Vol. 15 · pages 206–210

189PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES this sort but I should have thought that if Prof. Shah was so keen as he appeared to be for a legislation of this sort, he should not have had an empty mind without any kind of a suggestion of his own. However, I suppose those who have supported his resolution have correctly interpreted his mind and taking into account the various speeches that have been made in support of Prof. Shah’s Resolution, it appears that many Members who are keen about adding some qualification other than those mentioned in the Constitution have in their mind some kind of an educational qualification. But none of them has been very precise : none of them has given me any idea as to what is the standard of education that they would like to prescribe in order that the candidate may become lawfully entitled to stand. Now it seems to me that education can hardly be the sole qualification for membership of this House. If I may use the words of Buddha, he said that man requires two things. One is Gyan and the other is Sheel. Gyan without Sheel is very dangerous: it must be accompained by Sheel, by which we mean character, moral courage, ability to be independent of any kind of temptation, truthful to one’s ideals. I did not find any reference to the second qualification in the speeches I have heard from Members who have supported Prof. Shah, But even though I myself am very keen to see that no Member enters this August Assembly, who does not possess Sheel in adequate degree, I find it extremely difficult to find any means or methods to ensure that valuable qualification. Coming to the question of education, I do not wish to be understood that I regard ignorance to be a virtue: let that be quite clear. I regard education to be a very necessary qualification for possessing that degree of competence which is very necessary for the performance of one’s duty. In this House there are people who, although they are not educated, are very competent to voice the grievances of the class whom they represent. I am sure about it. A more educated person would not be able to discharge that function, because he does not know and does not have that experience. But my friends who come from these classes and with whom I have naturally very great sympathy do not realise that what is more

190 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES necessary for bringing relief to the class of people whom they represent is not merely making speeches in this House but to suggest remedies for the removal of their grievances. To make speeches and to ventilate grievances is a very easy matter but to formulate remedies is a very difficult matter. It requires education and therefore education even from the standpoint of the backward classes, scheduled classes or tribal areas is a very necessary ingredient. How can we ensure it ? When I examined the suggestion that there ought to be some kind of educational qualification, I found that a proposition which is very good in theory or in its academic aspect cannot be given effect to without producing other evils. That is my difficulty. Where will you fix the standard? Will you say that only B.As. should be qualified to be Members of this House ? Supposing you do that, what is the result ? Members probably might know that there are many people who are educationally and intellectually far more competent than any graduate, although they have never been inside any college or university. There are any number of them. Are you going to shut out these people who have privately educated themselves, who are equally competent or better than B.As. or M.As., merely because they have not been able to obtain a certificate from a university ? I think that would be a very unfortunate result. Take another consequence. In this country education is in the lowest grade. Not only that is so but for some reason which all of us know, education has not been universally spread among all the communities in this country. There are communities which are highly educated and there are communities where education is very, very low. Supposing you make B.A. or even matriculation as a standard, are you not making the membership of this House to be a monopoly of the few ? I fear that will be the consequence, Supposing you lower down your standard, say, for instance, to the fourth standard, to the study of the three Rs. or to literacy in order that no community may be excluded from the opportunity of sending its members to this House. Is That qualification any good? It is of no value at all. Therefore, my submission is this, that it is a good thing. I am not going to outcry the feeling that there ought to be

191PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES some education in Members who come to represent their various constituencies in this House. But I just cannot see how you can give legal effect to it. Therefore, my suggestion is that this is a matter which had better be left to the people themselves, or to the political parties who will run the Government. I have no doubt about it that if the political parties, for their own particular purposes, do not attend to this matter, people themselves in course of time will attend to it. People are not going to allow persons who cannot discharge their functions properly in this House to be continued and returned for ever. They want results, They want their welfare to be attended to, and I am sure about it that they will realise that the only instrumentality through which they can achieve this purpose is to send good men to this House. Therefore, I think the proper course is to leave the matter to the people. Now, Sir, my friend Prof. K. T. Shah in a somewhat desperate mood said that he knew the fate of this Resolution. That was because not that his Resolution was bad on merits but because he was the Mover of it. I like to assure my friend Prof. K. T. Shah that I have no such personal prejudice against him, and certainly I am not the man to reject a Resolution moved by a person because I happened to disagree with him or happened to dislike him. There are many people in this House who have personal prejudices—probably personal antagonisms—between themselves, but I am sure about it that no Member is going to allow these prejudices to stand in the way of doing the work which this House is always engaged in doing. Therefore, I hope that he will not carry such views in his heart when he finds me opposing his Resolution. Sir, I do not think that any purpose would be served by forming a Committee because, as I find, nothing workable has emerged from the debate. If I had found that any concrete suggestion had emerged from the debate which it was possible to give effect to in terms of law, I certainly would not have hesitated to accept that recommendation. My friend Prof. K T. Shah said that he did not despair at this stage of finding a formula which he might give legal effect to. I was waiting to hear from him further some concrete suggestion and the method by which he would give

192 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES it a legal form, but he abruptly ended by saying that he did not despair of it, without throwing any light as to how the matter could be dealt with. Of course, this matter I know will be agitated on the Motion which I hope I shall be able to make during this session for the consideration of the People’s Representation Bill, because it is there that this matter is being specifically put before the House, namely, the qualifications and disqualifications. And no matter what the desire of my friend Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh may be, nothing can take away the liberty of the House to reagitate this question in the form of an amendment when the Bill comes. For the moment, I am afraid I cannot accept this Resolution. Mr. Speaker : I was just placing before the House the amendments. Shri Klamath (Madhya Pradesh): Sir, as the question is coming up before the House later in the Session, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment. The amendment was, by leave, withdrawn. Mr. Speaker : Then there is an amendment moved by Shri S. N. Mishra. The question is: That before the word “qualifications” the words “minimum educational” be inserted. The motion was negatived. Mr. Speaker: Then as regards the Resolution. The question is : “This House is do opinion that qualifications be laid down for membership of Parliament and Legislatures of States in the Union of India and that necessary steps be taken forthwith to give effect to them before the next election.” The motion was negatived.

193PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (21) *COOCH-BEHAR (ASSIMILATION OF LAWS) BILL The Minister of Law (Dr. Ambedkar) : I beg to move for leave to introduce a Bill to assimilate certain laws in force in Cooch-Behar to the laws in force in the rest of West Bengal. Mr. Speaker : The question is : “ That leave be granted to introduce a Bill to assimilate certain laws in force in Cooch-Behar to the laws in force in the rest of West-Bengal.” The motion was adopted. Dr. Ambedkar : I introduce the Bill. ** The Minister of Law (Dr. Ambedkar) : I beg to move : “ That the Bill to assimilate certain laws in force in CoochBehar to the laws in force in the rest of West Bengal, be taken into consideration.” This is a very simple and short Bill, but having regard to the experience which we have had in the last whole week, I hope that I will be fortunate enough to get this Bill through before the House rises this evening. Sir, the object of the Bill is to extend certain central laws relating to matters lying in List I and II to Cooch-Behar. The Bill proposes to give the Central Government power to appoint a day by notification in the Gazette as to when these laws will come into operation. There is only one exception to these laws, and that is with regard to the Muslim shariat law. With regard to that, power is given to the West Bengal Government to appoint the day so that on the day appointed by it the Muslim shariat law will come into operation. This Bill would have been unnecessary had Cooch-Behar become a merged State before 1949, because the House will remember that by *P. D., Vol. 5, Part II, 4th August 1950, pp. 291-292. **P. D., Vol. 6, Part II, 1st December 1950, p. 1147.