Pherozeshah Mehta In The Legislature

Pherozeshah Mehta, who was born in Bombay in 1845, came under the influence of Dadabhai Naoroji while studying law in London in the 1860s. He was a founding member of the Indian National Congress and the Bombay Presidency Association. He was a powerful figure in the Indian National Congress from the middle of the 1890s until his death in 1915, and he was frequently accused of wielding autocratic power over it. He was an accomplished debater, and his speeches were notable for their boldness, lucidity, incisiveness, quick wit and repartee, and literary quality.

 

•    Mehta's first major intervention in the Imperial Legislative Council was in January 1895, when he introduced a Bill to amend the Police Act of 1861, giving local authorities more power to station a punitive police force in a given area and recover the costs from a select group of the population.

 

•    Under the guise of maintaining law and order, the measure, according to Mehta, was an attempt to convict and punish people without a judicial trial. He argued: ‘I cannot conceive of legislation more empirical, more retrograde, more open to abuse, or more demoralising. It is impossible not to see that it is a piece of that empirical legislation so dear to the heart of executive officers, which will not and cannot recognise the scientific fact that the punishment and suppression of crime without injuring or oppressing innocence must be controlled by judicial procedure.’ ‘It would be idle to believe that they can be free from the biases, prejudices, and defects of their class and position,' Mehta said, casting doubt on the capacity and impartiality of the executive officers entrusted with enforcing the Act.

 

•    Today, no one would consider this language or these remarks to be censorious or harsh. They were, however, like a bomb dropped into the ranks of a civil service that thought it was immune to criticism. How dare a mere "native" lay his sacrilegious hands on its honourable name and reputation, especially in the Legislative Council chambers? 

 

•    The Finance Member, James Westland, spoke up in the House, protesting what he called Mehta's "new spirit" in the Council. He had also made "calumnies" against and "arraigned" as a class as "biased, prejudiced, utterly incapable of doing the commonest justice... a most distinguished service" that had "contributed to the framing and consolidation of the Empire." His comments had severely harmed "the dignity, calmness, and consideration that characterise this Council's deliberations." Mehta was accused of altering the role and character of colonial legislatures.

 

•    Indians, on the other hand, had a completely different reaction. Pherozeshah Mehta received instant approval from political Indians, including Tilak, who readily accepted Westland's description of the legislatures as having a "new spirit." 

 

•    People were used to hearing such harsh and fearless criticism from the podium or the press, but it was a novel experience for them to hear it from the ‘dignified' Council chambers. ‘The voice that has been so long shut out from the Council Chamber — the voice of the people has been admitted through the open door of election...' wrote the Lahore Tribune. Mr. Mehta is speaking on behalf of the people... Sir James Westland’s protest is the outcry of the bureaucrat rapped over the knuckles in his own stronghold.’

 

•    Almost every time Mehta spoke in the Council, the bureaucracy was too smart to handle the whiplash of his rapier-like wit. We could give a few more examples of his forensic skill in regaling the Indians and assisting in the destruction of the British Indian Government's moral influence and prestige, as well as its holier than bureaucracy. Educated Indians and higher education were, as they are today, major irritants for imperialist administrators.

 

•    Looking for a way to reduce higher education spending because it was producing "discontented and seditious babus," the government came up with the idea of putting expenditure on primary education for the masses against expenditure on elite college education.

 

•    Mehta remarked, "It is very well to talk of "raising the subject to the pedestal of the rule?" when referring to the true motivations behind this move to limit the spread of higher education. Human nature is weak, and the personal experience is so intensely disagreeable that the temptation to kick back is almost irresistible when the subject begins to press close at your heels.' As a result, most bureaucrats regarded "every Indian college (as) a nursery for hatching viper broods; the fewer, the better."

 

•    In another speech, he compared himself to "the amiable and well-meaning father of a somewhat numerous family, addicted unfortunately to slipping off a little too often of an evening to the house over the way, who, when the mother appealed to him to do something for the education of the grown-up boys," he said he was reminded of "the amiable and well-meaning father of a somewhat numerous family, who, when the mother appealed to him to do something for the education.

 

•    With the hungry eyes staring at her, the poor woman couldn't deny it; but she couldn't help but think bitterly that the children could have food, clothing, and an education if the kindly father could be persuaded to spend a little less on drink and cards. Similarly, gentlemen, when we are reminded of the cries of the poor masses for sanitation, pure water, medical relief, and primary education, might we not respectfully submit that there would be funds, and to spare, for all of these things, and higher education as well, if the country's vast and growing resources were not ruthlessly squandered on a variety of whims and ludicrous.

 

•    The officials used to blame the Indian peasant's poverty and debt on his proclivity for overspending on weddings and festivals. In the Bombay Legislative in 1901, a Bill was introduced to take away the peasant's right of ownership of land in order to prevent him from bartering it away due to his lack of thrift. 

 

•    Denying the charge and opposing the bill, Mehta defended the peasant's right to happiness, colour, and bright moments in his life. ‘A few new earthenware, a few wild flowers, the village tom-tom, a stomach-full meal, bad arcane and betel leaves, a few stalks of cheap tobacco, and in some cases a few cheap tawdry trinkets, exhaust the joys of a festive occasion in the life of a household which has known only an unbroken period of unshrinking labour from morn to sunset,' he said of the average Indian pea. When the government insisted on using its official majority to pass the bill, Mehta went along with it. G.K. Parekh, Balachandra Krishna, and D.A. Khare, along with Gokhale, took the unprecedented step of organising India's first legislative walkout.

 

•    Officialdom was enraged with Mehta once more. The Times of India, which was then owned by the British, even suggested that these members be forced to resign their seats!

 

•    Criticizing the government's excise policy for encouraging drinking in the name of reducing it, he wrote in 1898 that the excise department "seems to follow the example of the preacher who said that while he was bound to teach good principles, he was by no means bound to practise them."

 

•    Due to ill health, Pherozeshah Mehta resigned from the Imperial Legislative Council in 1901. In his place was thirty-five-year-old Gokhale, who had already established himself as the Secretary of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha and the Sudharak's editor. 

 

•    In 1897, Gokhale outshone veterans like Surendranath Banerjea, D.E. Wacha, G.Subramaniya Iyer, and Dadabhai Naoroji as a witness before the Royal Commission on Expenditure in India in London. Gokhale would prove to be a deserving successor to Mehta.