The Central Legislature in British India, 192147. Mohammad Rashiduzzaman
an array of diverse electoral rules was inevitable.14 The Southborough Committee too did not seek “uniformity” in the voters’ property qualifications in all the provinces.15 Norms in Muhammadan constituencies were different from those of non-Muhammadan constituencies: education and property qualifications in the Muslim constituencies were generally lower than those of the other constituencies because of the Muslim community’s relative backwardness. Property qualifications in the landholders’ constituencies were the highest. Residence qualification was not obligatory in European constituencies; every person registered on the electoral roll of a constituency was entitled to vote at an election of a member or members for that constituency.16 But no person could be registered as an elector in more than one constituency and consequently no person could vote at any general election in more than one general constituency.17
Qualifications for candidates usually follow closely those for electors as it is normally held that any voter is good enough to be a candidate. But the Assembly and Council of State Electoral Rules imposed certain special disqualifications. A person was not eligible for election as a member of the Legislative Assembly or Council of Sate if such a person:
a. was not a British subject; or
b. was a member of the Legislative Assembly and had made oath or affirmation as such member; or
c. having been a legal practitioner had been dismissed or was under suspension from practicing as such by order of any competent court; or
d. had been adjudged by a competent Court to be of unsound mind; or
e. was under 25 years of age; or
f. was an insolvent; or
g. being a discharged insolvent had not obtained from the Court a certificate that his insolvency was caused by misfortune without any misconduct on his part.18
No female was entitled to sit in the Council of State or vote for election to it; it was, however, open to the Council of State to remove either or both of these barriers by passing a resolution. In 1936, the Council of State passed a resolution giving women the right to vote in the election of its members.19 But the right to sit as its member was never granted to women. However, women were eligible to stand, as candidates for Assembly Constituencies in any province where they might be elected to the provincial legislature. The first woman was elected to the Assembly from Madras in 1945. ← 36 | 37 →
On or before the date fixed for the nomination of candidates, each contender either in person or by his proposer and supporter together, between the hours of eleven o’clock in the forenoon and three o’clock in the afternoon, had to deliver to the Returning Officer a nomination paper completed in specified form.20 On or before the date of nomination, each candidate had to deposit the sum of Rs. 500 in cash or in Government Promissory Notes of equal value and no candidate was deemed to be duly nominated unless such deposit was made.21 The payment was liable to be forfeited by the Government if the candidate did not receive more than one-eighth of the total number of votes polled. The number of persons whose deposits were forfeited at various Assembly elections has been given below:
Table IV. Number of Candidates Who Forfeited Their Deposits.
| Year of election | No. of candidates who forfeited their deposits |
| 1920 | No record available |
| 1923 | No record available |
| 1926 | 21 |
| 1930 | 7 |
| 1934 | 27 |
| 1945 | 52 |
The number of candidates who forfeited their deposits did not necessarily indicate that they were bogus candidates; there were always a few candidates with overwhelming local prestige and great political stature against whom even a serious candidate associated with a party could get only a negligible number of votes. On the other hand, when the Congress Party swept the polls in 1934 and 1945 many experienced independent politicians forfeited their deposits. The popularity of the Muslim League in 1945 was so great that there was little scope even for the most influential Muslim landlord to be successful in the election without the League’s prop. For example, an experienced politician and influential landlord like Sir A. H. Ghuznavi forfeited his deposit contesting as an independent candidate against a Muslim League nominee.
There were seven types of constituencies in the Assembly electorate: non-Muhammadan (Urban & Rural), Muhammadan (Urban & Rural) Sikh, General, Landholders, Europeans and Indian Commerce. Such a variety of constituencies resulted from the special considerations given to the Muslims, Sikhs, Europeans, Landholders and Indian Commerce for representation. Special electoral representation was, by itself, always a controversial ← 37 | 38 → issue: communal representation of the Muslims was a topic of great controversy in Indian politics as already indicated in several chapters of this book.
The authors of the M/C Report commented that any communal electorate system would be a severe hindrance to the development of democratic institutions in India.22 But the case of separate Muslim electorate was ultimately conceded as a “regrettable necessity” which would continue till conditions altered towards the realization of a common citizenship.23 The Southborough Committee too recommended the communal representation’s continuity and provided for the preparation of separate Muhammadan and non-Muhammadan electoral rolls.24
Under the Morley-Minto Councils, the Muslims in many constituencies had double votes, but the M/C Report strongly recommended that Muslims should no longer be allowed to vote in general electorates as well as in their special ones.25 The recommendation was accepted, but the more difficult task was to determine the proportion of Muhammadan and non-Muhammadan seats. Without taking the risk of raising any fresh controversy, the Southborough Committee followed the agreement reached by the Congress and Muslim League at Lucknow in December 1916 regarding the Hindu-Muslim proportion of representation.26 It was recommended by the Committee that out of 80 elected seats 23 would go to the Muhammadans.27 For the Council of State, the Committee proposed 7 Muhammadan seats out of 23 elected members.28 Finally the Electoral Rules made under the Act arranged the distribution of seats in the Assembly and Council of State which are summarized in the following tables (set out on the next pages).
Up to 1947, the Muslim representation as indicated in those tables did not undergo any significant change; one General seat was given to N.W.F.P. from 1934 which in fact returned a Muslim candidate. There was no representative from Burma in 1945 as it was already separated from India.
Special representation to various interests such as Landholders, Commerce, Europeans and Sikhs was too a contentious issue. Montagu took it for granted that landholders deserved special representation for a number of reasons: they generally stood for the “ancient and well-born families” and by “influence, position and education” they were fitted to take a leading part in public affairs.29 To Montagu, the landed aristocracy represented the “natural and acknowledged leaders in the country.”30 The Southborough Committee did not face any serious opposition for offering special representation to the landed aristocracy. But in 1932, the Indian Franchise Committee (Lothian) confronted an opposition to this idea. The irrelevance of the landholders’ representation was pointed out in a minute of dissent by three Indian members, ← 38 | 39 → ← 39 | 40 → namely S. B. Tambe, C. Y. Chintamani and G. K. Gokhale. One core position was that many landlords were frequently returned by the general elections for the Central and Provincial Legislatures and as such their special legislative seats were unnecessary. The Committee half-heartedly agreed to the idea of retaining the existing number of seats but did not accept the demand of the landlords to increase their special representation.31 Finally, the Federal Assembly, envisaged under the 1935 Act, retained the earlier 7 seats for the landholders.