Vol. 15 · pages 936–940

917PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES and years. At the same time, there is no reason why we should not strongly agitate for seeing, whether untouchability goes or not, that the social, economic, political and constitutional right of the Scheduled Castes are fully protected. To that extent efforts must necessarily be directed. Sir, there is one other word I should like to say. People might say that I have taken most of the time with the Scheduled Castes. I have not said anything with regard to the tribes and I am not going to say anything, because there are many friends who are more qualified to speak about them than I am, I shall, therefore, not venture to enter that field, but there is one thing which, I think, one can say and should say, because I find there is a good deal of confusion in the minds of the people as regards the relative position of the Scheduled Castes, the tribal castes and the criminal tribes. Now, Sir, with regards to the Scheduled Castes, the position is this : they are prepared—in fact, not prepared—but they are already within the pale of civilization. They are not outside. Their struggle is to achieve equality of opportunity and equality of status. That is their problem. With regard to the tribal people, their problem is totally different. They are outside the Hindu civilization. And the question that has to be considered with regard to these tribal people is this ; do they want to come within the Hindu civilization and be assimilated and then acquire equality of status and equality of opportunity ? I was talking to many leaders of the tribal communities—many men and women of the tribal community— they seem to be most reluctant to come within the pale of Hindu civilization. Dr. Shrimati Seeta Parmanand : Question. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : They prefer to live outside, they do not want to come in. With regard to the criminal tribes, theirs is a purely economic problem : how well can you give them the opportunity to earn a decent living ? If they can get the opportunity to earn a decent living, they will cease to be criminals. Now, Sir, one question asked is this. It seems to me a matter of great regret that the Hindu civilization which is so many

918 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES years old, some say six thousand years old—many people will not be satisfied with that period probably they want to take it back—never mind about it, let it be six thousand years old—has produced five crores of untouchables, some two crores of tribal people; and some fifty thousand criminal tribes people. What can one say of this civilization ? With a civilization which has produced these results, there must be something very fundamentally wrong, and I think it is time the Hindus looked at it from this point of view—whether they can be proud of the civilization which has produced these communities like the untouchables, the criminal tribes and the tribal people. I think they ought to think twice—not twice a hundred times—they are conventionally called civilized— whether they could be called civilized with this kind of results produced by their civilization. Sir, I thank you very much for this opportunity.

919PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (51) CONSTITUTION (THIRD AMENDMENT) BILL, 1954 * Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay) : Mr. Deputy Chairman, the Bill which is placed before this House raises two issues and it is desirable that the two issues should be considered separately. The first issue relates to the merits of the Bill, whether this Bill should be regarded as a good Bill on its own merits; and the second issue is, the manner in which this Bill is being carried through parliament. I shall say a few words on the merits of the Bill. It is quite obvious that there is nothing new in this Bill. What the Bill seeks to do is to drop entry No. 33 in the Concurrent List and to substitute in place of that entry, the provisions contained in Article 369 as they stand now, with a small addition that is export of jute; otherwise, there is really no fundamental change at all and it is a mere substitution. Looking at it from this point of view, I cannot see how there can be any objection to the Bill as proposed by the Hon. Minister in charge of it. The only kind of dispute that could arise would be whether the provisions of Article 369 should be in the State List—List II—so that the States will have exclusive power or whether they should be placed in List I so that the Centre would have an exclusive power in dealing with these goods. The present position is this : According to Article 369 these matters or these goods are treated as though they are entered in the Concurrent List. That is the present position. In the Concurrent List, both the Centre as well as the States have the power to legislate. Therefore, looking at the present position as defined in Article 369 and entry 33, we find that both of them place these matters in the Concurrent List. It cannot be that the States can complain that any jurisdiction which was vested in them by the Constitution is being taken away by this amending Bill. The * P. D., (R. S.), Vol. 7-B, 15th September 1954, pp. 2297-2303.

920 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES position, as I say, remains exactly the same : the only question is whether the legislative control vested in the Centre by Article 369—which was vested only for five years and no more—should now be continued for an indefinite period. Speaking for myself, I feel that that is a patter for the Administration to judge, whether the circumstances m which they are living now are so altered that the period of five years which was given to parliament to legislate over these items should be abrogated. On that point, speaking again for myself, I am quite prepared to submit to the decision of the Administration because they know far better than a Member of parliament can hope to do. “Therefore, Sir, so far as the merits of the Bill are concerned, I give my support to it. The Hon. Minister in charge while speaking on the Bill, made some reference to consultations with the States. I heard him say that he consulted the opposite departments in the various States and that the consultation, so far as I was able to judge from the observation that he made, was, if I may say so, somewhat perfunctory. I think that this is a very grave matter for the simple reason that this Bill is not going to become law merely by the vote of the two Houses. The Bill will have to go through a further ceremony before it becomes law. In this connection, I would like to draw the attention of the Hon. Minister in charge to Article 368, particularly to clause (c) of the Proviso which says : “Provided that if such amendment seeks to make any change in—* * * (c) any of the Lists in the Seventh Schedule,* * * the amendment shall also require to be ratified by the Legislatures of not less than one half of the States specified in Parts A and B of the first schedule by resolutions to that effect passed by those Legislatures before the Bill making provision for such amendment is presented to the President for assent “Therefore, this is one of those amendments …….. Shri T. T. Krishnamachari : On a point of information. The first letter dated the 12th September 1953 was addressed to all the State Governments and the second letter dated the 20th August 1954 enclosing a copy of this letter was addressed

921PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES to the Chief Secretaries of all the States personally, not to the opposite departments of the Commerce Ministry. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Well, I am sorry; I perhaps made a wrong statement and I stand corrected, but all the same I want to urge that my argument is very sound, for whatever may be the preliminaries that might have been negotiated between the Minister-in-charge and the State Governments, the fact remains that the consent of the States by resolutions will be necessary in order that his amendment may become law, and if my hon. friend had by courtesy and by discussion and by consultation already obtained the goodwill of the State Governments, the subsequent action by the State Governments, namely passing of resolutions, would have been a mere matter of form. But if they have not been satisfied with such consultations as the Minister has had, he may find that there is a hurdle which he may not be able to overcome. That is all I want to say. Now I come to the manner in which the Government has been proceeding with the amendment of the Constitution. The Constitution is only about, I believe, four years old. Shri B. K. P. Sinha (Bihar) : Four years and seven months. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Well, not an adult yet—may not be a child, and in the four years and seven months of its life it has been amended three times; I believe this the third amendment of the Constitution. I do not know of any Constitution in the world which has been amended so rapidly and, if I may say so, so rashly, by the government in office. Now, Sir, I would like, in order to illustrate my point, to place before the House the provisions in the Constitution of the United States of America and the provisions in the Constitution of Australia for the purpose of amending the Constituton. Later on I will show what difference there is between our Constitution and these two Constitutions in the matter of the amendment of the Constitution. In the Australian constitution, Article 128 lays down this provision that the amending law shall be passed by both houses by an absolute