That there must be prohibition is admitted to by all. I submit that Gandhiji’s foremost plank of constructive programme was prohibition (cheers), and we all stand pledged to this programme; we had pledged in front of Gandhiji. We have repeated that pledge tens of tunes every year on Independence Days and now we cannot falsify that pledge before the nation. The time has now come when we must implement our programme of prohibition. We must bring it in the Constitution. I am in full agreement with the spirit of the amendment, but it is misplaced. I must submit that the Constitution as it is, and I have repeated this many times before, is devoid of Gandhiji’s ideas. It is very poor from that point of view. We have not accommodated him in the least. I had hoped that even if he be dead, we would keep his spirit alive, but he stands dead even in this Constitution. Without his spirit, I submit that the Constitution is dead. We had given our pledges to stand by his programme, and, we had done so in the most unambiguous and unequivocal manner; Sir, on such questions we Congressmen cannot compromise, whatever may be the consequences. This prohibition has been in his programme. It has been also in our Election Manifesto, on which all members of the provincial Assemblies were elected, and it is through those elected bodies in the provinces that we have been sent to this Assembly, indirectly. So basically the whole of our electorate has voted for the programme of prohibition, and if now we do not bring it in here, we shall be betraying the wishes and the trust of the whole electorate, and the people on whose behalf we say, rightly or wrongly, that we are making this Constitution. Let us not forget that we are using the name of the people. If we do not appreciate their desires and do not accommodate them in this Constitution, we shall have no moral justification to use the name of the people. If we cannot accommodate even the idea of prohibition in our Constitution, then what else have we been sent here for? We have been talking of revolutions, and about all sorts of progress. But if we cannot have even this small reform in our Constitution; the book will not be even worth touching with a pair of tongs. I therefore submit that if the Draft Constitution does not contain prohibition, it does not contain Gandhiji, because where there is liquor, Gandhiji cannot be, and where Gandhiji is, liquor cannot be. That is the position. Therefore, I submit that this amendment may be accommodated at some proper place in the Constitution. I support the spirit of the amendment, but only oppose it because it is proposed to be put in a place which is not the proper one to incorporate it. With these words I oppose not the spirit, but the place where my friend wants his amendment to be inserted.
