Mr. President, Sir, I have come forward to support wholeheartedly the Resolution that has been place before this House by the Honourable Prime Minister. At the outset, I want to congratulate him on his having raised his own status in the international sphere along with that of this country. Sir, I need not say such in support of the Resolution after what Pandit Kunzru, Mr. K. M. Munshi and Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyer and similar other Members have spoken about it. If I want to speak, I want to do so only to demonstrate the fact that it is not one or two groups that are in support of the policy which has been adumbrated by the Prime Minister, but many groups the vast majority of the people of the country are supporting him in the stand that he has taken. It is only for that purpose that I have come forward to speak in support of this Resolution. Firstly, when we are speaking at present about such important matters, we must not always be thinking of the past. We have to leave the past behind and we should not be harping on what happened in the past. We should not be thinking in terms of the past. In the past we were a dependent country struggling for our independence and so any proposal as is now put before us would have then been viewed with suspicion and we would have fought against such proposals. Now the position is altogether different. We are now a free nation. We are free to choose our own course of action. Therefore, when the position is altogether different now, I do not know why we must be spending so much of our time in criticising in this manner the action that has been taken by the Honourable Prime Minister as the spokesman of a free nation. Now Sir, what is our position today? We are a Dominion of the Commonwealth; we have not yet become a sovereign independent Republic according to the Constitution, which has not yet been passed. Even under this position, Sir, what are our rights? We can make our own choice; we are free to do anything we please. It is under that assumption that certain of our friends are advising us to reject the Resolution that is placed before the House. Even when we are under the Crown and even when we are accepting the Crown as the Head of the Commonwealth, of which we are a Member, even now those Members assume and rightly assume that we are free to do as we please and, therefore, what is their objection in continuing in the same position, even when we declare that we are a Republic under the new Constitution? Then, Sir, take the Resolution itself or the Declaration, which was issued in London after the conclusion of the Commonwealth Conference. That Declaration is simple. The Prime Minister has assured us that there is nothing behind it, that there is no secret pact or any private understanding with the other Prime Minister or powers that be in the other dominions of the Commonwealth; and, therefore, as it is, it is a simple declaration and what it is that we are fighting against in that Declaration, passes my understanding; it only reiterates the present position that though in the near future India may declare itself to be a Republic, the rights we have got and the position which we are enjoying now will not in any way be whittled down is what is assured by that Declaration. Then also, when we accept the King as the symbol of association instead of the Head of the Commonwealth, we will be free to do whatever we may want to do at that time. Our position in the matter of our internal affairs and also external affairs is not in any way sought to be affected by that Declaration.
