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Does not the case of India itself prove the point ? If India today has a feeling of unity and nationhood, however inchocate, the cause of it admittedly is the common Government under which she has been living since the British rule. Historically as well as logically it seems to me not open for any one to urge that the diversity of condition and peoples puts a bar in the way of India’s self-government. Indeed, if the ideal is that India should be a united nation, I venture to say, selfgovernment would be the most potent instrument for the realisation of that ideal.
II. Conditions of the Problem.
- You will no doubt ask, is this diversity of conditions and peoples prevalent in India a matter of no consequence ? Need we not take it into account in framing the constitution for a self-governing India ? I say without hesitation that we must. There is a tendency in the average Congress politician in India to ignore this diversity of conditions and peoples and to insist upon a constitution for a self-governing India free from any limitations or restrictions. Gentlemen, where would be the centre of political power in the constitution of a self-governing India which did not recognise the social conditions of the country ? Do you think it will find its lodgement in the members of the minority communities ? Do you think it probable that the lower classes can become heirs to it ? If I am certain of anything it is of this; that in a self-governing India which did not recognize the hard facts of Indian society the strings of political power will be in the hands of the ambitious members of the upper strata of Indian society drawn from the high-placed, well educated and opulent castes, i . e. in the hands of the aristocracy of wealth, education and social standing. In politics as in other walks of life the victory is always to the stronger. The aristocracy will have the resources derived from wealth and education. But this will not be the only advantage in favour of the aristocracy against which members of the minor and weaker communities will have to struggle for their share of political power. There is another which, though subtle in its operation. is yet real. It consists in its social determinism. In this