Mr. President, Sir, I have listened with great attention to the speech which has been delivered on the floor of this House on the question of protection of the interests of the tribal people. After having heard the opinion of the tribal Members themselves, after having seen the attitude which has been taken by the non-tribal Members of this House, who have very little information about the conditions obtaining in the tribal areas, the only reaction which has come to my mind is this : India, independent India, we were. It is on account of differences amongst ourselves that India was lost to the Mughals and Pathans. It is on account of a policy of appeasement that we had ultimately to lose some prosperous areas of this India to be lost entirely and to be converted into Pakistan. I want this House and through this House, the people of India to know that on account of the wrong information which the persons in authority have and on account of the want of information of among the persons not in authority, India is going to lose a great deal, and is going to lose entirely the whole of the tribal areas. In truth, Sir I say I have no information worth the name about the tribal areas and at the same time, I shall say that none of my honourable Friends here, not even the Honourable the Premier of Assam, has much of in information about the tribal areas in India. (Hear, hear). The reason is not due to the negligence or indifference of the Honourable the Premier but is due to the state of things which existed before the independence of this country. The Honourable Premier when he was the Honourable Premier before Independence came to India had not the right to visit the tribal areas; he did not have free access to these areas and he could have gone there only with the Permission of the Governor and not otherwise. That was the position. The Honourable Rev. Nichols Roy who was also one of the Ministers–he too could not have gone to any other tribal areas, except perhaps to Khasi Hills. As a matter of fact he never went anywhere except perhaps to Naga Hills on business. I do not know, but absolutely there was no means of knowledge either by himself or by anybody in the public or by anybody in the Ministry to know about these tribal areas. Sir, these tribal areas were kept as a close preserve by the British people. When the I. C. S. officers came to India, their first concern was to find out some territories in the Province of Assam where there were no mosquitoes, there were not lawyers and where there were no public men. That was the first aim of the officers there, and whatever rules they framed for the administration of justice in these hill areas, whatever rules they framed for the conduct of business, these rules were framed in order to keep these tribal areas exclusively as a different country from the rest of India, where Europeans could live as Europeans, enjoying the same climate., enjoying the same authority and enjoying whatever it pleases them to get in India. That was the whole object. That was the object. Therefore, none but the Christian missionaries, and missionaries of no other religion, were allowed to visit those areas. There was no provision in the rules and regulations that a man should be defended by a lawyer or any one of that kind, even in a most serious criminal case, because he had no right to be defended. He can get special permission to be defended; but he had no right to be defended; not to speak of civil courts. No lawyers were allowed to remain in these hills and practise there. No other people were allowed to migrate to these areas except with the permission of the authorities. The British wanted to keep the people of these areas as primitive as possible. I tell you, and the House will be surprised to learn that in the Naga Hills, — Naga means naked,– people used to go about naked in the past. There was a Deputy Commissioner who used to flog any Naga who was dressed in Dhoti. The British wanted the Nagas to remain as they were they should not clothe themselves properly;they should not live like civilised men. That was the position, I may tell you.
