Hon. Chairperson, we meet under a heavy sense of
responsibility, not only because the task which we have undertaken is a
difficult one or because we presume to represent vast numbers of people, but
because we are building for the future and we want to make sure that that
building has strong foundations. Above all, we are meeting at a time when a
number of disruptive forces are working in India pulling us this way and that
way, and unfortunately, when such forces are at work, there is a great deal of
passion and prejudice in the air and our whole minds may be affected by
it. While thinking of the present difficulties, we should not be
deflected from that120
vision of the future which we ought to have. That is a dangerous thing which
we have to avoid, because140
we are not building for today or tomorrow; we are making or trying to make a
much more enduring structure. 160
It is a warning that we must not allow the passion and prejudice of the moment
to make us forget what the real and ultimate problems are which we have to
solve. We cannot forget the difficulties of the present because that come in
our way all the time. We have to deal with the problems of the
present, and in dealing with them, it may be that the troubles we have
passed through all these years affect us, but240 we have to get on. We have to take quick decisions
and final decisions in the sense that we have to act on them. We have to be
realists and it is in this spirit of realism, as also in280 a spirit of idealism, that I say that our
Negotiating Committee approached this task. The House knows that some of
the members of the Committee have been intimately associated with the struggle
of the peoples of the States for their320
freedom. The more I have been associated with that struggle, the more I
have seen that it cannot be separated from the all-India problem; it
cannot be isolated. It is an essential and integral part of the all-India
problem, all-India360
structure, just as the States are an integral part of India. You
cannot separate them. With all my anxiety to further the progress of the
peoples of the States, when I met the Negotiating Committee I had to
subordinate my individual opinions because I had to remember all the time that
I was representing this Constituent Assembly. I also had420 to remember that, above all, we had gone there not
to bargain with each other, not to have heated argument with each other, but to
achieve results, and to bring those people, into this Assembly, so that they
might come here and they might also be influenced by the atmosphere that
prevails here. For me it was the solemnity of480 the task which we had undertaken, and not to talk in
terms of results, or individuals or groupings, or assurances. What
assurance do we seek from each other? What assurance is even this House
going to give to anybody in India, except the assurance of freedom? Even that
assurance will ultimately depend on the strength and wisdom of the Indian
people afterwards. If the people are not strong enough and wise enough to hold
together and proceed along the right560
path, the structure that you have built may be shattered. We can give no
assurance to anybody.
With what assurance have we sought freedom for India all
these years? We have looked forward to the time when some of the600 dreams that we were
indulging in might become true. They are coming true, perhaps not exactly in
the shape that we want, but, nevertheless, they will come true. It is in
that conviction that we have proceeded all these years.640 We had no guarantees. We
had no assurances about ourselves or about our future. Indeed, in the normal
course of events the only partial guarantee that most of us had was
the guarantee of tears and troubles, and we had plenty of that. It may be that
we shall have plenty of that in the future too; we shall face700 them. This House will
face it and the people of India will face it. So, who are we to give720 guarantees to anybody?
But we do want to remove misapprehensions as far as possible. We do want
every Indian to feel that we are going to treat him as an equal and
brother. But we also wish him to know that in the future what will count is not
so much the crown of gold or silver or something else, but the crown of
freedom, as a citizen of a free country. It may be that a time may come800 soon when it will be
the highest honour and privilege for anybody, whether he is a
Ruler or anybody else, to be a free citizen of a free India and to be
called by no other appellation or title. We840
do not guarantee because we guarantee nothing to anybody, but that is the
thing which we certainly hope to achieve and we are certain to achieve.
We invite them to participate in that. We welcome those who have come, and
we shall welcome others when they come. We shall say nothing about
those who do not come. But, as I said before, inevitably, as things are,
the gulf will widen between those who come and those who do not come. They will
march along different paths and that will be unfortunate. I am convinced
that those paths will meet again, and meet sooner rather than later.
But, in any event, there is going to be no compulsion. Those
who want960 to come,
will come, and those who do not want to come, will not come. When we talk
about people980
coming in and people who do not come in, let it be remembered that the people
of the States want to come into this Assembly, and if others prevent them from
coming, it is not the fault of the people, but breaks and barriers
are put in their way. However, I hope that these questions will not
arise in the future and that in the coming months nearly all the States
will be represented here, and, jointly we shall participate in the final
stages of drawing up the Constitution.
I am placing
this Resolution before the House to record the1080 Report. There has been some argument about
this matter too and people attach a great deal of importance to words
and phrases and assurances and things like that. Is it not good enough that
I have put it to the1120
House? If it is not good enough, I may repeat what has been stated.
Even if that is not good enough, what we have stated is there in the
verbatim Report of the meetings. We have nothing to add to it, we
shall stand by that. But the procedure to be adopted must be a correct
procedure. When this Committee was appointed, you asked us to report and we
have reported. We had got to do something, and we tried1200 to do that and did it.
Now, if this matter was to come up for ratification before
this House before it could be acted upon, obviously, representatives
of the States who are here now would not have been here. They would
have been sitting at the doorstep or somewhere outside waiting for
ratification, waiting for something to happen till they1260 came in. That was not the way in which we
understood our directions. We understood that we had to come1280 to some honourable
agreement and act up to it so that representatives of the States might come
in as early as possible. We were eager that they should join the
Committees of this Assembly which we have formed. It is not our
fault that there was delay. At the very first joint meeting of
the Negotiating Committee, we requested the States Committee to join quickly, and
to send their representatives to the Committees of the Constituent Assembly as
soon as possible. We were asked for assurance at every stage and
there were delays. But the way we have understood your mandate was that
we had to go ahead and not wait for ratification of every step that we had
taken. 1400 We acted accordingly,
and I am happy that some of the States' representatives are here today and I
hope more will come. So the question of ratification does not arise so
far as this Committee's work is concerned. The Report1440 is before you. If you disapprove of any single step
that we have taken, express your disapproval of whatever might have
happened, or otherwise give your directions. The resolution I have moved is for
your adoption. I shall not go into the details in regard to the
distribution of the seats and the manner of selection of the delegates from the
States. It was a sort of compromise. Naturally it was my desire, as it was the
desire of my colleagues that the representatives of the States should be
elected by the people of the States, partly because it was the right
way, and partly because it was the way in which they could be fitted with the
other elected elements of this House. On the other hand, I
considered it right and desirable that the State Governments should also be
represented here to bring reality to the picture. The correct way and the right
way ultimately will be for1600
the State Governments themselves to be representative of the people and then
come in to represent them here.
