Vol. 2 · pages 801–805

780 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Sir Hari Singh Gour: There would be the penal clause that he who runs an unauthorised paper will be punished. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Might I give another example which comes to my mind ? Supposing for instance in a state of emergency the Central Government passes a Press Act under which provision is made that no paper may be started unless it deposits a certain amount of security. Now that sort of legislation is not going to affect any particular private individual. Supposing there is a paper in a particular province which is helping the Government of the day—a Party paper. Supposing that paper is influencing the Press Act passed by the Central Legislature, and supposing on account of that affiliation between the particular newspaper journal and the Government of the Province, the Government refuses to take any action against that particular paper, what is the position ? Surely no individual is affected in this particular case ? Sir Hari Singh Gour: There would be the penal clause that he who runs an unauthorised paper will be punished. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: That is exactly the point. Sir Austen Chamberlain: And has to have the information and all the machinery for reaching the Government. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: If he charges a particular officer to carry on the prosecution and the local government pays the expenses of that prosecution and does not make provision for it in the budget, what is to happen ? Sir Samuel Hoare: I see all those difficulties. At the same time I cannot help seeing the difficulties on the other side. The case mentioned by Dr. Ambedkar is essentially a case of law and order, and law and order is a provincial subject and interest. The interest of the Federation is the interest of uniformity, but that does not affect the fact that primarily that case is a provincial case. If the argument suggested in Dr. Ambedkar’s question and in Sir Austen Chamberlain’s question, too, if I may say so, is pressed to its logical conclusion, it really does mean that the Federation will control the law and order in the Provinces, and that is directly contrary to the principles as at present drafted in the White Paper. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I beg your pardon. My point is this, if I may submit it; either you must make law and order a purely provincial matter, a provincial concern which the Centre has nothing to do with, and then, of course, you can have the argument which you urged just now, but if you make it a matter of concurrent legislation, then I think the Federation must be in the position to see that the law is corrected. * * * * * †13,129. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Secretary of State, I just want to draw your attention to the present position of the concurrent field under the Government of India Act. I am anxious to do so because it was suggested to you that under the present Government of India Act only certain subjects or parts of certain subjects are made subject to the Central Legislature. †Minutes of Evidence, Vol. II-B, 12th October 1933, pp. 1178-81.

781 EVIDENCE : RIGHT HON. SIR SAMUEL HOARE AND OTHERS The point that I wish to draw your attention to is that, first of all, there are some Provincial subjects which are made specifically concurrent under Part II of Schedule I to the Devolution Rules ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes. 13,130. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: While subjects although they are made Provincial are controlled by the proviso that they are subject to the Central Legislature ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes. 13,131. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I have made a computation that out of the 51 subjects which are included in Part II of the Schedule to the Devolution Rules, 14 are made expressly subjects to the Central Legislature, or to rules made by the Central Government or the Secretary of State. That is one thing. The second thing is this : That all Provincial matters are subject to concurrent jurisdiction by the Central Government under section 67, subclause (2) of the Government of India Act by previous sanction. Although any subject is regarded under Part II as a Provincial subject, it is none the less open to the Central Government to legislate upon the whole of that Central subject provided previous sanction is obtained from the Governor-General ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes. 13,132. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: On the side of the Provincial Government control is exercised by the Central Government on the concurrent field under section 80( a), whereby the local legislature of any Province may not with out the previous sanction of the Governor-General make or take into consideration any law for regulating any Central subject or regulating any Provincial subject which has been declared by rule or law as being subject to the Central expressly reserved to the Governor-General in Council by the law for the time being in force. That is the present position ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes. 13,133. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: That is practically all of the Provincial field as also the concurrent field provided the sanction of the Governor-General is obtained ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes ; that is so. 13,134. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Now under the present proposals the whole thing is completely altered. I mean the concurrent power of the Central Legislature is proposed to be taken away in most of the matters ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Except in the List 3, yes. 13,135. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I want next to draw your attention to List 3. I am sorry I lost my paper which I completed, but I think I am right in suggesting that a great many of the subjects included in List 3 are today either exclusively Central or concurrent ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes ; I think it might be said that a number of them certainly are. 13,136. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Consequently it would be fair to suggest that under the present Government of India Act. Your Concurrent List has

782 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES always been treated as predominantly of All-India importance, under the Government of India Act as it is today, they being included either in the purely Central List or in the Concurrent List. My suggestion is that under the Government of India Act the field which is now concurrent was regarded in the Government of India Act as of All-India importance ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes ; I think that generally is so. I think it is inevitable under a unitary form of Government. 13,137. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Quite so. My suggestion, therefore, Secretary of State, is this : That it would not be quite correct to say that a field of legislation which was under the Government of India Act regarded as of All-India importance is administratively to be hereafter regarded as purely provincial ? Sir Samuel Hoare : No ; I should draw a great distinction between the conditions under a unitary form of Government and the conditions under a Federation in which the Provinces are autonomous. We are quite definitely changing the form of Indian Government from a highly centralised Government into a Federal Government. 13,138. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: But I am only talking about the importance of the subject, a subject which, upto 1901, was regarded as of All-India importance, could not all of a sudden cease to be of All-India importance and become purely a local matter. I am aware that a great deal of concession has to be made for the new Provincial Government; the fact that the Government of India has upto now been regarded as more than of local importance has always to be recognised ? Sir Samuel Hoare: I think it is very difficult to make such a comparison when it is admitted that the form of Government proposed is a very different type of Government. I think new conditions enter into the problem as soon as you move away from a unitary Government to a Government of Federation with autonomous Provinces. 13,139. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I will not press the point further, but I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that these subjects have hitherto been regarded as of more importance than purely Provincial subjects ? Sir Samuel Hoare: I suppose, however, it would be fair to say that in most of them administration even under a highly centralised Government, has been Provincial. 13,140. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Yes ; subject to the control of the Centre ? Sir Samuel Hoare: There again, I do not think that Dr. Ambedkar’s comment upon my answer quite covers the whole field. It would not cover the transferred field in the Provinces. 13,141. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: No ; that is so. Next, I want to draw your attention to Proposal 125 and to Section 45 of the Government of India Act. Section 45 of the Government of India Act is what is called the Obedience Clause, and lays down that a Provincial Government shall be under the superintendence or the control in all matters relating to the

