Mr. President, Sir, I am not here to enter into any detailed controversy regarding the provisions of these Articles. There is only one thing which I should like to say briefly and it is this. On the occasion of a very tragic event in the history of the world, George Bernard Shaw was reported to have said that it is a dangerous thing to be too good. Now to be good is not a bad thing but in Shaw’s opinion it is a dangerous thing to be too good. I feel that similarly it may be a very dangerous thing for our country to be too democratic. Let us have a little, realism about our discussions and about our Constitution-making. We go on dissecting, analysing things purely from the point of view of a lawyer or an advocate. There is much too much of this hair-splitting as it is in our temperament, but this hair-splitting and this tendency to be too legalistic may be divorced from the realities of administration and the handling of political crisis. What has been the trouble in our country in the past? Have we or have we not suffered from fissiparous tendencies? Have the various units not tried to break away from the Centre again and again? The greatest danger, as I dimly look into the future, may be, not that the Centre will interfere too much, but that the units may resent the guidance of the Centre. Of the two things, I do not believe that the President, will be inclined to depose Governors, but that Provinces may have mal-administration over a long period and may come to grief over it unchecked by the Centre. The last speaker said, “suppose the President, on the basis of a report he receives from the C. I. D., decides that law and order has broken down and there is a grave, emergency in a certain Province. He can then proceed to take the Government of that Province into his own hands and be the absolute ruler of that Province.” Well, Sir, if that can happen in my country, then we are not fit for democracy. Let there be a perfect human body with all the limbs intact, with everything looking perfectly all right, but if the spirit has departed, that body is no good, the hands cannot work, the feet cannot walk, the tongue cannot speak because the spirit has departed. If we have the finest constitution in the world but if the democratic spirit is not in the country, then that Constitution is bound to break down. What do we mean by saying that the President may take the powers into his own hands and may become an absolute dictator? And will the ‘thirty-two crores of Indians sit quietly and knuckle under? If they would, then they would do that anyhow, no matter what Constitution you frame. We seem to think that our political salvation lies purely in laws, not in a, public opinion, which is wide awake, well-informed and vigilant. I feel that if we are going to pin our faith only on the written Constitution without bringing about the education of our new masters-the masses and the people, of India then we are going the wrong way about it. No Constitution which exists only on paper can mean the salvation of a country. What we must work for is the proper democratic spirit, the realization that everyone of us is responsible to see that the country is governed properly along enlightened, progressive, democratic lines. If that spirit and that vigilant watching of the Government of our country is not there, then no Constitution on God’s earth, even if framed by Archangel Gabriel, is going to succeed. So I feel that instead of being too critical and putting the most unwarranted suspicions at the door of our would-be Presidents of the future, we should take the historical tendencies of our country into consideration and see what is likely to happen in the future and then in a realistic way, in a way which means political sagacity and wisdom and balance, we should proceed to the task of framing the Constitution. Take England, Sir. Does England put its trust wholly and solely in the written Constitution? Much more than the written Constitution, they make use of conventions. But we seem to forget that there is anything like conventions or public opinion and we go the legalistic extreme of conjuring up most weird and fantastic visions of the future and trying to provide for everything that we can possibly think of. I think, Sir that the provision is sound, healthy and necessary in the light of our historic past and in the light of the tendencies that are staring us in the face and the fears expressed this morning are unwarranted and unjustified.
