FEDERATION VERSUS FREEDOM 349
Paramountcy to the rights referable to the treaties. Unfortunately for the Princes they were disappointed, because the Butler Committee reported that the Paramountcy was paramount and that there could be no definition or delimitation of it. This decision of the Butler Committee meant a complete subordination of the Princes to the Political Department of the Government of India and the Princes were in search of an escape from this unfortunate position in which they were placed and they found, and quite rightly, that the only solution which can enable them to esape the tyranny of the Political Department was the Federation; because to the extent to which the Federal authority prevailed, the authority of the Political Department would vanish and as the Federal authority could only be exercised by a Federal Legislature and a Federal Executive and as they would have sufficient voice in the Federal Legislature and the Federal Executive they thought of federation. The federal solution of their problem offered two advantages to the Princes. The first was that it would secure to the States internal autonomy which they were very anxious to have, for it is of the essence of federating units to remain in their own hands all powers save those which they themselves have willingly delegated to a common centre and over which they themselves possess a share in the control. The second advantage of the Federation was that Paramountcy would disappear to the extent of the Federal authority. The motive of the Princes, therefore, was selfish and their primary aim was to get rid as much as possible of the authority of the Political Department of the Government of India. This was one of the primary interests of the Princes. The Princes had another interests to safeguard. That was to preserve their powers of civil and military government as much as possible. They wanted to make the Federation as thin as possible so that it might not impinge upon them very hard. The interest of the Princes is two-fold. They wanted to escape Paramountcy. Secondly, they did not want to subject themselves too much to the authority of the Federation. In looking at the Federation, the Princes keep two questions before them. How far will this Federation enable them to escape the tyranny of Paramountcy ? Secondly, how far does this scheme of Federation take away their sovereignty and their powers of internal government ? They want to draw more under the former and give less under the latter.
The Muslims had an interest which not only coloured their whole vision but made it so limited that they did not care to look at anything else. That interest was their interest as a minority. They knew only one means of protecting themselves against the Hindu majority. That was to ask for reservation of seats with separate electorates and weightage in representation. In 1930 they discovered that there was another and a more efficacious method of protecting the Muslim minorities. That was to carve out new Provinces in which Muslims would be in a majority and Hindus in a minority as a counterblast to Provinces with Hindus as a majority and Muslims as