Vol. 13 · pages 106–110

73CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATES this has not been given to it by the Committee as a whole. Some time in April the Secretarial of the Constituent Assembly had intimated me and others besides myself that you had decided that the Union Powers Committee, the Union Constitution Committee and the Provincial Constitution Committee, at any rate the members thereof, and a few other selected people should meet and discuss the various amendments that had been suggested by the members of the House and also by the general public. A meeting was held for two days in April last and I believe a certain amount of good work was done and I see that Dr. Ambedkar has chosen to accept certain recommendations of the Committee, but nothing was heard about this committee thereafter. I understand that the Drafting Committee—at any rate Dr. Ambedkar and Mr. Madhava Rau—met thereafter and scrutinised the amendments and they have made certain suggestions, but technically perhaps this was not a Drafting Committee. Though I would not question your ruling on this matter, one would concede that the moment a Committee had reported that Committee became functus officio, and I do not remember your having reconstituted the Drafting Committee…….. **** *Shri Biswanath Das (Orissa : General) : Mr. Vice-President. Sir, I rise to thank the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar for the brilliant analysis of the Constitution that he presented to the Constituent Assembly. Sir, I equally thank his colleagues who laboured hard for six long months to forge the Constitution that is presented to this House……. †Shri H. Das (Orissa : General) : Mr. Vice President. Sir, at the outset I must pay my tribute to the Drafting Committee that did a greatly arduous work and put into shape and form the Constitution Bill which we are considering today and which we have to alter according to our will, so that a proper sovereign Constitution will be designed for India. While I pay my tribute to Dr . Ambedkar and his colleagues, I must also pay the tribute that your advisers deserve……….. ***** ‡Shri Lokanath Misra (Orissa : General):…….Sir, this Constituent Assembly which represents the sovereignty of India and which is supposed to give shape and form and prestige to our freedom is here deliberating on a Constitution that is supposed to be the guardian of our future. With that end in view, our leaders have laboured enough *CAD. Vol. VII. 5th November 1948. p. 237. †Ibid., p 239. ‡Ibid., p. 240.

74 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES and hard and have produced a Draft Constitution which we are now going to discuss. Sir, my first point is this : that although Dr. Ambedkar has delivered a very brilliant, illuminating, bold and lucid speech completely analysing the Draft Constitution……… .... I would have taken some more time to X-ray the speech of Dr. Ambedkar. I bow down to his knowledge. I bow down to his clarity of speech. I bow down to his courage. But I am surprised to see that so learned a man so great a son of India knows so little of India. He is doubtless the very soul of the Draft Constitution and he has given in his Draft something which is absolutely un-Indian. By un-Indian I mean that however much he may repudiate, it is absolutely a slavish imitation of—nay much more—a slavish surrender to the West. ***** *Kazi Syed Karimuddin (C.P. and Berar : Muslim) : Mr. President, Sir. I congratulate Dr. Ambedkar for the introduction of the motion for the consideration of the Draft Constitution of India. The speech that he delivered was a remarkable one and I am sure that his name is bound to go down to posterity as a great constitution-maker…….. ***** †Prof. K. T. Shah (Bihar: General) : Sir. I have to join in the chorus of congratulations that have been offered to the Drafting Committee and its Chairman for the very elaborate Draft Constitution that they have placed before this House. I have particularly to felicitate the Law Minister for the very lucid way in which he has put forward the salient features of the Constitution for our consideration, and given us thoughtprovoking ideas, with reasons why certain items have been included and why certain others have been put in the manner they have been…….. ***** ‡Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra (West Bengal : General) : Sir. I would be failing in my duly if I do not at the very outset congratulate my Honourable friend and old colleague. Dr. Ambedkar for the magnificent performance he made yesterday. The House appreciates the stupendous amount of time and energy he has spent in giving the constitutional proposals a definite shape……. ***** *CAD, Vol. VII, 5th November 1948. p. 242. †Ibid., p. 244. ‡Ibid. p. 246.

75CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATES *Shri Ramnarayan Singh (Bihar : General) : Sir, I congratulate my Honourable friend Dr. Ambedkar on the opportunity he got of introducing this Constitution Bill and I support his motion….. ***** †Dr. F. S. Deshmukh (C.P. & Berar : General) : Sir. I am thankful to you for giving me this opportunity to express my views on the proposed Constitution. The time is limited and therefore my observations can only be of a very general nature. When consideration of the various clauses takes place I shall unfortunately not be present here. I am therefore all the more grateful to have these few minutes. The speech delivered by my Honourable friend Dr. Ambedkar was an excellent performance and it was an impressive commentary on the Draft that has been presented. As is well known, he is an Advocate of repute and I think he ably argued what was before him. He would perhaps have shaped the Constitution differently if he had the scope to do so. In any case I think he admitted his difficulties fully when he said that after all you cannot alter the administration in a day. And if the present Constitution can be described in a nutshell it is one intended to fit in with the present administration………. ***** ‡Shri S. Nagappa : Mr. Vice-President, Sir, I join the previous speakers in congratulating the Honourable Chairman of the Drafting Committee and all members of it. They have taken care to see that all aspects of all problems and all the reports of the various committees have been consolidated and looked into…….. Sir, I am one of those who plead for a strong Centre, especially as we all know that we have won our freedom very recently. We require sufficient time to consolidate it and to retain it for all time to come. For another reason also the Centre has to be strong. We have been already divided in so many respects, communally and on religious grounds. Now let us not be divided on the basis of provinces. So, in order to unite all the provinces and to bring about more unity, it is in the country’s interests as a whole to have a strong Centre. Another reason why we should have a strong Centre I will mention presently. Some people say that we should have a strong Centre with a war mentality. I do not think we should have that mentality at all. We have been trained to be non-violent and truthful. These are our principles. When that is the case, there is no likelihood of the Centre having war mentality. *CAD, Vol. VII. 5th November 1948. p. 252 †Ibid., p 250. ‡Ibid., p.252

