On one thing I join issue with Dr. Ambedkar. He was pleased to refer to the villages – I am quoting from a press report in the absence of the official copy – as “sinks of localism and dens of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism”; and he also laid at the door of a certain Metcalfe our “pathetic faith” in village communities. Sir, I may say that it is not owing to Metcalfe but owing to a far greater man who has liberated us in recent times, our Master and the Father of our nation, that this love of ours for the villages has grown, our faith in the village republics and our rural communities has grown and we have cherished it with all our heart. It is due to Mahatma Gandhi, it is due to you, Sir, and it is due to Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru and Netaji Bose that we have come to love our village folk. With all deference to Dr. Ambedkar, I differ from him in this regard. His attitude yesterday was typical of the urban highbrow; and if that is going to be our attitude towards the village folk, I can only say, “God save us.” If we do not cultivate sympathy and love and affection for our villages and rural folk I do not see how we can uplift our country. Mahatma Gandhi taught us in almost the last mantra that he gave in the last days of his life to strive for panchayat raj. IfDr. Ambedkar cannot see his way to accept this, I do not see what remedy or panacea he has got for uplifting our villages. In my own province of C. P. and Berar we have recently launched upon a scheme of Janapadas, of local self-government and decentralisation; and that is entirely in consonance with the teachings of our Master. I hope that scheme will come to fruition and be an example to the rest of the country. Sir, it was with considerable pain that I heard Dr. Ambedkar refer to our villages in that fashion, with dislike, if not with contempt. Perhaps the fault lies with the composition of the Drafting Committee, among the members of which no one, with the sole exception of SriyutMunshi, has taken any active part in the struggle for our country’s freedom. None of them is therefore capable of entering into the spirit of our struggle, the spirit that animated us; they cannot comprehend with their hearts – I am not talking of the head it is comparatively easy to understand with the head – the turmoiled birth of our nation after years of travail and tribulation. That is why the tone of Dr. Ambedkar’s speech yesterday with regard to our poorest, the lowliest and the lost was what it was. I am sorry he relied on Metcalfe only. Other historians and research scholars have also given us precious information in this regard. I do not know if he has read a book called” Indian Polity” by Dr.Jayaswal; I do not know if he has read another book by a greater man, “The Spirit and Form of Indian Polity” by SreeAurobindo. From these books we learn how our polity in ancient times was securely built on village communities which were autonomous and self-contained; and that is why our civilisation has survived through all these ages. If we lose sight of the strength of our polity we lose sight of everything. I will read to the House a brief description of what our polity was and what its strength was: “At the height of its evolution and in the great days of Indian civilisation we find an admirable political system, efficient in the highest degree and very perfectly combining village and urban self-government with stability and order. The State carried on its work administrative, judicial, financial and protective – without destroying or encroaching on the rights and free activities of the people and its constituent bodies in the same department. The royal courts in capital and country were the supreme judicial authority coordinating the administration of justice throughout the kingdom.”
