In
the present situation in India, the separatist
tendency is very strong, and provincial and local parochialism is
more dominant than national feeling. While we are building up a federated
India with complete autonomy of the units, we still have the problem of
making India as a whole a strong and united country. I would make this further
observation that I do not think that the reservation of powers in the
Central Government is likely to affect the autonomy of the provinces. The
reservation of powers as interpreted by the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council in the case of Canada has not had this over-riding effect.
It means a power that comes into existence in an emergency in a120 field not specifically allotted
to the provinces. I do not think that the provincial autonomy should be really
affected. 140 The second thing
I should like to observe in connection with this question of provincial
autonomy is that this autonomy must160
be limited by the affording of protection for the interests of the minorities
and of the Depressed Classes. As I visualize the situation in India as it
will result from the new constitution, I find there will be certain provinces
in which some communities will be in a majority, but in all the provinces
the Depressed Classes, whom I represent, will be in a minority. They
will be in a minority in every province. I cannot understand how we240 can at this stage permit the provincial
majorities to have a complete uninterrupted and undiluted sway
over the destinies of these poor people, without any right of appeal being
given to the latter in regard to maladministration or neglect of280 their interests. There must be
some authority somewhere, over and above the Provincial
Government, which will be in a position to intervene and rescue them
from any adverse position in which they may be placed by the provincial
majorities. These are the320
three things which, in my opinion, must limit the autonomy of the future
Provincial Governments of India.
Coming to the question of the
character of responsibility in the Provincial Governments, my first
observation is that the whole question360
of responsibility in the provincial Legislature is entirely dependent upon the
kind of Legislature that you are going to get in the provinces. Is the
Legislature that you are going to get in the provinces is a Legislature which
is going to be a mirror of the whole population of the province? Is it
going to be thoroughly representative and420 not merely representative as a
museum is, where there are a few specimens of every species for the observation
of the general onlooker? If every minority and every class, which fears its
existence will be jeopardized, is placed on a position to make its
influence felt, then I think in a Legislature of that sort there will be
no harm480 in conceding the
principle that provincial responsibility may be introduced to the fullest
extent. That is my first observation. Making that a condition that the
Legislatures shall be fully and adequately representative of all the classes, I
see no objection to the subjects which are now reserved being transferred to
popular control. Coming to the question of whether the responsibility in the provinces
should be joint or should be individual, I have not the slightest
hesitation in saying that the560
responsibility not only should be joint but must be joint. I have
been a member of Legislative Council, and I have seen how
Ministries in the provinces have worked. It
has been a most painful experience for me, as it600 has been the experience of many of
those who have had the misfortune or the good fortune to be members of a
Legislative Council, to find that Ministries have been working as a
kind of loose confederation, without having any640 complete or unanimous view on a
particular policy which they adopted. There have been divided counsels,
and cases of Ministers not being very willing to support each other. What
has been the result? The result is that in no instance have we had any
considered policy put forward by the Cabinet as a whole, worked out in detail
and placed700 before the
Legislative Council. Things have been done by fits and starts, and I
do not think we want our720
responsibility in future to be bungled in that fashion. Turning now to
the question of communal representation in the Cabinets, I must confess
that I am not very much drawn to the suggestion which is often made that
there should be communal representation in the Cabinet. I am not, of
course, oblivious of the fact. In fact, I am very conscious of it that
if the minority communities are not represented in the Cabinet, it is
very much possible, and800
even very likely, that in matters of administration which affect their daily
lives, their interests may be affected very prejudicially by the policy
of Ministers whose dominant interest is communalism. I do not forget that for a
moment, but my submission840
is that there is a better way of dealing with that sort of evil. It
seems to me that if the minorities could get constitutional and statutory
guarantees laid down in the Constitutional Act itself against anything likely
to injure their interests being done or left undone by the Cabinet, the danger
which most of us apprehend from the fact that the Cabinets may be
communally dominated, will vanish, and we shall not have much cause to
insist on communal representation in the Cabinet. Although I am very
desirous that the Chief Minister should recognize or should be
made to recognize the interest of having most of the important minorities
represented in the Cabinet, we cannot for the moment960 forget that, after all, a Cabinet office
is a very responsible office. A Cabinet Minister has not merely to
look after the980
interests of the minorities; he has to see to the safety and interest of the province
as a whole. That demands ability and competence; it does not merely
demand a communal outlook, and it is from that point of view that I look
at the matter. I should like to have the interests of the minorities and
the Depressed Classes safeguarded in such a manner that constitutionally it
would be impossible for Ministers drawn from the majority communities to do
anything prejudicial to the minorities or to neglect their interests. Coming to
the question of the relations between1080
the Governor and his Ministry, I think one thing is obvious that no
constitution can permit the Governor the power to interfere in the day-to-day
administration of the country, if it is really to embody a responsible
Government and collective responsibility. 1120
That would run quite across the system of responsible Government and collective
responsibility. The Ministry must be allowed to carry on the day-to-day
administration on the basis of joint responsibility. When we come to the
question of the emergency powers, it is suggested that it should
be left with the Governor. I find myself in a somewhat difficult
position, because I do not understand exactly what is meant. Is it meant
that when an emergency arises, the Governor1200
should simply dismiss the Ministry and have nothing to do with it, and should promulgate
whatever laws, ordinances or measures he thinks are necessary to meet
the situation, notwithstanding the fact that they are opposed by
the Ministry? I do not know what is wanted. I
can quite understand the Governor should have the absolute, undoubted
and unrestricted power of dismissing1260
a Ministry which he thinks is not acting in the best interests of the country,
but I cannot understand how1280
there can be responsible Government in a province in which the
Governor is allowed to do a thing without a Ministry. It is one thing to say
that the Governor should have a Ministry with which he agrees in a
particular emergency, but it is quite a different thing to say that when
an emergency arises the Governor should simply disregard the Ministry
altogether. I think this point will have to be worked out in some deal,
for I do not understand it. Coming to the question of the Services,
there is one observation I am bound to make. I quite agree in principle that
with provincial autonomy the power of regulating the Services in a province
should belong to1400 that province,
and that the provinces should have full liberty to indianize the
Services as they desire and according to their means and circumstances. However,
the observation which I feel bound to make is this: I cannot forget that
Indians1440 are communal-minded.
We do hope, and it is only a hope, that a time will come when all
Indians will cease to look at problems from a communal point of view in
administrative matters which are left to their charge, but that is only
a hope; it is not a fact. The fact is that Indians do discriminate between
class and class, community and community, in administering such discretion as
is left to them in their administration of the law. That is a fact I cannot
get over; it is a fact from which I have suffered immensely. 1540