76 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The Honourable Dr. Ambedkar, in introducing his report and the Draft Constitution, mentioned that the Constitution was federal in structure but unitary in character. I believe, Sir, especially at this stage we require such a Constitution. We were told that he has borrowed from the Government of India Act. When we find something good in it, we copy it. If we find something useful and suitable to us, to our custom and to our culture, in other constitutions, there is no harm in adopting it. The minorities have been very well provided for in the Constitution. I am glad about it and the representatives who have been returned to this House to safeguard the interests of the minorities are also glad about it. For this we have to congratulate the majority community. We have to congratulate the majority community for conceding certain special privileges to the minorities…….. Sir, I once again thank the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar for having taken the trouble of drafting this Constitution. No doubt it is an elaborate task but he has done it so successfully and in such a short time. ***** *Shri Arun Chandra Guha (West Bengal : General) : Mr. Vice President, Sir……. Now to the Draft Constitution. I am afraid the Drafting Committee has gone beyond the terms. I am afraid the whole constitution that has been laid before us has gone beyond the main principles laid down by the Constituent Assembly. In the whole Draft Constitution we see no trace of Congress outlook, no trace of Gandhian social and political outlook. The learned Dr. Ambedkar in his long and learned speech has found no occasion to refer to Gandhiji or to the Congress. It is not surprising, because I feel the whole Constitution lacks in Congress ideal and Congress ideology particularly. When we are going to frame a constitution, it is not only a political structure that we are going to frame ; it is not only an administrative machinery that we are going to set up ; it is a machinery for the social and economic future of the nation………. As for the Fundamental Rights, Dr. Ambedkar,—he is a learned professor and I acknowledge his learning and his ability and I think the Draft Constitution is mainly his handicraft—in his introductory speech, he has entered into a sort of metaphysical debate. He has introduced a new term ; I feel. Sir, there is no right in the world which is absolute. Every right carries with it some obligation ; without obligation there cannot be any right…… ***** *CAD, Vol. VII, 4th November 1948. pp. 255-56.

77CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATES Mr. Vice President (Dr. H. C. Mookherjee) : Before I call upon the next member to address the House, I have here forty slips of members who wish to speak. The matter is so urgent and so important that I should like everybody to have an opportunity of airing his views on the Draft Constitution. May I therefore appeal to the speakers not to exceed the time-limit which I have fixed as ten minutes ? *Shri T. Prakasam : (Madras : General): Sir, the Draft Constitution introduced by Dr. Ambedkar, the Honourable member in charge, is a very big document. The trouble taken by him and those who are associated with him must have been really very great. My Honourable friend Mr. T. T. Krishnamachari, when he was speaking, explained the handicap under which the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar had been labouring on account of’ as many as live or six members of the Committee having dropped out and their places not having been filled up……… ***** †Dr. Joseph Alban D’souza (Bombay : General) : Mr. Vice-President. never before in the annals of the history of this great nation, a history that goes back to thousands of years has there ever been, and probably will there ever be, greater need—nay. Sir, I may even say as much need—as at this most vital and momentous juncture when this Honourable House will be considering clause by clause, article by article, the Draft Constitution for a Free, Sovereign, Democratic Indian Republic—as much need for a quiet and sincere introspection into our individual consciences for the purpose of giving unto Caesar what unto Caesar is due as much need for a keen spirit of fraternal accommodation and co-operation whereby peace, harmony and goodwill will be the hall-marks of our varied existences individually as well as collectively ; as much need for a sufficient breadth of vision so that the complex and the difficult problems that we have to face in connection with this constitutional set-up may be examined primarily from the broader angle of the prosperity and progress of the country as a whole ; and lastly, as much need for an adequately generous and altruistic display of that well-known maxim “Love thy neighbour as Thyself”, so that in the higher interests of the nation as a whole, sentimental, emotional, parochial particularisms may not be allowed unduly to influence the decisions of fundamental policy affecting the nation as a whole. It has been admitted by several Members—particularly by every Member who has spoken before me—that the Draft Constitution is an excellent piece of work. May I say that it is a monumental piece of *CAD, Vol. VII. 6th November 1948. p. 257. † Ibid., p. 260.