President Roosevelt to the British Prime Minister (Churchill)31
No. 116. I have given much thought to the problem of India and I am grateful that you have kept me in touch with it.
As you can well realize, I have felt much diffidence in making any suggestions, and it is a subject which, of course, all of you good people know far more about than I do.
I have tried to approach the problem from the point of view of history and with a hope that the injection of a new thought to be used in India might be of assistance to you.
That is why I go back to the inception of the Government of the United States. During the Revolution, from 1775 to 1783, the British Colonies set themselves up as Thirteen States, each one under a different form of government, although each one assumed individual sovereignty. While the war lasted there was great confusion between these separate sovereignties, and the only two connecting links were the Continental Congress (a body of ill-defined powers and large inefficiencies) and second the Continental Army which was rather badly maintained by the Thirteen States. In 1783, at the end of the war, it was clear that the new responsibilities of the thirteen sovereignties could not be welded into a Federal Union because the experiment was still in the making and any effort to arrive at a final framework would have come to naught.
Therefore, the thirteen sovereignties joined in the Articles of Confederation, an obvious stop-gap government, to remain in effect only until such time as experience and trial and error could bring about a permanent union. The thirteen sovereignties, from 1783 to 1789, proved, through lack of a Federal power, that they would soon fly apart into separate nations. In 1787 a Constitutional Convention was held with only twenty-five or thirty active participants, representing all of the States. They met, not as a Parliament, but as a small group [Page 616] of sincere patriots, with the sole objective of establishing a Federal Government. The discussion was recorded but the meetings were not held before an audience. The present Constitution of the United States resulted and soon received the assent of two-thirds of the States.
It is merely a thought of mine to suggest the setting up of what might be called a temporary government in India, headed by a small representative group, covering different castes, occupations, religions and geographies—this group to be recognized as a temporary Dominion Government. It would, of course, represent existing governments of the British Provinces and would also represent the Council of Princes.
But my principal thought is that it would be charged with setting up a body to consider a more permanent government for the whole country—this consideration to be extended over a period of five or six years or at least until a year after the end of the war.
I suppose that this Central Temporary governing group, speaking for the new Dominion, would have certain executive and administrative powers over public services, such as finances, railways, telegraphs and other things which we call public services.
Perhaps the analogy of some such method to the travails and problems of the United States from 1783 to 1789 might give a new slant in India itself, and it might cause the people there to forget hard feelings, to become more loyal to the British Empire, and to stress the danger of Japanese domination, together with the advantage of peaceful evolution as against chaotic revolution.
Such a move is strictly in line with the world changes of the past half century and with the democratic processes of all who are fighting Nazism.
I hope that whatever you do the move will be made from London and that there should be no criticism in India that it is being made grudgingly or by compulsion.
For the love of Heaven don’t bring me into this, though I do want to be of help. It is, strictly speaking, none of my business, except insofar as it is a part and parcel of the successful fight that you and I are making.
- Copy obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y.↩