⁰

Votes were given by secret ballot and in general constituencies in person subject to one exception: the Viceroy in Council or local government of a province could direct in certain special cases that votes might be given ← 41 | 42 → otherwise than in person.⁴¹ In practice, voting by post was only allowed for the Council of State elections. Voting by proxy was illegal in all circumstances. In the plural member constituencies, every elector held as many votes as there were members to be elected but no elector could give more than one vote to any one candidate except in the presidency of Bombay where any elector could accumulate his votes upon one candidate or distribute them amongst candidates as he pleased.⁴² An exception to this rule was also made in the Bengal European constituency where the election held according to the principle of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote.

Votes were counted by or under the supervision of the Returning Officer, and each candidate, his election agent and one representative of each candidate had a right to be present at the time of counting.⁴³ When the counting of votes was completed, the Returning Officer forthwith declared the candidate or candidates, as the case might be, to whom the largest number of votes was given, to be elected.⁴⁴ When an equality of votes existed between candidates and the addition of one entitled, any of the candidates to be declared elected. On such exceptional circumstances, the determination of the person or persons to whom such an additional vote should be given was decided by a lottery to be drawn in the presence of the Returning Officer.⁴⁵ The Returning Officer used to send the result of election as soon as possible to the Secretary of the Legislative Department, Government of India; and later, the names of the successful candidates were published in the Gazette.

Part VII of the Electoral Rules and Regulations gave various details of dealing with the corrupt practices in elections. There was also a special legislation⁴⁶ providing for criminal punishment of certain election offences. The malpractices in connection with elections were bribery, treating (giving food or conveyance or entertainment to induce anybody to vote), undue influence or impersonation at an election, false statements or illegal payment in connection with an election and failure to keep election accounts.⁴⁷ To try election disputes, the Governor-General appointed an Election Tribunal consisting of three Commissioners who could declare any election of a returned candidate null and void if they found that any of the offences affected it.⁴⁸ All the records of election disputes from 1921 to 1945 were not available. However Hammond’s volume on election cases from 1921 to 1935 revealed that only 11 disputes were concerned with the Assembly and Council of State elections. Most of those disputes were concerned with inaccuracies in nomination and ballot papers, the powers of Returning Officers and mistakes in counting. There were only three cases dealing with the ← 42 | 43 → publication of false statements and improper voting impersonation. There was no case of bribery. In 1935, the election of Ebrahim Haroon Jaffer as a member of the Assembly was declared void as he was found guilty of publishing false statements against his rival.⁴⁹ There was a common feature in all these disputes. In every case, the petitioner was defeated by marginal votes. It might be suggested that the candidates defeated by marginal votes wanted to take a second chance by filing a case on the plea that the election was unduly influenced by corrupt practices. In five cases out of eleven, the elections were declared void.

Alleged corrupt practices in elections were discussed from time to time in the Central Legislature. An important debate was held in the Council of State on the 27th February, 1935 when Raja Ghaznafar Ali strongly urged the Government to take the earliest steps to get rid of various malpractices in elections.⁵⁰ Among other issues, he pointed out the following corrupt practices:

a. impersonation

b. entertaining the voters and,

c. excessive election expenditure.

He emphasized the malpractices were more often found in the Punjab. He said: “My experience is that some candidates spend thousands of rupees nearing a lakh on their elections. Most campaign money was spent on providing conveyances, motor cars, lorries etc. for the voters and also providing food for them when they come to the polling stations.”⁵¹ Disproportionate expenditure was an offence as the Governor-General always fixed the maximum scales of election expenses and the amount was returned to the successful candidate. Giving food and providing conveyance was a matter of controversy. While discussing the above resolution, some non-official members pointed out that in rural areas some provision should be made to provide conveyance as the voters had to travel a long distance. On the 28th March, 1936, there was another discussion in the Assembly about election malpractices. Sardar Saran Singh alleged that a few polling officers were “actually purchased by the candidates” and the voting scratch was little more than the pleasure of the officer who marked the ballot papers for illiterate voters.⁵² In order to help the illiterate voters to cast their votes properly without being unduly influenced by the Returning Officer, there was a provision in some of the provinces to use colored ballot boxes. Each candidate had to select one particular color for his ballot box. The Franchise Committee (Lothian) strongly recommended the use of colored boxes in all the provinces. ← 43 | 44 →

Tables II and III provided summaries of general elections for the Assembly and Council of State; they signified certain special trends which require a little elaboration. One feature was that a good number of the seats were filled without contest: the number of members returned unopposed in 1929 and 1930 were 39 and 65 respectively in the Assembly. On both these occasions, the Congress boycotted the elections and, therefore, many persons with local influence were returned without contest. Only 29 members were returned without contest in 1923; it was the smallest number of unopposed members in the Assembly from 1921 to 1945. One obvious reason for this was the contest of Swarajists and other nationalist Independents who were determined to oust the so-called Moderates among the Indian politicians. In 1926, some of the members who returned without opposition were the Swarajists. The Congress contested the 1934 elections and 32 members returned unopposed, eight of whom were amongst the Congress and Congress-Nationalist nominees. There was a sweeping victory for Congress and Muslim League in 1945 when out of 46 uncontested members, 36 belonged to the Congress and the Muslim League. Detailed analysis of the uncontested seats (Table VII) divulged that the European constituencies seldom held election as almost all the members recurrently returned without contest. The Indian Commerce constituencies also returned most of their members unopposed except in 1920 and 1934; one main reason for the lack of contest was the absence of party politics in those bodies. Except in 1920, the landholders’ constituencies also returned nearly half the seats without contest; possibly, most prominent landlords won without contest.

If we make a comparative study of uncontested seats in Muhammadan and non-Muhammadan constituencies, it was clear that except in 1926 and 1945, nearly half the Muslim seats were returned without contest. The number of uncontested Muslim seats in 1926 and 1945 were 7 and 8 respectively in the Assembly; it was, however, difficult to ascertain the precise reasons for a greater proportion of unopposed seats in the Muhammadan constituencies. However, several likely reasons were not difficult to perceive: before 1945, there was no country-wide attempt by the Muslim political organizations to contest the Central Legislature elections. Most of the Muslim members were returned as Independents; in the absence of party-politics, there was a greater scope for the prominent Independents to get through without contests in certain constituencies. There were a few provinces, for example, the Punjab and the U.P. that mainly returned unopposed candidates to the legislature: the relative backwardness of the Muslim community was one of the potential causes ← 44 | 45 → for such a tendency. Another possibility was that the constituencies returning unopposed candidates did not actually have any rival who could come forward to contest the locally dominant lawyer, landlord or businessman. What is more, the proportion of the Muslim candidates for contested seats was also generally lower than those of non-Muhammadan constituencies in most of the provinces. Such dearth of candidates in Muhammadan constituencies was, perhaps, the relatively smaller number of Muslims in the professions. Generally, most of the Muslim candidates were landed aristocrats.