Section VII

SECTION VII 19TH MAY 1952 TO 6TH DECEMBER 1956

(This page has no text — it may be blank or an image.)

SECTION VII TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGES

44. Thanks on address by the President … 835-840

45. Budget (General) 1952-53 General Discussion 841-850

46. Andhra State Bill, 1953 … 851-864

47. Estate Duty Bill, 1953 … 865-873

48. International Situation … 874-886

49. Government order on Bank Disputes … 887-894

50. Report of Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Tribes for 1953 … 895-918

51. Constitution (Third Amendment) Bill, 1954 … 919-924

52. Untouchability Offences Bill, 1954 … 925-943

53. Constitution (Fourth amendment) Bill, 1954 … 944-961

54. States Reorganisation Bill, 1956 … 962-973

55. Obituaries reference—Demise of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar … 974-983

(This page has no text — it may be blank or an image.)

(44)

THANKS ON ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT

*Mr. Chairman : All I can say is that there are certain amendments which by no stretch of imagination can be brought under discussion of matters referred to in the President’s Address. There are certain questions like food production, land revenue, foreign policy and preventive detention which are referred to in the President’s Address and the amendments which have a bearing on them may be moved.

Shri H. P. Saksena (Uttar Pradesh) : Have all the amendments that have been presented been admitted or not ? Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay) : The procedure followed in the Provisional Parliament was this. Perhaps it is not a new thing. It is going on for the last two or three years since the Constitution has come into operation. As far as I remember— there are many Members of the Lower House; they will correct me—the procedure followed by the Speaker of the House of the People was that he would allow all the amendments to be moved in the beginning. Of course, those were amendments that could be admitted. Subsequently, he called upon the proposer of the different amendments to make speeches in support of their amendments. It was always understood that because a person has moved his amendment, he necessarily will not have any right to speak. But the Speaker, out of consideration for the fact that certain gentlemen had indicated their intention to move an amendment, did allow them a chance of making a speech. That was the procedure that he adopted. I think the same procedure might be adopted here also. With regard to one other observation, I should like to say with the deepest respect that in making the reference to what

* Parliamentary Debates (Council of States) Vol. I,’ 19th May 1952, pp. 81-83.

happens in the House of Commons, you indicated that only those amendments which refer to subjects which have been expressly mentioned in the Address of the President would be admitted. With all respect I think that the rule ought to be the other way round. The purport of a debate on the Address is this. Government is pleased to inform the House, through the Address of the President, the subjects to which they allot what may be called priority or urgency. Article 87 of the Constitution of India says that the purport of the debate on the Address of the President is to inform Parliament of the causes of its summons. The purport of the Debate on the Address is to let the Opposition tell the Government what are the purposes which they ought to have included. Therefore, any subject which is not included in the Address of the President, for that very reason becomes a matter of urgency, because, Members of the Opposition may feel that Government has given priority and urgency to matters which they think important but which, in the opinion of the Opposition, are less important than other matters. Secondly, I submit that merely because an amendment refers to a subject which has not been referred to in the Address of the President, it should not on that account be ruled out. But the Opposition should be given an opportunity to discuss and to place before Government any particular subject, which is the subject matter of the amendment, as a matter of urgency which must be given priority over subjects which have been spoken of by the President in his Address. I thought I should make these observations so that you might be in a position to regulate the procedure about the amendments.

The LEADER of the COUNCIL (Shri N. Gopalswami): I greatly sympathise with the point of view which has been urged by my hon. friend Dr. Ambedkar ………… Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Nobody is “Honourable” in this House any longer.

Shri N. Gopalswami : I referred to him as “my hon. friend”. That is not taboo.

Sir, the real point for our consideration on this question is whether the Constitution and the rules that have been framed for the procedure of this House permit of giving effect to the suggestion that has been made by my hon. Friend.

*Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay): I had originally thought not to participate in this debate, because I felt that it was right and proper that the new Members of this House who are sitting on the front Opposite Bench ought to be given the fullest chance to express their views on these important matters dealt with in the speech of the President. But some of my friends said that it would be useful if I said what I felt about the two important matters which undoubtedly loom large before the minds of some Members of the House at any rate and a large majority of the public. The first matter which looms large is obviously the matter of food. There can be no doubt that this country has found itself in the grip of one of the biggest problems that it has ever been called upon to face. Sir, as a younger boy, I had witnessed famines myself because my father was engaged as some kind of a cashier to pay the wages of many people who were engaged in famine relief work. I was living with him as a young boy and I could see the condition of the famine-striken people. As a student of economics I had the opportunity of reading those magnificent. books by one of the greatest Indian civil servants namely, Romesh Chandra Dutt, who had given a complete picture of the periodical famines that had taken place in this country, right from the beginning when the British came to occupy. But, Sir, remembering all this past history, my imagination cannot recall anything that I have seen or anything that I have read in any way comparable to the condition that we see today. I think it would not be an exaggeration to say that there was a time when there were famines but they occurred sometime at an interval of 10, 15 or 20 years. Today we have reached a stage when there is a famine almost every month in this country. This month there is a famine in Bihar, another month there is a famine in Rayalaseema, a third month there

* P. D. (Council of States) Vol. I, 21st May 1952, pp. 266-69.

is a famine in some other part of the country. I think it would be impossible for any person who reads newspapers to say that any month has passed when there has not been a famine in this country. I was quite interested to listen to the argument which has been urged by some Members of the Congress Party that the Opposition should not be too hard on the Government. The Opposition must remember that when the British left, they left this country as an empty shell, with the resources undeveloped, with the people of this country untrained for economic production. Those arguments, if I may say so with all respect, are without substance. It may probably pass muster in this House or may pass muster with those who are inclined towards the party in this House. But I should like to tell even my friends who are sitting on the Opposite side that this excuse will not go down for a long time with the people…….

An hon. Member : You were yourself in the Government once.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Don’t you recollect my past. I am now a divorcee. What I want to tell my friends on the other side is that this excuse will not serve them for a long time. No hungry man is going to be sympathetic to a critic who is going to tell him “My dear fellow, although I am in power, although I am in authority, although I possess all legal power to set matters right, you must not expect me to do a miracle because I have inherited a past which is very inglorious.” If this Government will not produce results within a certain time, long before the people become so frustrated, so disgusted with Government as not to have any Government at all, a time will come when I suppose unless we in Parliament realise our responsibilities and shoulder the task of looking after the welfare and good of the people within a reasonable time, I have not the slightest doubt in my own mind that this Parliament will be treated by the public outside with utter contempt. It would be a thing not wanted at all. Sir, the situation has been greatly aggravated by the sudden decision the Government has taken with regard to this subsidy. The subsidy is in another way an additional project

which the Government has undertaken to relieve the people against the high cost of living. The subsidy, so far as our information goes, has been in operation……. Shri B. B. Sharma (Uttar Pradesh): What percentage of the population does the hon. Member want to be subsidised for food ?

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, my submission is this that he will not want me to go into the details of the rationing system. I do not want to go into details as to how the population should be classified so that we might be in a position to say that the following classes shall be subsidised and the following classes shall not be subsidised. That information Government has not placed before us. If the Government places that information before us, I certainly will be able to make such contribution as I can make to that proposal. For the moment I am saying this, that this reversal of the policy of giving subsidy seems to me an absolutely new thing. I find that from1946-47, when the subsidy made was 22 crores, it has increased in 1951-52 to 36 crores. In the last Budget which the Finance Minister presented to the Provisional Parliament for the purpose of obtaining a vote on account, he had estimated that the subsidy which he might be prepared to give in this year would come to about 25 crores. That was the estimate that he had made. I am sure about it that at the time when he presented the Budget he must have been ready in his mind to commit himself to that magnitude of expenditure. Suddenly thereafter we find this sudden change. Some reasons have been given. One reason is that the subsidy would come to about 55 crores. Some Members have said it would be about 90 crores. I do not know what the correct figure exactly is.. But I do want to say that even in the last Provisional Parliament, when the Budget was presented, Government was agreeable to take upon itself the responsibility of a subsidy to the extent of 25 crores. I do not quite understand why the Government has stepped aside from that promise, from that obligation. There are of course ……..

