Sir, the Constitution has had its final touches and this is the occasion for a review of our labours. No doubt we started making this Constitution three years ago. The time that has been spent is not a long one and it is time well spent. When we started under the Cabinet Mission Scheme the Centre was expected to embrace and have a Constitution for the whole of the Indian Union including Pakistan. It was envisaged then that the Centre should be weak with powers only over defence, communications and external affairs. If we had accepted the scheme the 565 States in the country would not have come easily into the picture. For no fault of ours the Muslim League did not come in and for one full year we had to wait expecting them to come in from- November or December 1946 to the 15th of August 1947, when the country was partitioned. After 15th August 1947 for a long period we were faced with difficulties like those created by the Partition, the refugees, the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, the Hyderabad tangle, the Kashmir war which all took a lot of our time. We settled down later and calculating the number of days on which we sat we have not spent more than five months during this long period. On account of causes beyond our control we were not able to push these matters through. Considering the various problems and their magnitude and the various interests that have to be reconciled, any other country with a vast population like ours, I am sure, would have taken not three but many more years to frame its constitution. Therefore it is a matter for pride to us that we have ended our labours at last at the end of three years.
