Vol. 1 · pages 361–365

346 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The position of British India is that they can never get any responsibility at the Centre unless the Princes come into the Scheme. That means that British India has lost its right to claim Responsible Government for itself in its own name and independently of the Princes. This right was a vested right because it was the result of a claim made and accepted. That right has been lost because British India is made dependent for the realization of its destiny upon the wishes of the States. Of the two parts of this Federation. British India is the progressive part and the States form the unprogressive part. That the progressive part should be tied up to the chariot of the unprogressive and its path and destiny should be made dependent upon the unprogressive part constitutes the most tragic side of this Federation. For this tragedy you have to blame your own national leaders. Fortunately for me I am not one of your national leaders. The utmost rank to which I have risen is that of a leader of the Untouchables. I find even that rank has been denied to me. Thakkar Bapa, the left hand man of Mahatma Gandhi. I call him left hand man only because Vallabhbhai Patel is the right hand man—very recently said that I was only the leader of the Mahars. He would not even allow me the leadership of the Untouchables of the Bombay Presidency. Whether what Thakkar Bapa said was said by him out of malice or out of love of truth does not worry me. For politics is not my first love nor is national leaderhip the goal of my life. On the other hand, when I see what disasters your national leaders have brought upon this country I feel relieved to know that I am not included in that august crowd. Believe me when I say that some of your national leaders were thoroughly unprepared for the job of constitution-making. They went to the Round Table Conference without any comparative study of constitutions and could propound no solutions to problems with which they were presented. Others who were undoubtedly competent to tackle the problem were like little children so charged with the ideal of Federation that they never cared to see whether what they were shaping was a real federation or a fraud in the name of Federation. This tragedy is entirely due to wrong leadership. I do not know if the steps taken can be retraced and whether the lost ground can be regained. But I think it is a right thing that the people of British India should know what they have lost. They have a federation of their own and they have right to demand responsibility for their federation. There is another reason why it would be desirable to have a Federation of British India only. A Federation of British India and of the Indian States cannot work harmoniously. There are two elements which I am sure will produce a conflict between British India and the Indian States. The first element arises out of the difference in the position of the representatives of British India and those of the Indian States. The representatives of British India will be free men. The representatives of the Indian States

347 FEDERATION VERSUS FREEDOM will be bondmen of the Political Department. The sources of mandate of those two sets of representatives in the Federal Legislature will be different. The British India representatives will be engaged in extending the authority of the Ministers. The States representatives are sure to act and will be made to act so as to lend support to the authority of the Governor-General as against the Ministers. This conflict is inevitable and it is sure to embitter the feelings of British India towards the Indian States. This was precisely what happened in the last regime in the Provinces. The feelings of the elected members towards the nominated members in the old Provincial Councils were certainly unfriendly. This experience I am sure will be repeated in the Federal Legislature. That it should be so is very natural when one section of the House feels that the other section has been brought in to thwart its wishes and is acting as the tool of some power outside the control of the Legislature. This is one element of disharmony. The other element of disharmony is the disparity in the position of British Indian States under the Federation. Equality before law is a precious thing. But not all people value it for the same reason. Most cherish it an ideal. Few realize why it is crucial. Equality before the law compels men to make common cause with all others similarly affected. Whereas if there is no equality, if some are favoured and others are burdened, those specially favoured not only refuse to join those who are burdened in the struggle for equality but actually take sides against them. A Dictator might, as the kings did in the olden times, pull out one by one the teeth of a few without necessarily exciting the resentment of the other people. On the contrary, the others will join in the raid. But suppose a law was made that all must contribute as much money as the dictators ask for under penalty of their teeth being drawn out all would rise in opposition. There is no equality between British India and the Indian States under the Federation. Indian States enjoy many benefits and many exemptions which are denied to British India. This is particularly so in the matter of taxation. There is bound to be great acrimony between the representatives of British India and those of the Indian States as to who should bear the load of taxation first. Patriotism vanishes when you touch a man’s pocket and I am sure that the States representatives will prefer their own financial interest to the necessities of a common front to make the executive responsible to the Legislature. What is the use of housing British India and the Indian States under one edifice if the result is to make them quarrel with each other ? There is a complete dissimilarity between the forms of Government prevalent in British India and the Indian States and the principles underlying the two. These dissimilarities need not produce any antagonism between the Indian States and British India if the two continue to evolve in their separate spheres. So long as the form of Government in the Indian States does not become a factor in the decision of affairs which affects British India, British

348 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES India can tolerate those forms of Government however antiquated they may be. But the Federation makes them a factor and a powerful factor and British India cannot remain indifferent to them. Indeed the forging of the Federation will compel British India to launch a compaign in sheer self-interest for revolutionising the forms of Government prevalent in the Indian States. This will be the inevitable result of this Federation. Is this a consummation which the States devoutly wish for ? This is a question they will have to consider. Does British India welcome this prospect ? Speaking for myself I will not. It would be impossible to wage war on so vast a front. The States are too numerous to allow concentrated attack. The States being a part of the structure, you cannot attack them and justify your attack as a Constitutional Act. Secondly, why put yourself in this difficulty ? Sometimes it turns out that a man thinks that he is buying property when as a matter of fact he is buying litigation. For British India to accept this Federation is like buying trouble. Thirdly, this Constitution is a settlement from which Dominion Status is most rigidly excluded not only for the present but also for the future as well. Looked at from any point of view, the wisest course seems to me that leaving the States where they are, British India should proceed on its own evolution and Federation for itself. X FEDERATION FROM DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW Different people are looking at this Federation from different points of view. There is the point of view of the Princes. There is the point of view of the Hindus and the Muslims and the Congress. There is also the point of view of the Merchant and the Trader. The point of view of each one of these is of course the result of their particular interests. What is the interest of the Princes in this Federation? To understand the motives of the Princes you must go back to the Butler Committee. The Princes had been complaining of the encroachment of the Political Department of the Government of India upon their treaty rights under the Doctrine of Paramountcy. The Princes were insisting that the Political Department had no greater right against the States except those that were given by the treaties subsisting between them and the British Government. The Political Department on the other hand claimed that in addition to the rights referable to the treaties, the Crown had also rights which were referable to political usages and customs. To adjudicate upon this dispute, the Secretary of State agreed to appoint the Butler Committee. The Princes had hoped that the Butler Committee would accept their contentions and limit the scope of