Mr. Chairman: Your time is up. You can take one or two minutes more.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I have something else to say. It will not be possible for me to finish within the one or two minutes that you are very gracious to give me. I will stop here.

(45)

BUDGET (GENERAL) 1952-53 GENERAL DISCUSSION

* Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay): Mr. Chairman, I propose to begin from the point from which I had to leave off, before, my observations on the President’s Address. The House will remember that when I had to break off, I was dealing with the question of food subsidy. Today I find myself in a much better position to deal with the matter, because in the interval we have had a statement from the Finance Minister justifying why he has taken what might be called a ‘political roundabout’. The explanation that the Finance Minister has given is an explanation which I think is more intended to frighten people from demanding any subsidy with regard to food. His explanation is this, that if he at all must do anything in the matter of food subsidy, he must do it in a manner so that he might be able to maintain the price level at the level it stood in the last year. That is, I believe, his starting premise. And then he develops this premise by saying that if on the basis that the subsidy is given only if he maintains the last year’s price level, if the subsidy is to be confined to industrial areas, he would be required to pay Rs. 60 crores; and if that subsidy is to be extended to the rural area, he will be required to pay Rs. 90 crores. Obviously if these figures are correct, they are quite calculated to moderate the spirit of the great enthusiasts who want some kind of food subsidy to be given, so that the misery of the cosuming classes may be alleviated to some extent. So far as I understand, nobody has pitched his flag so high as it has been represented to be by the Finance Minister. So far as I have been able to pursue the discussion that has been taking place in the various newspapers, nobody has said that you must give subsidy to such an extent and on such a magnitude that the price level of this year would be the same as the price level of last year. Nobody is

* P. D. Vol. I of 1952, 27th May 1952, pp. 469-80.

demanding that. Secondly, Sir, with regard to the question of the rural demand which has been put forth by the Hon. the Finance Minister as a ground for refusing subsidy, I am sorry to say that he has now agreed to accept that contention when the same has been urged upon him for the last several years and which he has repudiated all along. I am sure that it has been the demand of the provincial Ministers that if you are giving subsidy, you must not make a discrimination between the industrial population and the rural population. You must give subsidy to all or you must give subsidy to none. That has been an old old argument. But I do not remember a single Finance Minister or a single Food Minister—and we have had a series of them one after the other—having ever agreed to that proposition. It has always been the policy or the contention of the Government of India that in the matter of allocating subsidy, certain classification must be made. A classification must be made ……..

The Minister for Finance (Shri C. D. Deshmukh): On a point of information, Sir. The system of subsidy whereby only industrial towns were subsidized was adopted only last year.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Sir, the demand that the subsidy should be extended to the rural area is not a new thing at all. No Government of India, so far as I remember, has ever agreed to that demand.

Shri C. D. Deshmukh: What I meant was that before last year the subsidy was given to rural as well as urban areas; so, no such contention could have been made. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: If that is so, then it is all the worse for the Finance Minister, I should say if in the past you have accepted the demand that subsidy should be given to all, then I do not quite understand why you should resile from that position now.

Shri H. N. Kunzru (Uttar Pradesh): Whatever may be the demand, he has said in this connection that subsidy was given not merely to industrial centres, but to all urban and rural areas. Is that a fact ? Was subsidy given to those rural

areas where there was a large heavy deficit in the country as a whole, in accordance with the recommendation of the first Food Policy Committee ?

Shri C. D. Deshmukh: My point was that the subsidy was not confined only to the industrial areas except during last year.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: My contention has been that because you cannot do the very best, let not the better be the enemy of the good. Do whatever good you can; if you cannot do it better, the country will be prepared to excuse you, because of your limited resources. But because you are not preparing to do even the good, when you agree to do it, by making a provision of Rs. 25 crores in the Budget, I think the public will have a legitimate right to complain.

