Actually, Sir, these are described as fundamental rights and fundamental rights, Sir, are in my opinion primarily intended for the protection of the life, liberty and comfort of an average man. The fundamental rights idea is actually something like the principles of the Magna Charta against possible oppression either by a monarch or by some body of people who can get into the Government. My view is that in the framing of our present constitution there was not much need of having fundamental rights as such. All the principles, the inclusion of which we thought necessary and especially this portion of the fundamental rights which are merely recommendatory, it not being incumbent upon any Government to carry out, could, I submit, Sir, have been either embodied as ordinary provisions in a constitution or radically altered. What are the difficulties that we the people of India suffer from? Our difficulties and impediments are diverse. The first is the poverty of our people, then ignorance and illiteracy, then lack of food, lack of vitality, lack of morals, inhuman greed and consequent exploitation, ruthless profiteering and consequent oppression–moral, mental, social, spiritual and last but not least economic. To what extent are these fundamental rights going to protect us from this oppression, that is the question. And to what extent we can regard this as something on which we can go and remove these difficulties and reorganise our society, so that there is no poverty, there is no ignorance, no starvation, no unnecessary concentration of wealth in a few hands, etc. None of these things have been dealt with. In a word I say, Sir, they have been dealt in a deceitful manner. I understand the implication of the word ‘deceitful’ and yet I have no hesitation in using it. I say so, Sir, because once you have these as fundamental rights you will prohibit anybody going further than that. I wish it to be clearly understood that the intention is that no only should we not go further. That is the intention behind the wording. I wish I could take the time of the House to read out and analyse the words used in every particular recommendation to prove the truth of my statement. But it is clear that the language used does not only not go for enough for the Indian situation, but the recommendations are so framed as not to permit anybody else coming after us to change the fundamentals and go ahead in a way that should be the only way that India should go. Our problems are huge, our population is big and we cannot merely sit and take portions from here and from there and especially from an Irish constitution. After all what is this Constitution? We have parts of the Irish Constitution copied out and we have three-fourths of the Government of India Act of 1935 copied out. If this is the Constitution which we are rushing through, I think there is no reason for any hurry at all. It should be remembered that we have got a very well considered adaption of the Government of India Act and that should suffice for our purpose. I am sure, Sir, the representatives who have come here are such that I do not expect any Indian Assembly would contain any better people than those we have here. Sir, we have the best talent in the land assembled in this Assembly. Why not take the opportunity of fashioning something original, something that is in keeping with the genius of our people and something that will be in perfect conformity with the historical background of the ancient civilization of this land? That is my submission, Sir, I hope Honourable members will confine themselves only to general criticism of the recommendations of the Committee that we have here and I think they will do a distinct service if they do not let these recommendations be passes hurriedly. In fact when I said that the decisions taken by the House should not be binding, this was at the back of my mind. I feel that when we have the whole constitution before us, we want ourselves to have the liberty if need be of changing the whole structure.
