The Indian Councils Act 1892

The Indian Councils Act, 1892

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The Indian Councils Act, 1892, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that authorised an increase in the size of the various legislative councils across British India. Coming three decades after the Indian Councils Act of 1861, it emerged directly out of mounting pressure from the newly formed Indian National Congress, whose early resolutions had explicitly demanded reformed, more representative councils with genuine budgetary powers.

What the Act eventually delivered fell well short of these demands — introducing the principle of election only in heavily disguised form, and leaving real control over administration and finance firmly in official hands — yet it nonetheless marked a genuine, if cautious, step beyond the purely nominated councils of 1861, and is often described as the first faint step toward a parliamentary system in India.

Background

• The growth of India’s constitutional structure after the Act of 1861 is, in large part, the story of political disaffection and agitation alternating with grudging Council reform — reforms that, once conceded, were invariably found inadequate, generating fresh disaffection and renewed demand for further change. This pattern would hold true for every subsequent Act relating to India passed by the British Parliament, namely those of 1892, 1909, 1919, and 1935.
• The Legislative Council created by the 1861 Act had, unsurprisingly, failed to satisfy the aspirations of the Indian people.
  • Its non-official element, negligible to begin with, did not genuinely represent the people at all — consisting instead of big zamindars, retired officials, or Indian princes, none of whom could reasonably claim to understand the problems of ordinary Indians.
• The Indian National Congress, from its founding, had set itself the initial objective of mobilising public opinion in India, airing the grievances of the people, and pressing for reform through constitutional — though nonetheless emphatic — means.
  • Even before the 1892 Act was passed, the Congress had adopted resolutions at its sessions in 1885 and 1889, setting out clear demands: reform of the legislative councils and the adoption of the principle of election in place of nomination, along with a requirement that all budgets be referred to these Councils for consideration.
  • Indian leaders sought the admission of a considerable number of elected members, a genuine right to discuss budget matters, and the creation of similar legislative councils for the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, as well as for the Punjab — demands that together reflected the Congress’s broader dissatisfaction with the existing system of governance.
• The British Government’s initial stance toward the Congress had been friendly and sympathetic, but this attitude shifted markedly by 1888.
  • Lord Dufferin, in that year, launched a frontal attack on the Congress, dismissing it as representing only “a microscopic minority” and branding its demands “a big jump into the unknown.”
  • Yet even as Dufferin publicly belittled the Congress’s importance and representative character, he privately recognised the significance of the movement it had launched, and secretly forwarded proposals to England for liberalising the Councils.
    • He appointed a Committee of his own Council to draft a plan for enlarging the Provincial Councils, enhancing their status, multiplying their functions, partially introducing the elective principle, and generally liberalising their character as political institutions — while insisting, in the same breath, that this should not be read as any move toward a British-style parliamentary system, an intention he strongly repudiated.
  • The Committee’s report, together with Dufferin’s own views, was forwarded to the authorities in England, proposing changes to the composition and functions of the Councils, aimed principally at giving “a still wider share in the administration of public affairs to such Indian gentlemen as their influence is fitted to assist with their counsel the responsible rulers of the country.”
  • On this basis, the Conservative Ministry in England, at the instance of Lord Cross, then Secretary of State for India, introduced a bill in the House of Lords in 1890. The measure progressed slowly, finally becoming law two years later as the Indian Councils Act, 1892.

Provisions of the Act

• The Act dealt exclusively with the powers, functions, and composition of the Legislative Councils in India.

The Central Legislature

• The number of additional (non-official) members on the central Council was increased to between 10 and 16, giving it a composition of 6 officials, 5 nominated non-officials, 4 members nominated by the provincial legislative councils of Bengal, Bombay, Madras, and the North-Western Provinces, and 1 member nominated by the Chamber of Commerce in Calcutta. The Law member was, for the first time, made a permanent member of the Council.
  • In practice, the 1892 Council consisted of 24 members, of whom only five were Indian. Critics dismissed the increase as “a very paltry and miserable addition,” though Curzon defended it on the grounds “that the efficiency of a deliberative body is not necessarily commensurate with its numerical strength.”
• The Act further provided that two-fifths of the Council’s total membership be non-official — partly nominated and partly elected — conceding the principle of election to a limited extent, with an elective element introduced for the very first time. Regulations for the nomination of additional members were to be framed by the Governor-General, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State in Council.
• The rights of Council members were correspondingly expanded: they could now express their views on the Budget, which was henceforth to be presented on the floor of the Legislatures — though they remained unable to move resolutions or divide the House on any financial question. They were also empowered to put questions to the Government, within certain limits, on matters of public interest, after giving six days’ notice — though without any right to ask supplementary questions.

