I now pass on to the next consideration and I beg the indulgence of the House to permit me to say a few words about the manner in which the Minority rights and Fundamental Rights are in extricably mingled together in this Part of the Constitution. Sir, I believe this is a right and necessary mingling. After all, what the minorities ask is that the right of the individual may be safeguarded in an inescapable manner. If that is done, “minority rights” as such would not and need not exist. It is because in a democratic system of Government where a majority vote may do injustice to a minority, that certain specific references to the minorities have to be made. But ultimately, in the last analysis, if the individual’s right to his religious convictions, to his cultural preferences, to the rights which accrue to him as a man endowed with free will and reason and charged with the obligation of personal salvation, if these are safeguarded, “minority rights” as such need not find expression. That is why, mingled with these general rights, references are made to minorities. I should like to say on behalf of my own community which I have the honour to represent here–I am sure I am also voicing the feelings of many others–that if these rights are really safeguarded in the manner in which they are sought to be safeguarded in this Constitution, if the Fundamental Rights including as they do minority rights, are assured in an absolutely indubitable manner, no kind of political safeguards will be necessary for us and we shall not demand them, as long as, I say, this part of the Constitution is enforced without any kind of “encroachment” or misinterpretation.
