Mr. Vice-President, Sir, it is very unfortunate that several amendments dealing with this subject have been scattered pell-mell in this list of amendments. It would have been much better if these amendments relating to village panchayats had been taken up all together and had been placed in the list also in the same order. Unfortunately, however, that has not been so, and I am constrained to move the amendment as it appears on the Order Paper, because by not moving it I do not want the impression to be created that I have resiled from the stand which I took in the course of the debate on Dr. Ambedkar’s motion for consideration of the Draft Constitution. I am very happy to see that my feeble voice was reinforced by the powerful support of my veteran and elder colleagues in this House and I am glad that several amendments on this subject have appeared. If you are to disposed, Sir, I would formally move it now and request you to hold it over for consideration till the other amendments come up for discussion or an agreed amendment comes up. Whatever the case may be and whichever amendment on this subject is accepted by the House, the other amendments will be withdrawn in favour of that, and mine also will be withdrawn later on; but as matters stand, I have no other go but to move it before the House. I do not want to traverse the ground which I covered in the course of my speech on Dr. Ambedkar’s motion. I would only express the hope that where the type of capitalist, parliamentary democracy typified by Europe and America and the centralised socialism typified by the Soviet Union have failed to bring peace, happiness and prosperity to mankind, we in India might be able to set up a new political and economic pattern, and that we would be able to realise the vision of Mahatma Gandhi’s Panchayat Raj and, through this system of decentralised socialism, we will lead mankind and the world to the goal of peace and happiness.
