Vol. 13 · pages 561–565

Governments will know that this is the normal method which the Government of India and the Provincial Governments adopt before they finalise their legislative measures : there is no proposal brought forth by the Government of India in which the Government of India has not taken sufficient steps to consult organised opinion dealing with that particular matter. It seems to me that his provision which is a matter of common course is hardly necessary to be put in the Constitution. I therefore, think, that from that point of view it is unnecessary. Then I should like to tell the House that it is proposed that at a later stage I should bring in an amendment which would permit the President to nominate three persons, either to the Council of States or to the House of the People, who shall be experts with regard to any matter which is being dealt with by any measure introduced by Government. If it is a matter of commerce, some person who has knowledge and information and who is an expert in that particular branch of the subject dealt with by the Bill, will be appointed by the President either to the Council of States or to the Lower House. He shall continue to be a member of the Legislature until the Bill is disposed of, he shall have the right to address the House, but he shall not have the right to vote. It is through that amendment that the Drafting Committee proposes to introduce into the House such expert knowledge as the Legislature at any particular moment may require. That justifies, as I said, the rejection of Prof. K. T. Shah’s amendment; and also the other amendments which insisted that the other clauses of this article requiring that agriculture, industry and so on be also represented, become unnecessary. Because, whenever any such expert assistance is necessary, this provision will be found amply sufficient to carry out that particular purpose. Honourable members might remember that in the 1919 Act when Diarchy was introduced in the Provinces, a similar provision was introduced in the then Government of India Act, which permitted Provincial Governors to nominate experts to the House to deal with particular measures. Sir, I suppose and I believe that this particular proposal, which I shall table before the House through an amendment, will be sufficient to meet the requirements of the case. Shri R. K. Sidhwa : Will the nomination clause remain ? The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Yes. 528 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

Mr. Vice-President : I shall now put amendment No. 1379 to vote. “That for clause (1) of article 67, the following be substituted : ‘(1) The Council of States shall consist of not more than two hundred and fifty members of whom— (a) twelve members shall be nominated by the President in the manner provided in clause (2) of this article; and (b) the remainder shall be representative of the States.’ The amendment was adopted. ***** *Mr. Vice-President : I shall put amendment No. 1375, standing in the name of Dr. Ambedkar, to vote. It reads. “That the proviso to clause (1) of article 67 be deleted.” Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi: On a point of Order, Sir, Amendment No. 1375 is out of order in view of the fact that we have already adopted amendment No. 1369 which is a substitution of the clause including the proviso. The proviso has been omitted now by the acceptance of the new clause. There is no point in having an amendment about something which is not in existence. Mr. Vice-President: Then I shall not put it to vote. [Five amendments as shown below were adopted, 23 amendments were negatived.] Amendment No. 1378 : “That the following new clause be added after clause (1) of article 67 : “(1-a) The allocation of seats to representatives of the States in the Council of States shall be in accordance with the provisions in that behalf contained in Schedule III-B.’ ” The amendment was adopted. Amendment No. 1380. (by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar) “That for clause (2) of article 67, the following be substituted : “(2) The members to he nominated by the President under sub-clause (a) of Clause (1) of this article shall consist of persons having special knowledge or practical experience in respect of such matters as the following, namely : ‘ Letters, art, science and social services.’ ” The amendment was adopted. Amendment No. 1400. “That at the end of sub-clause (a) of clause (3) of article 67, the following words be added : ‘in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.’ ” The amendment was adopted. * CAD, Vol. VII, 3rd January 1949, pp. 1229-31. 529DRAFT CONSTITUTION

