I am glad, Sir, that several friend shave already made their observations, because that shows how much interest the House is taking in this matter. So I now proceed fortified by that conviction. My reasons for substitution of the word “State” by the word “Pradesha” are manifold. Firstly, I find that in this Draft Constitution, the word “State” has been used in more senses than one. May I invite your attention and the attention of the House to Part III, Article 7, of India and the Government and the Legislature of each of the States and all local or other authorities within the territory of India. Here we use the word “State” in quite a different sense. So the first reason for my amendment for the substitution of the word “State” by the word “Pradesha” is to avoid this confusion which is likely to arise by the use of the word “State” in different places in different senses in this Constitution. Secondly, Sir, – I hope my suspicion or my doubt is wrong, – but I feel that this word “State” smacks of a blind copying or imitation of the word “State” which you find in the Constitution of the United States. We have been told by Dr.Ambedkar in his first speech on the motion for the consideration of the Draft Constitution that we have borrowed so many things from various constitutions of the world. Here it strikes me that word “State” has been borrowed from the Constitution of the U.S.A. and I am against all blind copying or blind imitation. Thirdly, Sir, looking at our own history, at least during the last 150 years, the word “State” has come to be associated with something which we intensely dislike, if not abhor. The States in India have been associated with a particular type of administration which we are anxious to terminate with the least possible delay and we have already done so under the sagacious leadership of Sardar Patel. Therefore, this malodorous association with the British regime, which, happily, is no more, I seek to get rid of through this amendment which I have moved before the House. To those friends of mine, who are sticklers for the English language, who think that because this Constitution has been drafted in English, we should not bring in words that are our own, I should like to make one submission and that is this, that the bar to my mind is not against all words that are indigenous, that are Hindi or Indian in their etymological structure. I am reading from the “Constitutional Precedents”, regarding the Constitution of the Irish Free State – it was adopted in 1937 – which was supplied to us a year and half ago by the Secretariat of the Assembly. If we turn to 114 of this Constitutional Precedents, we find there is a footnote on that this effect.
“Also in the Irish language.”