The Provincial Legislatures

• The Act similarly enlarged the number of “additional” members at the provincial level: 8 to 20 in the case of Bombay and Madras, 20 for Bengal, and 15 for the North-Western Provinces and Oudh — giving the Councils of Bombay, Madras, and Bengal a maximum of twenty additional members apiece, of whom nine were officials, four nominated non-officials, and seven elected.
  • The bodies empowered to elect these provincial members were District Boards, Municipalities, Universities, and Chambers of Commerce.
• In terms of function, members of the Provincial Legislatures secured the right of interpellation of the executive on matters of general public interest, and could discuss government policy and ask questions — again subject to six days’ prior notice, and, as at the Centre, liable to be disallowed without any reason being given.

The Principle of Election under the Act

• The Act’s most significant feature was the principle of election it introduced — though the word “election” itself was carefully avoided throughout the text.
  • At the Central Legislature, in addition to the officials, five elected non-official members were provided for: one each elected by the non-official members of the four Provincial Legislatures of Madras, Bombay, Bengal, and the North-Western Provinces, and one elected by the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce. The remaining five non-officials continued to be nominated directly by the Governor-General.
  • At the Provincial Legislatures, the bodies permitted to elect members were Municipalities, District Boards, Universities, and Chambers of Commerce — though members chosen in this way were officially designated as “nominated,” the government simply taking these bodies’ recommendations into consideration, precisely so as to avoid using the word “election.”

Significance of the Act

• The Indian Councils Act of 1892 represented a genuine advance on the Act of 1861, and can reasonably be described as a first step toward the beginnings of a parliamentary system in India.
  • The principle of election, however veiled its form in the 1892 Act, carried considerable constitutional significance in its own right.
• The Act also widened the functions of the legislatures in real, if limited, ways.
  • Members could now ask questions and thereby obtain information they desired from the executive.
  • The financial accounts of the current year and the following year’s budget were presented to the legislatures, with members permitted to make general observations on the budget and suggest increases or decreases to revenue or expenditure — allowing them, at the very least, to engage in genuine criticism of the Government’s financial policy.
• As the functions of the legislatures widened, they began to attract the country’s most talented public figures.
  • Eminent Indian leaders such as Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Ashutosh Mookerjee, Rash Behari Ghosh, and Surendranath Banerjee found their way into the Legislatures, their eloquence and political wisdom offering ample demonstration of the parliamentary capacity and patriotism of educated Indians.
• The overall size of the legislatures, both at the Centre and in the provinces, was enlarged under the Act — at the Centre, the maximum and minimum number of additional members, and the non-official element among them, were each raised by four compared to the arrangement under the 1861 Act.

Criticism of the Act

• Despite these gains, the Act failed to satisfy Indian nationalists and drew criticism at successive sessions of the Indian National Congress — the goal of genuinely representative government remained a distant prospect.
  • The system of “election” set out in the Act was, in practice, a decidedly roundabout one: the so-called right of election enjoyed by local bodies and other electorates amounted, in reality, to mere nomination by these bodies, with the final decision to accept or reject any nominee resting entirely with the government.
  • The rules of election were themselves unsatisfactory, with certain classes over-represented while others received no representation at all. In Bombay, for instance, of six seats, two were reserved for European merchants while none went to the Indian mercantile community; two seats were assigned to Sind, while neither Poona nor Satara received any representation.
• The functions of the Legislative Councils remained, in any case, strictly limited: members could not ask supplementary questions, any question could be disallowed without recourse, and the Councils secured no substantial control over the budget.
  • In his presidential address at the Lahore session of the Congress in 1893, Dadabhai Naoroji offered a scathing assessment: “By the Act of 1892 no member shall have the power to submit or propose any resolution or divide the Council in respect of any such financial discussion or in answer to any question asked under the authority of this Act or the rules made under this Act. Such is the poor character of the extent of the concession made to discuss finances or to put questions. Rules made under this Act shall not be subject to alterations or amendment at meetings for the purpose of making laws and regulations. Thus, we are to all intent and purposes under an arbitrary rule.”
• In essence, the Act reflected a broader British policy of gradually drawing Indians into the administrative structure of the Raj, with the underlying aim of forestalling any major nationalist upsurge by cultivating a permanent class of loyalists.
  • Contrary to the Congress’s own faith in petition, prayer, and protest, the Act ultimately failed to satisfy public demand — and the British Government came to see the Congress’s constitutional methods themselves as a sign of weakness. Bal Gangadhar Tilak captured this critique pointedly: “…political rights will have to be fought for. The moderates think that these can be won by persuasion. We think that they can only be obtained by strong pressure…”
• Even so, though the Act of 1892 fell far short of the Congress’s actual demands, it was undoubtedly a real advance on the existing state of affairs. By conceding, however cautiously, the principle of election, and by giving the legislatures some limited measure of oversight over the executive, the Act did help pave the way for the eventual introduction of parliamentary, responsible government in India.