Critical Comments

Though half the executive was to be elected by the legislature, the executive as a whole was not to be responsible to the legislature. The legislature could not remove the elected half of the executive, but since important matters like the budget were dependent upon the approval of the legislature, a constitutional deadlock was most likely. This was the nature of executive-legislature relations that the Congress seemed to ask for in any scheme of post-war constitutional reforms. The Lucknow Pact demands were thus just a significantly expanded version of the Morley-Minto reforms.

While the effort of the Congress and the Muslim League to put up a united front was a far-sighted one, the acceptance of the principle of separate electorates by the Congress implied that the Congress and the League came together as separate political entities. This was a major landmark in the evolution of the two-nation theory by the Muslim League. Secondly, while the leaders of the two groups came together, efforts to bring together the masses from the two communities were not considered. However, the controversial decision to accept the principle of separate electorates represented a serious desire on the part of the Congress to allay minority fears of majority domination. Moreover, there was a large amount of enthusiasm generated among the people by this reunion. Even the government decided to placate the nationalists by declaring its intention

to grant self-government to Indians in times to come, as contained in Montagu’s August 1917 declaration.