Sir, I would like to draw the attention of the Finance Minister to what the Chancellor of the Exchenquer has done in England in the course of his Budget. He knows, I think, much better than I do. I have collected my facts from newspapers and other magazines where I have been able to find a certain analysis of the Budget presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the House of Commons. Now, Sir, confining our attention to the matter of food subsidy, I find that in the year 1950 in England, the food subsidy was £480 million. In the last Budget the subsidy has been reduced—there has been a cut of £160 million. Well, so far as this part of the Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is concerned, probably the Hon. Finance Minister may take comfort in the fact that after all he is not doing something different from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has done in England. But if you look at the other side of the picture of the Budget presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in England—taking the other side, the counter-blancing proposals of the Chancellor in England,—I find that while the subsidy has been reduced, there has been an increase in income-tax relief to the extent of £2.228 million. Secondly, there has been an increase in family allowances to the extent of £37 million. There has been a considerable increase in pensions. There has been an enormous increase in the housing

subsistence. Now, all these reliefs which have been provided for by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget beyond question have the effect of increasing the purchasing power of the consumer. If there is so much increase in the purchasing power of the consuming community, it matters very little if the subsidy has been reduced by £167 million. What are the reliefs that our Hon. Friend the Finance Minister has provided for in his Budget ? Nothing. The level of taxation, whether of direct or indirect character, is just the same. The purchasing power of the people remains where it was. In addition to that, he is now increasing the cost of food. This I find to be a fundamental difference in the approach of the Hon. Finance Minister to the problems of the people and that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think my Hon. friend the Finance Minister may well consider whether he might not copy something from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to do in England for increasing the welfare of the people.

Now, Sir, I have not been able to exactly understand what position the Hon. Finance Minister proposes to take. But I want to put it in the best light because I know he is an honest person with the greatest good of the people at his heart. What is he trying to do ? So far as I have been able to understand the policy of the Government of India with regard to food, I do not think that the Hon. Finance Minister is opposed to subsidy. If I put his position correctly as I understand it, he is in favour of subsidy, but his position seems to be that the subsidy instead of being granted to the consumer ought to be granted to the producer, either in the form of grow more food grants or in some other way. His object, logically speaking—I do not find any difficulty in accepting its validity—is that if you produce more food in the country, prices will fall, consumers will benefit and subsidy to the consumer may then not be necessary. I believe that I have stated his position somewhat correctly if I have understood it. He wants subsidy, but he wants it to be given to the producer and not to the consumer.

9-00 A.M.

Well, Sir, that may be one kind of approach, different though it may be from the line of approach which some of us take. The question I think that we have to ask with regard to this attitude is this : Which is going to benefit the people quickly ? So far as this subsidy for the grow more food policy is concerned, I do not think that it could be contended by the Government that that subsidy has been of any consequence so far as the production of food is concerned. I think it is not necessary for Members of the Opposition to cite any authority when we know as a matter of fact that the Reserve Bank, in one of the investigations which it undertook, reported that the grow more food policy has been a complete failure. Obviously, therefore, the policy of not giving subsidy to the consumer, but giving it to the producer, has not produced the effect desired by the Hon. Finance Minister.

The second thing which I find why this emphasis on the grow more food has failed is because of the contradictory policy which the Food Department or the Government of India, has been following. On the one hand, they have been giving subsidy to farmers and others to provide more food. At the same time, they are giving encouragement for the production of what are called cash crops, which are every moment competing with the production of food. A farmer finds it much more to his advantage to produce cotton-seeds, black pepper and things of that sort. He does not care for the growing of more food. Surely, if the Government’s objective—and firm objective—is to produce food, Government ought to have taken some steps in order to curb the tendency on the part of the farmers to produce something other than food. That, Government has not done. The result is that we have in this country two competing economic activities so far as agriculture is concerned, the cash crops versus food production.

