My criticism of the Constitution does not mean that I am blind to the achievements which we have made during these three years. I consider, this framing of the Constitution has by itself been the greatest single achievement of ours during the last three years. The barriers to the dawn of freedom which the British Government had erected by the artificial creation of the problem of minorities, the problem of Princes in the Indian States and the Heaven-born Civil Service, have all been wiped of as if by magic in the short space of the last 2 years. The delay in the framing of the constitution has enabled us to incorporate in this Constitution similar provisions for the administration of the 566 Indian States which have now been transformed and integrated into nine provinces and put on a par with the other units of the Union. This single achievement will be regarded as the greatest task ever accomplished in any country. Our beloved leader, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel has earned the gratitude of the future generations by this momentous achievement through a bloodless revolution. Here I cannot hide my disappointment at the attitude of Kashmir Government which has insisted on a separate constitution under Article 370. But Kashmir is not Sardar Patel’s responsibility. Sardar Patel’s second greatest achievement has been his solution of the problem of minorities in his capacity as Chairman of the Minorities Committee. I cannot here forget to mention the name of Shri H. C. Mookerjee, the great Indian Christian leader, who can be regarded as mainly responsible for the happy solution of the minoritiesproblem. He infected all the minorities with his sturdy spirit of nationalism and the nation shall never forget the debt it owes to him. Another great achievement of the Constitution is the solution of the language problem. I am not at all happy at the compromise arrived at and I consider the period of 15 years fixed for the full fledged adoption of the Hindi language as the national language of the country far too long, but I do hope that in actual practice, the people will force the pace and the present love of English and everything English will soon become a thing of the past.
