Again, let me point out that during the worst stage of the famine, food trains could not pass from Madras along the line to a distance of fifteen hundred miles. And it was the police who were entrusted with the duty of managing it. When they knew that the train was to be interrupted by the forces that had been organised for that purpose, they were got ready, and protection was given all along the line for 1500 miles so that the food train could pass and the danger could be averted. How could anyone expect the person in charge of law and order or even the Governor who also was having authority under the Government of India Act of 1935 to report it to the Centre, to the President of the Union Government, and await his orders? Is it not very dangerous that such a thing should be done? I did not expect this proposal to come up in this form. I know when this debate was going on in another place the first attack was upon the post of the Governor himself. That I can understand; if you attack the Governor’s appointment itself and eliminate him altogether and make the Ministry responsible, that would be a different matter. But it was not so, I must congratulate the leadership and the Provincial Constitution Committee that had drafted this Provincial Constitution. They have lifted up the whole nation in one stroke and saved, us from the troubles that had overtaken us till now by reviving adult suffrage. Adult suffrage is not a new thing. as imagined by some of our friends, handed down to us by Great Britain. Adult suffrage you will find inscribed on the stone walls of a temple in the village of Uttaramerur twenty miles from Conjeeveram, the whole structure of democracy of those days just a thousand years ago,-many of us imagine that it is Great Britain that has given us the democratic process of election; that is not so. You will find ‘on the stone walls of that temple written in the Tamil language an inscription to the effect that there was democratic election carried on then on the basis of adult suffrage a thousand years ago. There was adult suffrage as stated there. There were no wooden boxes which could be used as ballot boxes, but cadjan leaves were used as ballot papers and pots as ballot boxes. That is the way in which they carried on the administration of the country, even in the villages; and it is the misfortune of this country that we have fallen on evil days and came under the rule of different kings. All our ancient things disappeared and we have become slaves, as it were, and whatever has come to us, we imagine as having come from Great Britain Having revived adult suffrage, having clothed the Governor under that suffrage with a unique position–I am glad it was not copied from the American or Australian or Canadian or any other Constitution-this Committee and this leadership had the vision to see the position of the country at present. How are we to manage matters now? I was an advocate of the British system of democracy and the same was the feeling of some of those friends who have tabled these amendments. I was very anxious that the British system should be copied by us. It was copied by us and we have gone through all kinds of experiences. Our leaders have gone through all kinds of experiences and having regard to all our conditions and sufferings they have suggested this device of an elected Governor on adult suffrage by which they have lifted the nation in one stroke to the skies, because they have made everyone in this country feel, man and woman, for whom-the Congress had been fighting all these years, that at last it is their Government, that they are appointing their Governor, the man who will be responsible to them. The Governor should have power to do something if something is going on in the presence of the Governor, is he not to interrupt it and prevent it on the spot when it lies in his power? To suggest that nothing should be done and the Governor should not be made to exercise the power of Governor of the 1935 Act is not sound and correct. Anything good, may be taken even from the Constitution of 1935. Everybody must accept the proposal without a single word of demur in this matter. I am very sorry that this retrograde step has been proposed that the whole thing should be postponed until the Union President sends reinforcements or advice or gives directions. I earnestly request the House not to accept any such suggestion. We would make the whole world laugh at us if we say that without meeting a situation on the spot he must come to this place. We will be making fools of ourselves if we adopt this amendment.