349 FEDERATION VERSUS FREEDOM Paramountcy to the rights referable to the treaties. Unfortunately for the Princes they were disappointed, because the Butler Committee reported that the Paramountcy was paramount and that there could be no definition or delimitation of it. This decision of the Butler Committee meant a complete subordination of the Princes to the Political Department of the Government of India and the Princes were in search of an escape from this unfortunate position in which they were placed and they found, and quite rightly, that the only solution which can enable them to esape the tyranny of the Political Department was the Federation; because to the extent to which the Federal authority prevailed, the authority of the Political Department would vanish and as the Federal authority could only be exercised by a Federal Legislature and a Federal Executive and as they would have sufficient voice in the Federal Legislature and the Federal Executive they thought of federation. The federal solution of their problem offered two advantages to the Princes. The first was that it would secure to the States internal autonomy which they were very anxious to have, for it is of the essence of federating units to remain in their own hands all powers save those which they themselves have willingly delegated to a common centre and over which they themselves possess a share in the control. The second advantage of the Federation was that Paramountcy would disappear to the extent of the Federal authority. The motive of the Princes, therefore, was selfish and their primary aim was to get rid as much as possible of the authority of the Political Department of the Government of India. This was one of the primary interests of the Princes. The Princes had another interests to safeguard. That was to preserve their powers of civil and military government as much as possible. They wanted to make the Federation as thin as possible so that it might not impinge upon them very hard. The interest of the Princes is two-fold. They wanted to escape Paramountcy. Secondly, they did not want to subject themselves too much to the authority of the Federation. In looking at the Federation, the Princes keep two questions before them. How far will this Federation enable them to escape the tyranny of Paramountcy ? Secondly, how far does this scheme of Federation take away their sovereignty and their powers of internal government ? They want to draw more under the former and give less under the latter. The Muslims had an interest which not only coloured their whole vision but made it so limited that they did not care to look at anything else. That interest was their interest as a minority. They knew only one means of protecting themselves against the Hindu majority. That was to ask for reservation of seats with separate electorates and weightage in representation. In 1930 they discovered that there was another and a more efficacious method of protecting the Muslim minorities. That was to carve out new Provinces in which Muslims would be in a majority and Hindus in a minority as a counterblast to Provinces with Hindus as a majority and Muslims as

350 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES a minority. They hit upon this system because they felt such as a system of balance of Provinces would permit the Muslims in the Muslim majority Provinces to hold the Hindu minorities in their Provinces as hostage for the good behaviour of the Hindu Majorities in the Provinces in which the Muslims were in minority. The creation of Muslim majority Provinces and to make them strong and powerful was their dominant interest. To accomplish this they demanded the separation of Sindh and the grant of responsible government to the North West Frontier Provinces so that the Muslims could have a command of four Provinces. To make the Provinces strong they insisted on making the Centre weak. As a means to this end the Muslims demanded that residuary powers should be given to the Provinces and the Hindu representation in the Centre should be reduced by giving the Muslims not only 1/3 of seats from the total fixed for British India but also 1/3 from the total assigned to the Princes. The Hindus as represented by the Hindu Mahasabha were concerned with only one thing. How to meet what they called the menace of the Musalmans ? The Hindu Mahasabha felt that the accession of the Princes was an accretion to the Hindu strength. Everything else was to them of no consequence. Its point of view was Federation at any cost. The next class whose point of view is worthy of consideration is the Indian Commercial Community. The commercial community is no doubt a small community in a vast country like India, but there can be no doubt about it that the point of view of this community is really more decisive than the point of view of any other community. This community has been behind the Congress. It is this community which has supplied the Congress the sinews of war and it knows that having paid the piper it can call for the tune. The commercial community is primarily interested in what is called commercial discrimination and the lowering of the exchange Ratio. It was a very narrow and limited point of view. The Indian Commercial Community is out to displace Europeans from Trade and Commerce and take their place. This it claims to do in the name of nationalism. It wants the right to lower the exchange rate and make profit in its foreign trade. This also it claims to do in the name of nationalism. Beyond getting profits to themselves the Merchants and Traders have no other consideration. What shall I say about the Congress? What was its point of view? I am sure I am not exaggerating or misrepresenting facts when I say that the Congress point of view at the Round Table Conference was that the Congress was the only party in India and that no body else counted and that the British should settle with the Congress only. This was the burden of Mr. Gandhi’s song at the Round Table Conference, He was so busy in establishing his own claim to recognition by the British as the dictator of India that he forgot altogether that the important question was not, with