Sir, I do not believe in the theory propounded here that everything should be centralised and that the whole country should be governed from the Centre. But I agree that powers should be given to the Centre so that in times of emergency they can be utilised for the benefit of the people. Sir, the Centre should have only such power as is necessary and cannot be exercised by its component governing parts, for the preservation of the unity and integration of the whole of India. Every other power should be, as much as possible, decentralised and given to the unit of a village or groups of villages what to say to Provinces. With that purpose in view, I had given notice of an amendment to the Preamble that ‘after the word “Republic” the words “to be worked on the basis of autonomous village Units or groups of villages organised on the principle of self-sufficiency as far as practicable” be added. The other thing I had said in the Preamble was that the noble idea of self-restraint, simplicity and selfless work inculcated by the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, should be introduced by means of an amendment to the Preamble. The object of the amendment was that when we are going to have a democratic form of Government we should have as real democracy as possible by giving as much power to as small as unit as practicable so that the individuals composing the unit have easy and ready remedy which is possible under village republic. By other amendment I wanted to introduce in the Constitution, guiding principles and forms of gratifications for our people to cultivate and possess, in the absence of which gratifications the other objective given in the preamble of the Constitution cannot be achieved. But this was not accepted.
