Vol. 15 · pages 961–965

942 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Government ? I make this suggestion because I feel that the States might raise an objection that this is a concurrent piece of legislation and being a concurrent piece of legislation the States have the right ordinarily to administer these Acts. I do not think that this is a concurrent piece of legislation in which the States can claim to have a right to administer. I claim that this is a Central law although it does not fall in List I of the Seventh Schedule. The provisions contained in article 35 are quite clear. It has been stated in article 35 that any law to be made for inflicting punishment for any infringement of a law made in pursuance of article 17 shall be by Parliament and not by the State. Those are the very express words. Therefore there can be no doubt in my mind that this law will have to be by virtue of the Constitution administered by the Centre and not by the States. I say this because my hon. friend might be saying that since we have made the offences under this Act cognisable, it does not matter if the law is administered by the States but that argument cannot stand at all in virtue of article 35 and I would suggest to him that he should introduce an express provision in the Bill that the Law shall be administered by the Centre. If my friend’s contention or the contention of the States is that this is also a concurrent piece of legislation, I would like to draw his attention to the proviso to article 73 which is a very important one and which relates to the administration of laws in the concurrent field. My hon. friend will remember that in the scheme of things in the Government of India Act of 1935 we had the same kind of classification of subjects— List I—Central subject, List II—State subject, and List III— Concurrent subject, but the Government of India Act contained an express provision that the power of the Centre to make law in the concurrent field was confined merely to lawmaking. It could not encroach upon the field of administration. The reasons why such a provision was made in the Government of India Act, 1935, are quite irrelevant to the times in which we find ourselves now, but when we made the Constitution we refused to accept such a provision. We said that although generally the Centre may leave a law in this concurrent field

943PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES for administration to the States the choice must be given to the Centre to determine whether any particular law in the” concurrent field made by it shall be administered by it and not by the States. That intention has been carried out in the proviso to article 73. We said that if the Centre so determines that the law made in the concurrent field shall be administered by the Centre then the States cannot interfere in the matter at all. Therefore, I am strongly of the opinion that this contention is invalid.

944 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES (53) CONSTITUTION (FOURTH AMENDMENT) BILL, 1954 *Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay) : Mr. Chairman, those who are familiar with the British Parliamentary system will know that there is a dogma in the working of the British Constitution that all parties in England accept. That dogma is that the King can do no wrong. If any wrong is done in the working of the Constitution, the person responsible for the wrong is the Prime Minister and his colleagues. But the King can never be wrong and can never do wrong. We too in this country have adopted practically, with slight modifications, the British Constitution. But unfortunately the working of our Constitution is governed by a dogma, which is just the opposite of the dogma adopted by the British people. In our country the dogma on which we proceed is that the Prime Minister can do no wrong and that he will do no wrong. Therefore, anything that the Prime Minister proposes to do must be accepted as correct and without question. This devotion in politics to a personality may be excusable in some cases, but it does not seem to me excusable where the fundamental rights are being invaded. The fundamental rights are the very basis of the preamble to the Constitution. The Preamble says that this Constitution will have as its basis liberty, equality and fraternity. These objectives of the Constitution are carried out by the fundamental rights. And it is, therefore, the duty, I should have thought, of every Member of Parliament, apart from personal loyalty, to be critical when any invasion is made of the fundamental rights. Unfortunately, one does not find this kind of critical attitude. The history of fundamental rights in this country is very interesting. In olden times under the Hindu kings there were fundamental rights only for two—the Brahmin and the cow— * P. D., Vol. 9-B, 19th March 1955, pp. 2446-66.

945PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES and the Puranas described the king as “ Go Brahmana Pratipalaka.” That was the duty of a king; whether the other sections of his subjects received any consideration at his hands or not, or whether animals other than the ‘Go’ had any consideration was a matter of no moment at all. So long as the Brahmin and the cow were protected, the king was destined to go to heaven. When the Muslims came, they took away these fundamental rights which the Hindu kings had granted to the Brahmin and the cow. The cow unfortunately not only lost its rights to live, but became the victim of everybody. So was the case of the Brahmin. What the Muslims did was to give privileges to the Mussalman and no rights to the non-Muslims. After the Muslim rule ended in this country, there came upon us the rule of the British. Anyone who examines the various Government of India Acts passed from 1772 to 1935 will find that there were no such thing as fundamental rights in any of the Government of India Acts that were passed by Parliament for the administration of this country. It is in 1947 or so when Swaraj became a fact in this country that this idea of fundamental rights emerged. It is our Constitution which for the first time contains the embodiment of what are called fundamental rights. It is a very strange thing that although the foreigners were ruling in this country, namely the British, no one ever agitated for the enactment of the fundamental rights. The Congress was in existence from 1886. Let anyone examine the annual resolutions passed by the Congress. They never asked for any fundamental rights. Babu Gopinath Singh (Uttar pradesh) : Did you read the Karachi Congress Resolution of 1931. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Well, I have no idea about that. They said that they would have fundamental rights when they enact a Constitution. I am coming to that now, it is as I say a very strange commentary that no Indian—and the Indians who ran the Congress in the earliest times were intellectual giants: they were not ordinary people, they were most learned, they were wide awake—not one of them to my knowledge asked for any fundamental rights. But as soon as

946 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Swaraj came, there was a demand for fundamental rights. It is a matter worth consideration why this happened ? Various people would no doubt give various replies, but my reply is very simple. My reply is very simple. My reply is this—the reason why Indians did not demand fundamental rights when the British were here is this. Although the British had their imperialism as one aspect of their rule, there cannot be any doubt that the administration of this country was governed by what was called the rule of justice, equity and good conscience. Sir, I remember, at least speaking for my own province, how independent was the judiciary which wholly consisted of Europeans. How independent it was of the executive. I remember a case ………… Dewan Chaman Lall (Punjab) : Is it Tilak’s case ? Dr. B, R. Ambedkar : It is a very famous one, the case of a Mr. Justice Knight who was the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court during the time of the East India Company. He had issued a writ against the Government of Bombay and the Government of Bombay refused to obey. They said that the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court had no right to issue a writ against the Executive. When they informed him that they were not going to carry out that particular writ, what did Mr. Knight do ? He called the Chaprassi and said : “Bring the keys of the High Court”, and he asked him to lock up every room of the High Court, including his own, and next day booked a passage for himself and went back to London, saying: “If you are not going to obey my orders as the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, you will have no High Court, at all.” Subsequently, of course, his order was reversed by the Privy Council. But that is no matter at all. The point is that the British administered this country in a manner in which everybody felt that there was some sense of security. That is the reason why, in my judgement, nobody in this country clamoured for fundamental rights. But as soon as Swaraj presented itself, everybody thought—at least many of the minorities thought—that there was the prospect of political authority passing into the hands of a majority, which did not possess what might constitutionally