ASSURANCE WILL NOT . . . . . . . . . TO CONGRESS 297
Constitutional law which by their Instrument of Instructions they are bound to carry out. To put it in simpler form one can give up power if there is no responsibility, but, one cannot give up power, if there is responsibility.
The existence of special powers in my judgment could never be urged as a serious ground of objection to the working of the Constitution.
Mahatma’s Reason
Mahatma Gandhi has given quite a different reason for demanding the assurance. The ground is so insubstantial that one wonders whether it could have been urged by any one who knows how constitutions are worked. He says : “a strong party with a decisive backing of the electorate could not accept to put itself in the precarious position of being all the time in dread of interference at the will of the Governor ;” self-respecting Minister conscious of his absolute majority. One would have thought that a Ministry conscious of its electoral strength instead of its electoral strength instead of cringing for an assurance would enter the field and defy the Governor and use their powers against him. “Surely if an undertaking is necessary at all, it is for a weak Ministry which has no electoral strength behind it to ask for it. An undertaking is not necessary for a strong Party like the Congress. Why are Congressmen begging for an assurance from the Governor of good behaviour. They can compel him to behave.
Governors can give Assurance
Could not the Governors have treated the Congressmen as we treat naughty children and stopped them from creating trouble by giving them an assurance for which they were crying? Reading the resolution of the A.I.C.C. and taking note of the fact that they were asking for an assurance in terms of that resolution. I believe that nothing would have been lost, if such an assurance had been given. It seems to me that as the Congress Ministers were giving an undertaking to act within the Constitution and this undertaking is quite explicit in their formula there was apparently no reason why the Governors should have refused to give the reciprocal undertaking that they would not exercise their special powers.