The Honourable Member in charge, is a very big document. The trouble taken by him and those who are associated with him must have been really very great. My Honourable friend Mr. T. T. Krishnamachari when he was speaking explained the handicap under which the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar had been labouring on account of as many as five or six members of the Committee having dropped out and their places not having been filled up. I have been attending this session regularly with the hope and expectation that the Constitution that would be evolved would be one that would meet with the wishes and desires of those who had fought the battle of freedom for thirty years, and who had succeeded in securing freedom under the leadership of the departed Mahatma Gandhi. I was hoping, Sir, having seen the Preamble, that everything would follow in regular course and bring out a Constitution that will give food and cloth to the millions of our people and also give education and protection to all the people of the land. But, Sir, to the utter disappointment of myself and some of us who think with me, this Draft Constitution has drifted from point to point until at last it has become very difficult for us to understand where we are, where the country is, where the people are, what is it that they are going to derive out of this Constitution when it is put on the statute book. Now, Sir, when a Constitution is drafted, generally, what is expected of those who are in charge of drafting the Constitution, those who are in charge of approving the constitution as members of the Constituent Assembly is, what are the conditions in the country, what is the situation in the country, are we doing all that is necessary to get over the troubles in the country? With that object, I have been waiting to learn from all Members who have been devoting their time in explaining the real position with regard to this Constitution. I feel thankful to some of those members who have not forgotten the way in which the battle of freedom had been fought in this country and how freedom had been secured. So far as the drafting of this Constitution is concerned, with all respect to the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar, I must say that he has not been able to put himself in the position of those who had been fighting for the freedom of this country for thirty long years. In one stroke he condemned the village panchayat system. He has referred to the remarks of one great man of those old days of the British, Mr.Metcalfe, and the description given by him that the village panchayats existed and continued, whatever may have been happening with regard to the Government at the top; whoever may have come and whoever may have gone, they did not concern themselves. It is not a matter which should have been treated by Dr. Ambedkar in that manner. That was a condition to which we had been reduced, after the village panchayats had been exhausted on account of the oppression of the various foreign rulers who had come over to this country. Still inspite of all that had been done for their suppression, they had survived. That is what Metcalfe wanted to explain to the world and to us who have been ignoring it. Therefore village panchayat is not to be condemned on that basis. I do not advocate for one moment today that village panchayat should be such as described by Metcalfe under those circumstances. Village panchayat should be one which is up-to-date, which gives real power to rule and to get money and expend it, in the hands of the villagers. I would like to know what is this Government that is being constituted under this Draft Constitution. For whose benefit is this intended? Is it for the benefit of a few people or is it for the benefit of the millions of people who pay taxes? Whether they have power or not they pay the taxes under the vicious system that had been established in this country and under which we had been groaning for a hundred and fifty years and we tried our best to get rid of that system. The British built up a system in the Centre and in the provinces in such a manner that the tiller of the soil and the labourer and other people are made to pay some tax or other to enable this Government to carry on administration from the Fort St. George or some other Fort and from this Delhi Centre or other places. What becomes of those millions who pay the taxes? The money is taken away under the British system by those people who have been established here step by step and the money is brought here and spent. How the money is spent the tax payer does not know and the tax payer has been left in the lurch. He does not know whether there is any ruler at all, even after the establishment of freedom by us, because we are perpetuating the same system and we are supposed to be governing in the name of King George. The Governor-General is appointed by the British Cabinet and our currency notes are being printed with the head of King George. To-day, after two years of establishment of freedom, we are in that condition. Therefore, it is only right and proper that this Constituent Assembly which has been sent by the people of this country should take particular care to see that this Draft Constitution of Dr. Ambedkar is so amended that it would really become a constitution for the benefit of the masses and the millions of people for whose sake the battles have been fought by that great friend who has gone away leaving us here to get along with our work. When he was alive his system and his schemes were not supported by us whole heartedly or by the millions in the country. If that had been done, as he said, within twelve months we would have established freedom. That man of vision was with us and with all the betrayal made by us, he managed to educate us and keep us calm and fought all the battles until he succeeded and gave us a scheme for the construction of the future Government. Having been the man who roused the millions of people who had been in ignorance at the bottom when he came here and lifted them up, he made them understand that you are all men having soul force in the same manner in which I have got. If you educate yourself and carry on my programme, you will carry out everything and you will establish freedom.’ I myself, Sir, had a talk with the great LalaLajpatRai more than forty five years ago in England. He was the earliest of the sufferers for freedom and he said: “Look at the organization and discipline and the way in which people here conduct themselves. Can we ever hope to send away these British people from our country and establish freedom?” That was my feeling when I touched that shore. Under those circumstances it was, that this man Gandhiji came as a Seer and lifted us up and I and many friends here entered into his movement and we had been struggling on all these thirty years. The real thing has not been established. The British system drowned us and suppressed the country and made the people utterly helpless. To get rid of the capitalist system he introduced what was called the constructive Programme to enable every man and woman to do his or her duty and then make themselves fit for making sacrifices and finally to send away the British. He succeeded and the people succeeded. The people must be thanked for the readiness with which they flung themselves into any ordeal whether it was one of fire or one of water. Instead of having a Constitution based on a socialist basis in the manner in which Gandhiji had formulated for thirty long years, he divided the whole country into linguistic areas and framed the Constitution for the Congress and worked that for thirty years and it is on account of that that we won freedom – that socialist basis has all been thrown off and a capitalist basis is being introduced. That will be the result fo this constitution to-day we are in the throes of a famine for food and cloth and I would ask Dr. Ambedkar whether this Constitution would solve any of these problems. To my mind it is not possible so long as the capitalist system of the world is kept up. You may pass so many resolutions and appoint so many committees to solve the inflation problem, but have not been able to reach that point. Therefore it is necessary that this Constitution must be amended in such a manner that the capitalist monetary system is not adopted but a more proper socialist system of our own – I don’t mean to say the Russian, we had our own system and we have had our system which had been put into force by Mahatma Gandhi and worked for thirty years successfully. This type of Draft Constitution is beyond my comprehension and I would appeal earnestly to Dr. Ambedkar – I do not blame him alone. Dr. Ambedkar has not been in the battle-field for thirty years. He had not in any way understood the significance of this. He had been attacking the whole system and the Programme of Gandhi and the Congress all his life – time…
