Coming to the Constitution that is before us, I am glad to say that in several respects this Constituent Assembly has been able to set an example to the rest of the world. We have read only to-day that Mr. Truman, President of America, is trying to persuade his own countrymen to confer civil rights upon the Negro peoples of that country who form 10 per cent of their population. But according to our own Constitution we have sought to confer all those, civic rights upon our own Harijans, other Scheduled Classes and backward peoples and backward Tribes. We have banished untouchability first of all from our minds and from our social matrix. We have agreed that there should be no untouchability at all and anyone who observes it should be taken to task. We have also agreed that our Scheduled Castes should be Protected. My Friend Muniswamy Pillay was rather afraid that it might not be possible for them to make such progress within the next ten years that it would be possible for the whole of the country to say good-bye to these reservations at the end of the ten years, but I am more optimistic and what is more, I am anxious also that our Indian democracy should play its role so well and perform its duty by our Scheduled Castes so satisfactorily that at the end of ten years our own Scheduled Caste friends would be willing to join hands with all others in saying good-bye to these reservations.
