Sardar Bhopinder Singh Man by his amendment No. 67, wants that there should be a special officer in each State. Well, if the special officer envisaged in this article requires assistance of other officers, they will be appointed. But there is no need for appointing a separate officer for each State. That would only complicate matters. The object is to see whether the whole thing is worked on one principle throughout the country. We do not want separate officers in each State as permanent guardians. The honourable the Mover of the amendment has also introduced the word ‘minorities’ in it. We have removed the word ‘minorities’ from Article 296 and it is entirely inappropriate in 299. In passing, he tried to reply to what Sardar Patel had already said on the safeguards for Sikhs. I do not want to repeat what Sardar Patel said. I shall deal with only one point to which he referred and which I think I should refer. I was a member of the Committee appointed for the purpose of looking into the Sikh question. From the beginning of the Advisory Committee and the Minorities Committee, I had something or other to do with all the stages of the negotiations. I can assure the House that at the time when the Advisory Committee met on the last occasion, there was no question of providing safeguards for any religious minority. The negotiations proceeded on the footing that except the backward classes who are economically and socially backward, and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes who have a special claim of their own, no other minority should be recognised in the Constitution. The honourable Member read some statements made by certain Sikhs. Unfortunately, in the short time. at my disposal. I have not been able to reclaim the different documents; but of one thing I can assure the House. When the matter came up before the Advisory Committee, the Sikh members withdrew every sort of claim for any safeguards whatever in consideration of the Sikh scheduled classes being placed among the Scheduled Castes and given the privileges, which the latter were entitled to. Any cry raised now that they did not do so is an after- thought.