The result is that notwithstanding the Grow More Food Campaign and the amount of money that has been spent, we have not been able to produce more food so as to make any impression upon the food prices. The question that I would like to ask the Hon. the Finance Minister is this. Would he or would he not realise that if his object is to reduce prices by the production of more food, and if that object has failed,

would he still continue to penalise the consumer and not give him any subsidy or offer him any kind of relief from the distress from which he is suffering ? That is the point. There is no dispute that some kind of subsidy is necessary in this country in the situation in which we find ourselves. The whole question is, at what point the blood may be supplied, at what point the subsidy may be given, to the producer or the consumer. I make this observation in the hope that the Hon. the Finance Minister will reconsider the line that he has been pursuing, namely, that our immediate problem could be solved more by giving subsidy to the producer and not to the consumer. He may succeed. As we know, originally, our Government, when I was a member of it, had announced that we must achieve self-sufficiency by the year 1952. Our Prime Minister, day in and day out, emphasised that after 1952 we shall not import a single grain of food from outside. Today, I think I am right in saying that the Government of India have realisd that reaching self-sufficiency in 1952 was an idle dream. They have now proclaimed that we will achieve it by 1956. God only knows. The target is always receding; it goes back and back. We do not know for how many years the consumers in this country will have to undergo this agony and allow the Finance Minister and the Minister of Food to delay the thing, by trying as if in a laboratory, the various ideas, the various proposals and the various schemes they have in their mind. I do not wish to dilate upon this subject any more.

Sir, I would now say a few words with regard to the General Budget as a whole. The Budget undoubtedly in every country is an expression of the function which a Government undertakes towards its people. There was once a time in this country when the function of the British Government was to collect taxes and to maintain law and order. The welfare of the public, the well-being of the people, their educational advancement, public health, unemployment, or any of those remedies and reliefs, which were now found functioning on such a large scale in the Budgets of the various European countries, had no place. Not only they had no place in the Government but the Government itself had not accepted any liability on that

account. We thought and we hoped that when this country became independent, that aspect of the matter would change, that the Government would not be merely a Government of an agency to collect taxes and a magistrate to punish people for wrongful action, that the Government would do something more, that the Government would assume the function which all civilised Governments have assumed in the 20th century. Sir, can anyone scanning the Budget which has been presented to this House say that they can find any trace of any other functions, which all modern civilised nations and States assume to themselves, reflected in the Budget of the Finance Minister ? I can find nothing. We are still repeating the old history of the British, namely, to collect taxes, to punish offenders. No provision is made for all the social benefits which are conferred upon the poorer and the lower classes in other countries in the world. I want to ask the Hon. the Finance Minister : “Can he promise us, as he had been promising in the case of the food subsidy, that we will be self-sufficient in food in 1952, if not in 1952 it shall come in 1956, if not in 1956 it shall come in the year 1960 ?” There is some hope, so long as there is a fixed day or a promised day of the arrival of the new regime. Can he tell us that we can tread upon the path foreign countries have been following so far as social services are concerned ? He has said none. The whole thing in the Budget, to put it in a nut-shell—it has been put, I know, by other speakers before me—the crux of the whole matter in this country is that the Army is eating up into the vitals of the funds that are necessary for the well-being of this country. We have, in a total Budget of Rs. 404 crores, a sum of nearly Rs. 200 crores spent on the Army. It is difficult to understand this position. Sir, when peace came, an order of demobolisation was passed. It was decided by the then British Government that the Army of India shall be reduced. What do we find ? We find that in the year 1947, the revenue of the Government of India was somewhere about Rs. 172 crores. I am speaking of the Budget for the 8 months that was then presented from August 1947 to April 1948. The Military Budget then was Rs. 90 crores. Our revenue today has grown to Rs. 404 crores, and our military expenditure has also grown

