Hon. Members, we are now taking up the discussion of the Draft Constitution. I will leave it to the Members who will speak to take as little time as possible so that as many of them as wish to take part in the debate may be accommodated. I may assure them of that. I have been all through the debate from the beginning. I have not missed a single word or a single sentence of any Member. There is nothing new that can be said by any Member and the only object in speaking at this stage is not to add anything to the knowledge or to the information which has been given to the House to enable it to decide about the merits of the Constitution but to enable Members to have their names recorded, so that when the reports140 are published, they may know that they also participated in the final discussions of the Bill and that can be160 done with one sentence. I assure them that their names will go down on the record even if they support the Bill with one single sentence. With this suggestion, I now ask the honourable Members to take up the discussion.
Sir,
first of all I wish to thank you for the courteous and gracious
manner in which you have invariably presided over the deliberations of
this House. Deserving tribute has already been paid to the Drafting
Committee for the way in which it has performed its arduous and
responsible duties. I would like very briefly to pay a particular tribute to
my honourable friend Dr. Ambedkar. I do not believe that any one of us
can really gauge the volume280 of work and the intensity of
concentration that must have been involved in the production of this voluminous
document. I may not have agreed with him on some occasions, but it
always gave me the greatest pleasure to listen to320 his tremendous grasp
not only of fundamentals but of details, of the clarity with which he
invariably presented his case. It has been said that this
Constitution has received a mixed reception. It is inevitable that
its reception should have been mixed because, inevitably, it is a
mixed Constitution. It is composite in character. I believe that it is a
proper blend between idealism on the one side and realism on the other. I
know that some of my idealistic friends have criticized it. They
would like to have seen instead of this blend, something in the nature of
the420
Ten Commandments, something which was so wholly idealistic that it would
have wilted and died under the first impact of administrative realities and
political difficulties. As I have said, I believe that
we have borrowed enough from idealism to make the Constitution a
fairly attractive and an aspiring document. On the other hand, we
have not based it entirely on480 mundane considerations so as to take
away from this the inspiring elements. I realize that it is not a
perfect document, but at the same time I feel that in hammering it out,
we have traversed all the processes of the democratic manufactory. We have
ranged through the whole gamut of democratic factors; there has been careful
thought; there has been close analysis; there has been argument and
counter-argument; there has been fierce controversy and at one time I thought560
that the controversy was so fierce that we might reach the stage of settling it
by actual physical force. But in the final analysis has pervaded a real sense
of accommodation and a real feeling of forbearance. So far as
the minority provisions are concerned, I cannot speak on behalf of
any other minority but I do claim to speak on behalf of the Anglo-Indian
Community. I have paid repeated tributes to the generous and understanding way in
which the640 Anglo-Indian Community has been dealt
with under this Constitution. All I need to say at this moment is
to reiterate my own gratitude and appreciation for the very generous way
in which the Anglo-Indian community has been treated.
Now
I shall deal very briefly with certain aspects of the Constitution. I agree
with my honourable friend when he says that700 it might have been
wiser for us not to have extended the franchise at one bound to universal
suffrage. I recall the experience in Britain and the precedent of
Britain. I am aware that the precedents and experience in other
countries are not sacrosanct for us. Though some of us are in the habit
of talking about democracy without understanding its real purpose and its real
content, to my mind a mere counting of heads has never constituted
democracy. Democracy has always carried the implication that the exercise of
the franchise would be made at least on a common-sense basis, 800
if not on an essentially rationalistic basis.
I
feel that there has been unjustified criticism of what has been
stigmatized as over-centralization. I will say quite frankly that I was very
happy, I was jubilant at every provision that840 tended to place more
and more power into the hands of the Centre. Here again, we tend to mouth
slogans about democracy but in the final analysis, in its actual spirit and
content, what does democracy imply? It does imply the greatest good of the
greatest number. What is the increasing evidence which rises every day before
our eyes, evidence with regard to most of the Provincial administrations? Do we
not see that there is an increasing evidence every day, of increasing
maladministration, of an increasing negation of the fundamental principles of
democracy? Quite frankly, in the transition stage I would have been one of
those who would have supported our going the whole hog to accept a unitary form
of960
Government. We might have administered the provinces through Governors
supported by a permanent civil service. At
any rate980
I feel that I ought to place on record my disappointment that certain vital
subjects like Education, Health and Police should have been left
entirely within the ambit of provincial autonomy. We have given a head to
provincial regimes in the matter of education, and today, I regret to
say that within a very short time, they have taken the bit between their teeth
and are running wild. What is happening in the Central Provinces? The
educational policy of the Central Provinces represents a deliberate negation of
democracy, represents a travesty of the provisions of secular democracy. The
linguistic minorities in the Central Provinces only look forward to educational
and linguistic death. That is what is happening. They have no regard for the
linguistic minorities. Overnight they are pursuing an intolerant, parochial, and
aggressive linguistic policy which is an absolute1120 negation of every
provision we have embodied in the fundamental rights. You have given a head to
these provinces and they are running amok. The larger interests of the
country mean nothing to them. My own conviction is that a few years will be
sufficient to make the leaders of the country realize the great blunder that
we have committed in allowing education to remain entirely in the
provincial sphere. You will see balkanisation of the country will take place so
quickly, because through this powerful lever which you have left in the hands
of the provinces, they will split this country up into linguistic enclaves,
seal one from the other, so that the idea of a common nationality will recede
more and more into the background. I feel very strongly about this. I do not
know how the damage1260 that is going to be done can be undone,
unless some radical steps are taken in near future.
Another
matter which1280 I would have liked to have brought at least
in the Concurrent List is Health. In some provinces, it is all right.
The country would have been more fortunate to have transported
outstanding men from the provinces to the Centre to administer the country on a
unitary basis. As I said, we have left the subject of Health in the hands of
the provincial Governments and inevitably this greatest nation-building subject
will be dealt with in a feeble and halting manner, according to the different
capacities of the different provincial regimes. Last but not the least, I
should like to have seen Police being brought on to the Concurrent List. The
police in a province1400 like Bombay have a good reputation.
But, let us be honest. What kind of reputation do the police administrations in
many of the provinces enjoy? What does the man in the street think of the
police regimes in many of the provinces? We all know1440 what he thinks. The
police have fallen into disrepute in many of the provinces. They are not
regarded as guardians of law and order but as agencies of corruption and
oppression.
While on the matter of Directive Principles, I
would like to refer to this provision regarding cow slaughter. I know that
I will be treading on difficult ground. But I want to make my position clear.
What I resent in this Directive Principle is the insidious way in which this
provision with regard to the banning of cow slaughter has been brought
in. 1540
