In the first place, I would like to draw the attention of the House to Part II-Citizenship. There are about 60 lakhs of people or more who have come from Western Pakistan, Sind, Baluchistan and East Bengal. These people are not aliens. If technically they are regarded as aliens, I do maintain that it is a sin to do so, because this situation has been brought about by the Government who agreed to partition. Therefore to make a law that each one of them should go before a District Magistrate within one month and declare that he or she is a citizen of India is rather hard. In practice, I know it will be impossible as most of these 60 lakhs of people are illiterate and do not know anything about this provision in the Constitution. If any such illiterate man fails to register himself as a citizen under this article, what would happen to him? Therefore I maintain that this is a very serious flaw in Part II. We ought to see that all these persons who have come from Pakistan on account of this Government agreeing to partition automatically become citizens of India without any effort on their part. If they want to secure themselves by making a declaration, I have no objection, but in case they fail to comply with this provision, I maintain that we should have a provision that mere permanent residence entitles them to full citizenship rights. To insist that they can only become citizens after they have gone to a District Magistrate and made a declaration that they want to be citizens of India is, in my opinion, an act of tyranny on them.
