Mr. President, Sir, I beg to move that item 9 be deleted. The reason is that there has been in the past considerable amount of dissatisfaction in the country that we had not freedom as to the use of arms or firearms. There has been tremendous and persistent agitation over this and, it need not be elaborated. Now my amendment is that this should be removed from the Federal List and be made a Provincial subject, for which purpose an appropriate amendment would be submitted later on. I think that so long as the British were here their objective was to disarm the people and they did so out of suspicion and jealousy of the Indian people and they kept it as a central subject. Now as the British have gone, the reason for making it a Central subject has also, I submit, gone. It would be a very proper gesture now on the part of the Centre to let the Province, to exercise this power. If there is any difficulty as to giving these privileges to the Provinces it may be carried to List No. III and it would be a concurrent subject. I submit that the retention of this item any more as a Central subject would be wrong. I believe that though the British have gone, their ghosts still haunt our minds and we want to cling to the power.