Amendment No. 1403. “That in sub-clause (b) of clause (3) of article 67, after the words ‘of that House’ the words ‘in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote’ be inserted.” The amendment was adopted. ***** *Mr. Vice-President: The first part of amendment No. 1425 and amendment No. 1426 standing in the name of Mr. Kamath are identical. I propose that amendment No. 1425 may be moved, the first as well as the second part. Mr. Kamath, do you want your amendment No. 1426 to be put to vote ? Shri H. V. Kamath: I see that Dr. Ambedkar has stolen a march over me and so I do not propose to move my amendment. Mr. Vice-President: Dr. Ambedkar. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay : General) : I am not moving it. ***** †Pandit Thakur Dass Bhargava : Signing the name can be learnt in two month. Shri M. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar : With what effect ? It is idle to think that merely if a man is able to sign his name, he will immediately become such a literate and educated man as to exercise his vote properly; I should say such a qualification is unnecessary.... I support the formal amendments moved by my Friend Dr. Ambedkar and oppose the amendments moved by Mr. Karimuddin and Mr. Baig and also by Prof. Shah. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Mr. Vice-President, sir, I accept the amendments Nos. 1417, 1426, 1431 of Prof. Shah, 1434 as amended by the mover of that amendment and as amended by the amendment No. 42 of List II and No. 43 of List II. Of the other amendments, on a careful examination, I find that there is only one amendment on which I need offer any reply. That is amendment No. 1415 of my friend Mr. Karimuddin. His amendment aims at prescribing that the election to the House of the People in the various States shall be in accordance with the propotional representation by single transferable vote. Now, I do not think it is possible to accept this amendment, because, so far as I am able to Judge the merits of the system of *CAD, Vol. VII, 4th January l949, p. 1239. † Ibid., pp. 1261-63. 530 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

proportional representation, in the light of the circumstances as they exist in this country, I think, that amendment cannot be accepted. My Friend Mr. Karimuddin will, I think, accept the proposition that proportional representation presupposes literacy on a large scale. In fact, it presupposes that every voter shall be literate, at least to the extent of being in a position to know the numericals, and to be in a position to mark them on a ballot paper. I think, having regard to the extent of literacy in this country, such a presupposition would be utterly extravagant. I have not the least doubt on that point. Our literacy is the smallest, I believe, in the world, and it would be quite impossible to impose upon an illiterate mass of voters a system of election which involves marking of ballot papers. That in itself, would, T think, exclude the system of proportional representation. The second thing to which I like to draw the attention of the House is that at any rate, in my judgment, proportional representation is not suited to the from of Government which this constitution lays down. The form of Government which this constitution lays down is what is known as the parliamentary system of Government, by which we understand that a government shall continue to be in office not necessarily for the full term prescribed by law, namely, five years, but so long as the Government continues to have the confidence of the majority of the House. Obviously it means that in the House where there is the parliamentary system of government, you must necessarily have a party which is in majority and which is prepared to support the Government. Now, so far as I have been able to study the results of the systems of parliamentary or proportional representation. 1 think, it might be said that one of the disadvantages of proportional representation is the fragmentation of the legislature into a number of small groups. I think the House will know that although the British Parliament appointed a Royal Commission in the year 1910, for the purpose of considering whether their system of single-member constituency, with one man one vote, was better or whether the proportional representation system was better, it is, I think, a matter to be particularly noted that Parliament was not prepared to accept the recommendations of that Royal Commission. The reason which was given for not accepting it was, in my judgement, a very sound reason, that proportional representation would not permit a stable government to 531DRAFT CONSTITUTION

remain in office, because Parliament would be so divided into so many small groups that every time anything happened which displeased certain groups in Parliament, they would, on that occasion, withdraw their support from the government, with the result that the Government losing the support of certain groups and units, would fall to pieces. Now, I have not the least doubt in my mind that whatever else the future government provides for, whether it relieves the people from the wants from which they are suffering now or not, our future government must do one thing, namely, it must maintain a stable Government and maintain law and order. (Hear, hear). I am therefore, very hesitant in accepting any system of election which would damage the stability of Government. I am therefore, on that account, not prepared to accept this arrangement. There is a third consideration which I think, it is necessary to bear in mind. In this country, for a long number of years, the people have been divided into majorities and minorities. I am not going into the question whether this division of the people into majorities and minorities was natural, or whether it was an artificial thing, or something which was deliberately calculated and brought about by somebody who was not friendly to the progress of this country. Whatever that may be, the fact remains that there have been these majorities and minorities in our country; and also that, at the initial stage when this Constituent Assembly met for the discussion of the principles on which the future constitution of the country should be based, there was an agreement arrived at between the various minority communities and the majority community with regard to the system of representation. That agreement has been a matter of give and take. The minorities who, prior to that meeting of the Constituent Assembly, had been entrenched behind a system of separate electrorates, were prepared, or became prepared to give up that system and the majority which believed that there ought to be no kind of special reservation to any particular community permitted, or rather agreed that while they could not agree to separate electorates, they would agree to a system of joint electorates with reservation of seats. This agreement provides for two things. It provides for a definite quota of representation to the various minorities, and it also provides that such a quota shall be returned through joint electorates. Now, my submission is this, that while it is still open to 532 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES