ENGLISH SHORTHAND DICTATION - 85

 

Hon. Chairperson, I understand that copies of the Report have been circulated to all the Members. I shall not, therefore, take up the time of the House in reading that Report. That Report is a brief summary of the activities of the Negotiating Committee appointed by this House. We have tried to make it as precise a summary as possible, and it shows what took place and what we did, so that the House may be acquainted with the procedure we adopted and all that was said on those occasions. However, I might add that if it is the wish of the House and if Members desire to see a fuller report of our proceedings, there is a verbatim Report¹²⁰ in existence and this Report can be consulted in the Library of the House. I say this because sometimes all¹⁴⁰ manner of rumours get about and people are misled and sometimes people imagine that we are not trying to put¹⁶⁰ all the facts before the public. We have nothing to hide in this matter, and therefore, the verbatim Report of everything that was said on the occasions that we met with the Negotiating Committee of the Princes is available for reference to any Member of the House in the Library. It is too long a report for us to have it printed and circulated, nor is it normally desirable to have such reports published in the public press. But there²⁴⁰ can be no secret as between the Committee of this House and the Members of this House, and therefore, while that document is not meant for publication, I should like to remind the Members that it is there to be²⁸⁰ consulted by any Members of this House in the Library. The House will remember that this Committee was appointed for the specific purpose of fixing the distribution of seats of the Assembly not exceeding 93, and for fixing the method³²⁰ by which the representatives of the States should be returned to the Assembly. These were the definite directions given to us and we proceeded accordingly, but when we met the negotiating Committee appointed by the Chamber of Princes, other questions³⁶⁰ were raised. We were confronted by various resolutions passed by organizations of the Princes. We informed them that we had no authority to deal with any other matter. Our authority was limited to dealing with these two specific matters. Indeed, we went a little further. We said we rather doubted the authority even of the Constituent Assembly to deal with⁴²⁰ other matters, that is to say, the Constituent Assembly as it is constituted at present. But in any event we were so anxious to get going, so anxious to remove any misapprehensions that might exist, that some of us had further conversations with them and some doubts that they raised were removed in the course of those conversations. Some questions⁴⁸⁰ that were asked were answered informally, because it was not open to us to go beyond the terms of the mandate that you gave us. You will see a reference to that in the Report that is presented to you, in particular because a few important points were raised by them in the course of those discussions. As it happened, what I said in reply to those questions had more or less been said by me in this House before⁵⁶⁰ or by other Members of this House, and therefore, I had no difficulty in saying it to them because otherwise I would have had this great difficulty of saying anything which the House might not approve, or might disapprove as⁶⁰⁰ wrong. All of us have certain views in this matter and on one of the occasions when I addressed this House in connection with the Resolution on Objectives, I referred also to the States and to the Princes and made⁶⁴⁰ it clear that while I, in my individual capacity, held certain views, those views did not come in the way of my stating what the Constituent Assembly stood for, and what its range of activities was going to be. I said that while we were deciding in favour of a Republic for the whole of India, that did not bar⁷⁰⁰ any State from continuing the monarchical form of Government so far as that State was concerned, provided that they fitted⁷²⁰ in the larger picture of freedom and provided that there was the same measure of freedom and responsible government in the State. So when these questions were raised, I had no particular difficulty in answering them because in effect they had been mentioned in this House previously.

 

What were those questions? First was as to the scope of our work, that is to say, how far we accepted the Cabinet Mission's Statement of May 16, 1946. We have accepted it, ⁸⁰⁰ and we are functioning in accordance with that Statement. I do not know what future changes may take place and how these changes might affect our work. Anyhow, we have accepted that Statement in its fullness and we are functioning⁸⁴⁰ accordingly. That leads inevitably to another conclusion that such subjects as did not come within the scope of the Union, were subjects to be dealt with by the States and the Provinces and that has been clearly laid down in the Cabinet Mission's Statement. What the Union subjects might or might not be is a matter for careful consideration by this House now. But any subjects which did not come within the scope of the Union subjects necessarily are subjects left over to the Units. Further it was stated that the business of joining the Constituent Assembly or accepting the Scheme or not accepting it was entirely their own. As my honourable friend has pointed out, there can be no⁹⁶⁰ coercion either to a State, a Province or to any other part of India, which is participating in this Assembly. ⁹⁸⁰ There can be no coercion, except the coercion or compulsion of events and that is certainly a compelling factor and a very big factor which none of us can ignore. So there is no question of compulsion; but at the same time it is true that if certain Units or parts of India decide to come in, accepting their responsibilities, they get certain privileges in return, and those who do not come in do not get those privileges as they do not shoulder those responsibilities. That is inevitable, and once that decision has been taken by a Unit or State, ¹⁰⁸⁰ other consequences inevitably follow, possibly widening the gulf between the two. Otherwise, it is open to any State to do as it chooses in regard to this matter of coming in or not coming in. So that matter has¹¹²⁰ been made clear. The only other important matter that was raised in this connection was the monarchical form of Government in the States. As I stated in this House previously, this system of rule by monarchy may have done well in the past, but in the world today it is not a system that might be considered to be popular. It is a passing institution and I do not know how long it will last. But in this matter, my opinion¹²⁰⁰ is of little account. What counts is what this Assembly desires in this matter. We have made it clear on a previous occasion that we do not wish to interfere in the internal arrangement of the States. It is for the people of the States to decide what they want and what they do not want. That question does¹²⁶⁰ not arise in this Assembly. Here we are dealing with Union matters, subjects of fundamental rights and the like. Therefore, ¹²⁸⁰ this question of the monarchical form of Government in the States did not arise here and I told them that so far as we were concerned we were not going to raise that particular subject here.

 

Lastly, there was the question or rather the misapprehension due to certain words in the Objectives Resolution of this Assembly, where some reference has been made to territorial boundaries being changed. The House will remember that this had no connection with the States as such. That was a provision for future adjustments as they are bound to be Involved. Further it was a provision for suitable Units to come into existence, which can be Units of this Indian Union. Obviously, one cannot have very¹⁴⁰⁰ small units or small fractions of India to form part of the Union. Some arrangement has to be made for the formation of sizable Units. Questions arise today and will arise tomorrow even about the division of Provinces. There is¹⁴⁴⁰ very strong feeling about it. We are discussing today about the division of certain Provinces like Punjab and Bengal. All these have to be considered but this has nothing to do with the provision in the Objectives Resolution. The point has been settled in the Negotiating Committee that any changes in territorial boundaries should be by consent. Those were the statements I made on behalf of our Negotiating Committee to the other Committee and those statements removed a number of misapprehensions and we proceeded ahead with the consideration of other matters. Among the other matters was, firstly, the question of the distribution of seats. We decided to refer this matter to the Secretariat of the Constituent Assembly and the Secretariat of the Chamber of Princes. We referred this matter in the afternoon. Those two Secretariats met the same day and by evening they arrived at an agreed procedure. That was rather a remarkable thing which is worth remembering. It is¹⁶⁰⁰ true that the rules governing the distribution were to some extent laid down in the Cabinet Mission's Scheme--one seat per million, that is, 93 seats in all.