I can quite appreciate my honourable Friend’s apprehension. I am not happy about the drafting. It is impossible in three or four days to go through all these anomalies. I am not satisfied that the President should proceed exclusively on a Proclamation of Emergency by the Governor. That is due to faulty and hasty drafting. I submit, therefore, that Article 188 should not be deleted altogether. The power of the Governor to initiate any emergency measures should remain and that will make the Ministers and the Legislature responsible and at the same time the responsibility being there, will produce its own remedy. If we interfere with the ultimate right of States to deal with emergencies it will reduce Provincial Autonomy to a farce. I think there has been enough enroachment on Provincial rights. In fact in the provincial list a great deal of encroachment has already been made. I think we are drifting, perhaps unconsciously, towards a dictatorship. Democracy will flourish only in a democratic atmosphere and under democratic conditions. Let people commit mistakes and learn by experience. Experience is a great tutor. The arguments to the contrary which we have heard today were the old discarded arguments of the British bureaucracy. The British said that they must have overriding powers, that we cannot manage our affairs and that they only knew how to manage our affairs. They said also that if we mismanaged things they will supersede the constitution and do what they thought fit. What has been our reply to this? It was that “Unless you make us responsible for our acts, we can never learn the business of government. If we mismanage the great constitutional machinery, we must be made responsible for our acts. We must be given the opportunity to remedy the defects“. This argument of ours is being forgotten. The old British argument that they must intervene in petty Provincial matters is again being revived and adopted by the very opponents of that argument. In fact, very respected Members of this House are adopting almost unconsciously the old argument of the British Government. I submit that even the hated British did not go so far as we do. I submit our reply to that will be the same as our respected leaders gave to the British Government. I submit, therefore, that too much interference by the Centre will create unpleasant reactions in the States. If you abolish provincial autonomy altogether that would be logical. But to make them responsible while making them powerless would be not a proper thing to do.
