Mr. President, Sir, I am opposed to clause (2) of article 87 wherein it is stated that no Bill shall be deemed to have been passed by the House of the Parliament unless it has been agreed to by both Houses. I do not see why in a democratic state, the representatives of the people should be placed on a par with the nominated representatives of the provincial governments. The supremacy of the Lower House must be negative if democratic institutions are to function efficiently. It has been said that this clause is in conformity with the federal principles which have be agreed to in the beginning. I for one, Sir, do not see why anyone should trot out such in argument now. I do not consider this Draft Constitution to be purely Federal in character. It is partly federal and partly unitary and more unitary than federal in character. When we accepted federation the position prevailing in India was quite different. We did not accept the principle of federalism to accommodate the provinces. The provinces were never in our minds when we accepted the federal principle. We accepted federalism in order to meet the challenge of the Two-Nations theory of the late lamented Mr. Jinnah. We accepted federalism in order to persuade the Indian Princes to surrender a part of their sovereignty. Now the position is entirely changed. This country, Sir, has been unfortunately partitioned. The Princes today have been liquidated. The States today are in a far worse position than the Indian Provinces. Last time when the Constituent Assembly met I had spoken in this House in favour of a unitary State. Sir, I do not know what is in the mind of our Constitutional Pandits. Federation tends towards a unitary form of Government. I do not know of a single instance in history where a unitary form of Government has degenerated into federalism. As far as federalism is concerned, Sir, almost in all federal countries the constitution has tended towards a unitary form of Government. I visualize the role of a second chamber at the Centre merely as an advisory body. It should be a check upon hasty legislation, but to emphasize the federal character of the Constitution will be a retrograde step and those persons who talk and emphasize this aspect of our Constitution do a great disservice to the country. The Provinces were always subordinate to the Government of India and to say now that they have got autonomous and federal powers is really to turn the hands of the clock back. We are reversing, Sir, the process of history: we are emphasizing federalism, which is conservative in character and is full of weakness. Sir, I oppose clause (2) of article 87.
