द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

116 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE man and among the members were Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru (Allahabad), Sir Sivaswami Aiyer (Madras), Mr. M. A. Jinnah (Bombay) and Dr. Paranjpye (Poona)—all of them being Liberal (Moderate) politicians—who submitted a minority report. The Committee as a whole reported that there were serious defects in the Constitution and in the manner in which it had been worked. The majority of the members, consisting mostly of officials, recommended a number of minor modifications which would help the working of the Constitution. The minority reported that such modi- fications would be of little avail and that a satisfactory opera- tion of the Constitution would be possible only when it was revised with a view to introducing responsible government in the provinces and at least a measure of responsibility in the Central Government. It should be noted in this con- nection that the Swaraj Party in the Assembly did not co-operate with the Muddiman Committee in any way and the report of the Committee was altogether disappointing from the Swarajist point of view. While the major issues were being tackled by its members in the Assembly, the Swaraj Party was following obstructive tactics in all the provincial legislatures. In the Assembly there was hardly any room for obstruction or deadlock be- cause the Viceroy could easily override the legislature by his special powers of ‘veto’ and ‘certification.’ Moreover, all the departments of the Central Government were adminis- tered by members who were under the full control of the Viceroy and were neither elected members of the Assembly nor removable by a vote of that body. In the provinces, on the other hand, the departments called ‘transferred’ depart- ments were administered by ‘ministers’ who were elected members of the provincial legislature and were subject to the vote of that body—while the other departments called ‘reserved’ departments, were administered by members who were quite independent of the vote of the legislature.¹ The Swarajist tactics in the provincial legislatures therefore con- sisted in attacking the ministers and their ‘transferred’ departments. The salaries of the ministers would be either ¹ Because of this dual system, the constitution was called ‘diarchy’.