The second thing is that in many new Constitutions the pay is laid down in the Constitution itself. It is not desirable to leave it to the Parliament to determine the pay from time to time, but if you are doing this, then you must fix the proportion between the member’s salary and the pay of the Ministers. Why? For two reasons. In India unfortunately the gap between the classes is very wide. On the one side you find multi-millionaires, on the other side you find the poorest of the poor. The same disparity should not be there between the pay of the Members of the legislature and of the Ministers. I do not want that there should be a great disparity between the pay of the Members of the legislatures and of the Ministers. I do not want that there should be a great disparity between that salary of a Members of Parliament and the Ministers, so that the members of Parliament may feel that he will always have to please the honourable Ministers to get some more remuneration. There must be some relation between the pay of the members of Parliament and the Ministers’ salary for another reasons. Once you have determined the pay of the Members of Parliament in relation to the pay of the Ministers, naturally you have to be careful what salary you fix for the Ministers so that the burden on the exchequer may not be very heavy. Therefore this serves two purpose. Firstly, it serves as a check on the great disparity between the salaries of the Members of Parliament and of the Ministers. No doubt it is true that the Minister work for twelve months. Even if you take that into consideration, the proportion comes to the same proportion that I have indicated. It is this proportion which is to be found in Australia and New Zealand. Therefore, what I want is this, that there must be some relation between the pay of the Members of Parliament and Ministers so that no inferiority complex may develop. The first two amendments are of very great significance, but you may or may not accept them. But the third raises a point of vital importance. I hope that the House will, irrespective of party decisions, take into consideration the reasons which I have placed before the House and consider how far it is desirable that they should recognise the principle of party opposition. It is very easy to say that we accept the principle, and say that when the Parliament comes into being, it will fix the salaries of members of Parliament. When you have such a voluminous Constitution running into hundreds of pages and sections, when you are not leaving even minor things to be determined afterwards, why leave such a provision to be determined afterwards, a provision which is really of vital importance, in the interests of democracy and in the interests of the proper functioning of party governments in this country? In India during the last several centuries we had despotism. We are just beginning with democracy. It is necessary that we must create conditions in which democracy may not prove a failure. We must take steps to ensure its success and one of the essential things is that we must ensure that when the new legislatures meet after the enactment of the present Constitution there is a full-fledged and vigorous opposition to make party governments a success.
(Amendment No. 1635 was not moved.)