Unhappily though, not to the House. I feel, Sir, there is some raison d’ etre for this amendment of mine. Had my last amendment been accepted, namely, membership of the UNO or any other international body, then, there would have been no need for this amendment. But as the House, as on one or two rare occasions which I recollect did not accept the advice of Dr. Ambedkar, I think that this provision should be made in this List. My honourable Friend Dr. Ambedkar pointed out to me Entry 10 and said that it had a very wide field and covered many things not otherwise specifically mentioned. It may be that the term ‘foreign affairs’ means all things to all men. But in a matter like this i.e., in the Union List (Legislative) we ought to be specific as far as lies in human power. It is not enough to say just ‘foreign affairs‘. It conveys either everything or nothing. Apart from that, the second part of Entry 10 refers to all matters which bring the Union into relation with any foreign country. No organisation or association or international body is mentioned as such. Entry 12 which we had adopted refers only to UNO. This list therefore to my mind suffers from a little lacuna and that is, our membership of any international body, or I may call it supranational body, other than the UNO. I have made a distinction between “international” and “supranational.” Supranational in political parlance today connotes more than merely international. In modern political theory, after the birth of the League of Nations, politically interested people started talking of the Super-State-the Super-State to which all component States would willingly surrender a portion of their sovereignty. That was called a Super-State. But here we are talking of an organisation which has no powers, coercive powers of the State apparatus which we may find in a World Government of which many are dreaming today. Here we are confining ourselves to an organisation of nations where various nations assembled in conclave or in conference might discuss several matters affecting all of them and arrive at certain decisions for implementation by the various Governments concerned or members of the particular organisation and here comes the moot point, viz., the membership of any international or supranational organisation must be a matter which has got to be considered in great detail before one elects to become a member of any organisation. Today membership of an organisation carries with it several commitments of various sorts and therefore it is necessary to provide for not merely the acquisition of membership but also its continuance and termination. If we say mere membership, it is in my judgment too vague, and therefore we must specifically state everything. I am not mentioning only UNO because it is only one of the many organisations which human wisdom has created. There are no bounds to man’s wisdom, here as elsewhere. I, therefore, feel that in view of the rejection of my previous amendment, and in view of the non-mention of this particular item in the other entries of this List, that this is a very vital matter which not merely Dr. Ambedkar but also the House might choose to consider in all seriousness. I, therefore, commend my amendment to the House for its consideration.
