Mr. Vice-President, Sir, I am unable to understand the line of argument advanced by those friends who want clause (4) to be deleted, and who do not want to vest in the President of the Republic the power to suspend these fundamental rights under article 280 in case of emergencies. Sir, it has been said by more than one speaker that this article is the greatest guarantee for individual liberty in our country and that the Supreme Court is being set up as the biggest champion of the liberties of our people. But, has it been considered by these friends that just as individuals and groups have their rights, the society as a whole has certain rights vis-a-vis individuals and groups which are bent upon destroying that society, subverting the social order and dissecting the social organisation through violent means? Is it not a fact, Sir, that in the recent decades of this century there have been such attempts made by organized groups and minorities in different countries to subvert the social order and destroy the social life of the majority of the people themselves? What is the guarantee then for the continuance of the social order and social rights of the majority of the peoples in the different countries if an organized violent effort is made by a tiny minority? No effort has been made in this Constitution and in this Chapter to safeguard such a society. It may be said that there is a safeguard for the State; but is it not a fact that in Germany and Italy, a group of people organized for violence were able to get at the State and then subvert the whole of the society and destroy the fundamental rights of the majority of the people themselves? Is it not also a fact that in Soviet Russia even today an organized minority is in the saddle and is incharge of the State and is able to deny the fundamental rights not only to the whole of the majority of the people there, but also the fundamental rights of these individuals, as are being detailed here? Therefore, Sir, it is as well for us all to keep in mind this extreme need that society as a whole should safeguard itself against the possibility of organized minorities based upon violence, intent upon the use of violence, trying to use that violence. My Friend Mr. Pocker has tried to create a sort of bogey out of what had happened in Madras. Similar things could easily have happened in other provinces also. Can we deny, Sir, or can anyone else deny the fact that there were people at that time in Madras Presidency who made it their business to use all possible violent means in order to subvert our own society in the South, in order to go to the aid of a gang of people who had made themselves the enemies of the society as a whole in India and of the State, the Indian State as well as the Provincial States? Sir, what is it that the Madras Government could have done except what it had actually done–just catch hold of those people, restrain their liberties for a temporary period in order to prevent them from going to the rescue or from abetting the violent means and methods adopted by the Razakar movement in a particular part of our country? It cannot be denied by these friends that many of these friends whose liberty had to be restrained for a time had been, directly or indirectly, in league with those people who had their contacts with the Razakar movement; and under those circumstances how could it be possible for any society to safeguard itself except by telling these friends that they should hold themselves in check and if they could not do so voluntarily it would be the charge of the Society, of the State, to restrain the liberties of these people for a time?