to nearly Rs. 200 crores. It is an extraordinary thing that as your revenue rises, your military expenditure also rises. My view was that the reverse should be the process, that your military expenditure ought to go down. If you can reduce the military expenditure by a modest sum of Rs. 50 crores, how much good we can do to our people ? We can apply this reduction of Rs. 50 crores in the Army Budget to river valley projects. The Damodar Valley Project could be completed within 3 years out of our revenue Budget instead of having to go to foreign countries for aid. If we could spend that amount of Rs. 50 crores out of the military Budget for the betterment of our own people, what amount of good we can achieve ? But I have not been able to understand why the Government of India has been consistently and regularly increasing the military Budget. Sir, it is an extraordinary thing from another point of view. We have been told that our foreign policy is a policy of peace and friendship. My hon. Friend, Diwan Chaman Lall, called it the Nehru doctrine. If that is the object of the Nehru doctrine, it is a welcome doctrine provided it was observed by all. Now, if the object of the foreign policy of this country is to maintain friendship and peace throughout the world, I want to know who are our enemies against whom we want to maintain this huge army at a huge cost of Rs. 197 crores.

Shri J. R. Kapoor (Uttar Pradesh) : Our next door neighbour.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I do not know that. If we were informed that our relations with certain foreign countries were not happy, that there might be any time a danger to our safety and to our security, it would be possible for most of us to agree that rather than wait for the arrival of the danger, we should keep the Army ready so that in an emergency we may face the danger squarely. But we are told that we have no enemy at all in this world. Then, why this army is maintained, I do not quite know. Secondly, the only possible enemy, if one may use that world, is probably Pakistan. And that too, on account of Kashmir. Now, with regard to Kashmir, I hope that this House will have a full

opportunity of discussing that question. I did not have time to say anything, nor did I think it right to spend just a few moments on a problem so great as that of Kashmir. But surely the matter is within the charge of the U.N.O., and I do not think that Pakistan would be so foolish as to invade Kashmir or to invade this country in the teeth of the U.N.O. decision on the subject. Therefore, again, why are you maintaining this Army? I am quite unable to understand the point. Then, Sir, on our part we never seem to be able to realise that the sooner we settle this Kashmir problem the better for us, because if the excuse for this enormous is increase in our Defence Budget is to be attributed to the Kashmir tangle, is it not our duty to do something, to contribute something, positively in order to bring that dispute to an end ? I cannot expatiate on the subject, but so far as I have been able to study the part played by the Government of India in connection with the negotiations that have been taking place on the settlement of the Kashmir issue, I am sorry to say that I have not read a single word which I can describe as a positive and not a negative suggestion on the part of the Government of India to settle this question. All that they are dealing with is the question of military allotment. The question of plebiscite is in no way new in the history of the world. One need not go back to the ancient past to find precedents for settling questions of this sort by plebiscite. After the First World War, I certainly remember there were two questions to be settled by plebiscite. One w as the question of Upper Silesia and the other was the question of Alsace-Lorraine. Both these questions were settled by plebiscite, and I am sure that my hon. Friend Shri Gopalaswami Ayyangar, with his mature wisdom and sagacity, must be knowing of this. It is not possible for us to borrow something from the line of action taken by the League of Nations with regard to the plebiscite in Upper Silesia and Alsace-Lorraine which we can usefully carry into the Kashmir dispute and have the matter settled quickly so that we can release Rs. 50 crores from the Defence Budget and utilise it for the benefit of our people ?

I do not want to say much more, but I do want to say that most of us are feeling very keenly that the Defence Budget is the greatest stumbling block in the path of the welfare of this country.

