Mr. President, Sir, I am neither satisfied with the amendment, nor with the article enacted. In fact, if you know the history of the present position of the Eastern frontiers you would not pass an article like this. I should like the President to have absolute power to determine, to increase or decrease any State if he like to do so. At present the Eastern boundary of Assam, for instance the Mac Mahon line is quite nebulous. You do not know where the boundary is. You can push it further and further and nobody knows where it will end. If the permission of Parliament is to be got and on its recommendation the President is to act, that will take a long time. He has to fix the boundary immediately. Now, we do not know where the boundary lies, either in the Eastern or Northern frontier. There was RIMA, which was said to be last port of the British territory, but the Chinese took away the flag and a British column had to be sent to put the flag there again. That is said to be our boundary, but nobody knows if the boundary was ever fixed. Now, there should be some power or some provision which would empower the President to fix boundary is. Now, there is the Balipara frontier and nobody knows where its boundary exactly is. Nobody knows the Naga boundary and where the Burmese territory begins. As such, the article as it is, and also the amendment suggested, I am not satisfied with. The President must have some power to fix the boundaries and if possible, the Drafting Committee should make the necessary provisions whereby the boundaries could be fixed wherever they are nebulous, where you do not know the boundary, where the MacMohan line ends, where General Hertz’s fort or HERTZ line is, and so on.
