Mr. President, it may be admitted on all hands that one of the greatest achievements of this Constitution which we are enacting is that it equally applies to all the Indian States within the borders of India. This is a great and glorious consummation, unique in the history of India, and the country owes a debt of gratitude to Sardar Patel for it. But let us not forget at the same time those who have contributed as efficiently to this consummation, I mean, the peoples of those States. This House knows fully well the sacrifices and services of Sheikh Abdulla, but there were Sheikh Abdullah’s in several Indian States of whom probably many in this House to not know. They were there in Travancore, in Mysore, in Baroda, in Kolhapur, in Saurashtra, in Central India, even in Rajasthan, in the Sigh States in the North and the Orissa States in the East. These people had organised strong Praja Mandals in their States and their demand for responsible Government could hardly be suppressed by the rulers concerned even with the help of the British power. When that power was gone the rulers were left without any outside support. It may be magnanimous to say that the rulers readily agreed in a spirit of self-sacrifice when the covenants of either merger or accession were presented to them by the Government of India. But that is not a historical truth. It was because of the efforts of these people in the States that the rulers full well knew that they had no alternative; that if they did not agree to the Covenant of Accession they would have had to meet with a worse fate from their people, and it is this emergency, this necessity of circumstances, which made them yield. I trust, therefore, that this House would not grudge recording its appreciation of the sacrifice and service, of the sufferings and trials of the great fight which these people put up and continued in their several States for the consolidation of India.
