I know that in this Constitution there is a definite bias towards centralisation of power. But today this a world tendency. Because we are planning the economic order keeping the possibility of war in view. And to win the war you cannot but centralise power and production. The command order must go from one centralised authority. Unless we decide to build society on nonviolent principles you can neither and exploitation nor outlaw war. I would like to remind my honourable Friends who find fault with the Constitution and who want decentralisation of power and production, they must be prepared for a non-violent society. It is a question of fundamentals. It is a fundamental issue which you and the rest of the world has to solve. But we must regretfully admit that as far as we are concerned we are not in a position today to hold up the pattern of Constitution which can give us and the rest of the world a nonviolent social order. Except section 44 on Gram Panchayat which runs four lines in this document of 395 articles and 8 schedules and a bare mention of cottage industries, there is no room for the Gandhian way under which the pyramid-like constitutional frame-work would be broad-based on the million panchayats vital with the initiatives and creative energy of the common man. Sir Charles Metcalfe in his memorandum before the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1832 has well brought out how these panchayats kept the even tenor of our life and culture when dynasties toppled down like ninepins and revolutions succeeded revolutions. In the centralised society of today one bomb on the power plant is enough to extinguish all light and there is no single lamp left to light up darkness. But where many lamps burn with little oil in the tiny mud pots, there may not be the flood light that dazzles but there will never be darkness.
