In the course of the debates on India in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords in December last, certain statements were made detracting from the representative character of this Assembly during its last session. Notable among those who spoke in this strain were Mr. Churchill and Viscount Simon. Mr. Churchill observed that the Assembly, as it was meeting then, represented “only one major community in India”. Viscount Simon was more specific and referred to the Assembly as “a body of Hindus”. He went on further to ask “whether this meeting of Caste Hindus at Delhi can be regarded by the Government as the Constituent Assembly they meant at all”.
