Mr. President, Sir, I must confess that I have been shocked by the amount of venom that has been poured forth this morning by some of the Members against what they imagine the tribal people of Assam are going to do, if this or that is passed by this House. I wish that some of these Members were present when the Tribal Committee met when the Honourable Sardar Patel explained why he also had accepted the recommendations of the Tribal Sub-Committee for Assam. May I simply repeat what he said ? It was after considerable difficulty and negotiations that the tribal people of Assam were persuaded to agree to the recommendations. There was a definite understanding on the part of the rest of India that those agreements, those understandings would be, honoured. It was definitely on that understanding that the tribal people agreed to do away with the agitation that had been inspired by the departing rulers. I wish people would talk with knowledge. The learned Ambassador in Moscow; the day he left, gave us two solutions for dealing with situations. One was the power solution, the other was the knowledge solution. The vehement language of some of our Members inclines towards power solutions. They want to force the tribal people of Assam to do things against their wishes and expressed will. I suggest that is no solution at all. If you do that you are certainly going to bring about what you fear. You are not going to obviate, but you are going to bring about a further disintegration of India. It is useless now to blackguard the British for what they did and what their motives were in doing things in a certain way. What purpose does that black guarding serve ? Now, the whole matter is in our hands. Let us be states men like in handling these problems. It does no one any good to suspect the intentions of the tribal people of Assam. Do my friends believe that the Naga is not a man of his word? Do they mean that the people of the Lushai Hills are trying to deceive us? What do they mean? There is the definite understanding between the leaders and the Tribal Sub-Committee that went round the place. Then why this doubt.? I know there were difficulties in some of their trips.The Sub-Committee were prevented from going to some places, I know that. But all these obstructive tactics were inspired, we have got concrete evidence of that. And now the British are gone and it is for us to handle the situation. The idea of subjugating the tracts by requisitioning the Assam Frontier Rifles and so forth will not work. We must inspire confidence in our fellow citizens, in the hearts of the tribals of those hills. Let us do that, and let us do it genuinely and sincerely, and not try to run them down and think of them as though they were hostile to the Indian Union. They are not My friends complain that they have not been into these tracts. That is exactly the reason why they should be a bit chary of talking about these tribes.