783 EVIDENCE : RIGHT HON. SIR SAMUEL HOARE AND OTHERS Government and its Province and will also diligently and constantly inform the Government of India of its proceedings in all matters which ought in its opinion to be reported so as to give the required information. Now, what I would like to know from you, Secretary of State, is this. What is it that you wish to delete from the provisions and requirements of this Section 45 ? I see you do not want superintendence. That, of course, is obvious when the Provinces become autonomous. You want to retain direction only with regard to those matters which would be non-concurrent ? Sir Samuel Hoare : Yes. 13,142. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: And there is to be no control ? Now the question that I want to ask is this : Do you desire that the Central Government should be kept informed of what is happening under the field of Provincial administration, and do you desire that the Central Government should have the power to call for information will regard to the administration of any Provincial subject, so that it may inform itself of what is happening ? Sir Samuel Hoare: No ; we do not have any such general intention. We assume that as soon as you set up a Federal Government you must then have a definite allocation of powers between the Federation and the units. In many respects, the clearer you keep that division, the less likely it is that responsibility should be blurred, and the less likely it is that there will be incessant between the two kinds of Government. Quite definitely, under our scheme—indeed, it is one of the basic principles of it—we now divide up these various duties between the Federation, the Provinces, and the Imperial Parliament. 13,143. Mr. N. M. Joshi: May I ask a supplementary question? As regards the point of information raised by Dr. Ambedkar, I want to ask you this: In some cases, the compilation of statistics relating to All-India will be valuable. Such, for instance, as figures of All-India as regards Education. At present, although education is a transferred subject, the Government of India issues an All-India Report. Will the future Government of India possess power to collect information as regards transferred and spend money upon the compilation of an All-India Report ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Only within the specified Federal field ; anything outside the Federal field must be done by agreement. Mr. N. M. Joshi: Education is not in the Federal field ? Lord Eustace Percy: I am sure, Secretary of State, you are bearing in mind that in every Federation, for instance, in America, the research and statistical departments of the Federal Government go far beyond the Federal field. 13,144. Mr. N. M. Joshi: For instance, in America, they do publish an Educational Report for the Whole of the United States ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes. If Lord Eustace will look now at Appendix VI List 1, he will see there that we have covered his point, that the Census and so on included in the Federal field, and there, I think, we must consider the

784 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES point of All-India statistics generally—statistics, that is to say, for the purpose of Federation. 13,145. Lord Eustace Percy: I do not understand quite why it is necessary to limit it in that way. There is no reason why a Federal Government should not publish information and why its information should be entirely confined to the Federal field. It is not so in any other Federation I have ever heard of ? Sir Samuel Hoare: But, surely a Federal Government can only act for the purposes of Federation. A Federal Government has no locus standi outside the field of Federation. 13,146. Lord Eustace Percy: Of course, it cannot publish a report on the intellectual and moral progress of India if the Provincial Governments will not supply the information, I agree, but that hardly need be anticipated ? Sir Samuel Hoare: I do not think there is any difference of opinion between Lord Eustace and myself; my comment was only directed towards keeping this kind of activity within reasonable limits. If a Federal Government constantly worried Provincial Governments for all sorts of information that had nothing to do with the Federal Government. Then, I can foresee constant difficulties arising between them. 13,147. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Might I give this instance which comes to my mind ? Supposing, for instance, in a particular Province, criminal proceedings are taken against a foreigner and reference is made by his Government to the Government of India with regard to the proceedings taken against this particular foreigner in a Province, and the Government of India needs information in order to deal with the subject. Would the Government of India be in a position to require the Provincial Government to furnish information with regard to that subject ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes, and also to take action. It would come within the field of foreign affairs. 13,148. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I submit that law and order would be a transferred subject ? Sir Samuel Hoare: That may be so, but foreign affairs have special reservation. This Clause 125, which you are discussing now, I think, would cover that. Foreign affairs is a Federal subject. Under the second paragraph of Clause 125 the Federal Government could give directions to the Provincial Government. 13,149. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I mean, you see the necessity of the Central Government obtaining such information as is necessary for its purpose ? Sir Samuel Hoare: Certainly, and I accept the need. 13,150. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I thought I would draw your attention to it because I do not find the information in Proposal 125 ? Sir Samuel Hoare: I think that presupposes obtaining the necessary information from the Provincial Government. It is intended to anyhow.