FEDERAL INDIA BY COLONEL K. N. HAKSARLE CONFERENCE AND K. M. PANIKKAR PREFACE INDIA presents a baffling problem which may well tax all the latent resources of British statesmanship. There is a clash of wills be tween the two peoplesBritish and Indian: the spokesmen of the one convinced that not only its own interests, but .also those of the other, require that that other shall yet abide in statu pupillari those of the other equally con vinced that it will best discharge all its respon sibilities in a state of emancipation. Both rely upon facts honestly maintained to be unques tionable, but of which the assessment as to future possibilities, at any rate, belongs to the realm of speculation. The one is, however, not dispose to.allow any element of speculation in matters of hard practical politics the other, arguing alike from innate faith and examples not very dissimilar, refuses to admit that there is any room for speculative uncertainty in a forecast of the ultimate issue. Nevertheless, the problem of the attainment of political freedom by India is not free from complexities. And yet the essence of the problem is capable of the simplest solution, if only a subjective estimate of the essentials of human nature, in the twentieth century, provide its basis. The c open sesame would be found in the faculty on which Gordon Pasha laid so much emphasis or for which, possibly, he prayed. But, assuming that the crisis which has undoubtedly arisen in India enables the statesmen of England to get into the skins of their fellowsubjects of British India and their friendly neighbours of Indian India, the satis factory adjustment of the countrys internal relations would still require much deep thought and patient investigation. If England is to fulfil her mission in India, consistently with a sagacious discharge of her duty to the Empire of which she is at qnce the cement and the apex, no makeshift expedi ents will achieve that end. No selfregarding scheme, or one that can be impugned as less just to one interest than another, will set India on the path to her destined and promised goal. Every consideration incidental to the problem will have to be nicely balanced and the lessons of history and of the constitutions of many countries pressed into service for the neces sary survey. The effect on the Indian mind of the leading events of the last thirty years, in conjunction with that of the inculcation of British ideals of Liberty and Justice for nearly a century, will have to be appreciated. And the probability, in an autonomous India, of discord resulting from differences of religion and culture will have to be sincerely appraised. Account will have to be taken of the example of America, as also of the fact that in Britain Celts and Saxons, Christians and Jews, Huguenots and Jesuits have, in course of time, all become welded in a homogeneous Nation. Whatever their differences of language, and whatever their countries of origin, the inhabitants of India are one people and have dwelt together sufficiently long to be one race and nationality. Rechauffes of ancient arguments derived from apparent differences must,therefore, be assessed at their true value.