There is one other thing to which I would like to draw the attention of the Finance Minister. He has already indicated in the course of his Budget speech that the prospect for this country, so far as taxation is concerned in the future, is not a very happy one. He himself has admitted that our incometax revenue would not remain at the same level at which it has remained for the last two years. He knows very well that the export duty, which forms a very large part of the present revenue of the country, is no longer to be regarded as a permanent part of the revenue structure of this country. Export duties, which in all countries are of an unusual sort, extraordinary in their character, never can be regarded as a natural part of the tax structure of a country and depend upon conditions in foreign countries. The moment those conditions vary, you have got to vary the tax. You may meet with a situation where you may have to abandon such duties completely. The fear which I feel on account of the prospect in the decline of revenue is this : How is the Finance Minister going to make good the losses that might occur by the reduction of certain items on the revenue side ? Will he cut into the Defence Department’s Budget, or will he cut into the Budgets of the other Departments which are ministering to the social welfare of the people ? I have no idea. If the opinion in favour of the retention of the armed forces at the present level of expenditure prevails, our conditions, so far as the welfare of the people are concerned, will deteriorate considerably. I want the Finance Minister to take note of this fact and tell us something about what he would do when such a prospect presents itself to him in the concrete.

(46)

*ANDHRA STATE BILL, 1953

Mr. Chairman: Motion moved.

“That the Bill to provide for the formation of the State of Andhra the increasing of the areas of the State of Mysore and the diminishing of the area of the State of Madras, and for matter connected therewith, as passed by the House of the People, be taken into consideration.”

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay): Mr. Chairman, this is a Bill the object of which is to create a new State for the Andhras. As such it is the subject matter of the Andhras themselves. Others who are not Andhras can only take part in it in a general way, and solely because this new Province is a portent of probably some other linguistic provinces to come into existence. It is only because of the feeling of the latter kind that I have stood up today to say a few words. Sir, when one goes into the Bill, one is very much puzzled as to whether one should congratulate the Government on the Bill such as has been brought forward before the house, or whether one should congratuate the Andhras who are clamouring for a separate Province. As anyone in this House knows, as soon as the Congress Party was organised and had a constitution in the year 1921, the first thing it did was to incorporate the principle of linguistic provinces. I have no idea that at any time from the year 1921 up to the year 1949 or these about, the Congress either ever withdrew that principle from its constitution or regretted having entered that principle in its constitution. In 1949 I believe—if I am wrong my friends will correct me—but I think that is about the year, when the Drafting Committee was sitting, and one Member of then Assembly tabled a Resolution for the formation of the linguistic provinces. I was in charge of the Law Department and as such the Resolution fell within my portfolio. I had to

* P. D. Vol. 4 (Council of States) of 1953, Part 1, 2nd September 1953, pp. 864-79.

consult my cabinet collegues in order to know what sort of reply I should give to this Resolution. They said that the better thing would be for me to transfer the Resolution either to the Prime Minister or to the late Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel which I very gladly did, because I did not want the responsibility to fall upon my shoulder for the answar that might be given to that. Resolution. It was then arranged between the mover of the Resolution and the members of the high command of the Congress, that although they were not prepared to accept the Resolution in all its generality so as ‘to apply to all the multi-lingual provinces then existing, they were prepared to consider the question of creating an Andhra Province. The members of the Drafting Committee were waiting to know what exactly they should enter Andhra as a separate province in the Schedule of the States. Hon. Members who are particular to know about this will find in a foot-note to the first draft of the Drafting Committee’s report that I referred to the Prime Minister in order to let me know whether Andhra should be entered in the Schedule to the Constitution, I got no reply, with the result that Andhra then did not become a separate province. It was a great surprise to me that when practically for twenty years, a party had stood by the principle of linguistic provinces, it should have developed cold feet after twenty years. Surely, 20 years was a long period for even the greatest dullared to think over the matter and come to a clear conclusion as to whether the principle that was adopted in 1921 was a mistaken principle and ought completely to be withdrawn, or whether it was a principle which should be pursued with certain modifications. The result has been that from 1949 up to this period, there has been a vacillating attitude on the part of the Government, once saying that there shall be no linguistic provinces, at another time saying, “Yes, we shall create an Andhra Province”. And unless and until one honourable gentleman had sacrificed his life for the sake of creating an Andhra Province, the Government did not think it fit to move in the matter. I have no idea and I do not wish to be harsh on the Government; but I am dead certain in my mind that if in any other country a person had to die in order to invoke a