Sir, article 289 as has been lately amended is surely a very important provision for the safeguarding of-as the Mover said, cultural, racial or linguistic minorities. It is conceived with the very laudable idea that it will give protection to them against any provincial prejudices or whims of officials. But there is one thing that I am afraid of. Whereas sufficient protection has been given against injustice to racial, cultural of linguistic minorities so far as provincial prejudices are concerned, it has been assumed that the Centre will not be liable to corruption at any time. We are perhaps obsessed with the feeling that our present leaders, who are noble and responsible people and are at the helm of affairs now, will continue for ever or that their successors will be as responsible as they are. My fear is that in future that may not be so and with a little prejudice or unsympathetic attitude at that time the minorities may be in great danger. I am certainly against centralisation of powers and I feel that in this Constitution we are reducing the provincial Governments to the position of District Boards by centralising all power here. But I am not opposing the present amendment because we have been assured that it is to safeguard the interest of these minorities. I rather welcome it. But I want to make one observation about that and that is that this Commission will have very important to perform and one of them would be delimitation of constituencies. Of course this business would be the soul of all elections. If delimitation of constituencies is made with full sympathy to the minorities it might restore their confidence and they might never feel sorry for what they have done-I mean this voluntary giving up of all safeguards of reservation of seats. So far as the majority is concerned it has nothing to fear. So far as the Scheduled Castes are concerned they are quite safe because they have got that reservation of seats. So far as the Anglo-Indians are concerned they will be nominated if they are not adequately represented. But for other minorities such as Muslims and Sikhs I feel that if they are not properly represented they might lose confidence in that majority. This Commission shall have a very responsible task to perform in that respect when it is carving out those constituencies. If the Commission, as our object is, feels that responsibility and does its job with full responsibility then I am sure the minorities shall have nothing to fear. But with a little apathy and some ill-adjustment in the delimitation this Commission can certainly work much havoc and those minorities may not even get what they ordinarily would have got according to their population. So my object in making this observation is that in the beginning at least the Government should take care that this Commission is so constituted that every interest is represented on that Commission, and this the Government can do very easily. By this they would restore all confidence in the minorities. This would go a long way in achieving the object which we have in view, namely, that we should have one nation, all people welded together. If the Government were simply to give an assurance that it would give sympathetic consideration to this request of mine, that for the beginning at least this Commission shall be representing all interests, my object would be achieved and the minorities also would not feel apprehensive of their future fate. With these remarks I welcome this article as now proposed in this House.
