The following is the debate wherein Babasaheb B.R. Ambedkar spoke on The Andhra State Bill, 1953 as the Rajya Sabha Member of the Parliament:
Continuing from the previous issue…
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Now, Sir, coming to the Andhras on whom this blessing is showered by the Government after such a long delay, what do they get by it? First of all, as I look at the Bill, I do not find anywhere mention about the capital of this new State of Andhra. The capital is the very life source of a State. I cannot understand how one can imagine a State without its capital. In fact, it is the capital that gives life to the State. There is no mention of it at all. Who is to create this capital? Is it the Legislature of the new Andhra State which is to meet and decide what is to be its capital? Is it the Executive Government of the new State which is to sit at some place and decide that the capital of the new Andhra State will be this? There is no indication at all in the Bill, as to which is the authority which is to create this capital. Reading from the newspapers it does appear that there is no unanimity among the Andhras on the question of the capital. There is a section which wants Vijayawada there is a section which wants Kurnool and those in favour of Kurnool, I think, won by one vote or so.
In a situation of this kind, I think the Government would not have fallen – I am sure about it; they have an enormous majority to beat down any opposition – if they had taken courage in both hands and said that “in our judgement this should be the capital,” leaving liberty to the Andhras at a later stage to change it if they so liked. Sir, in connection with this question of the capital, there is one point which I would like to mention. I do not know what is the town that is going to be selected as the capital of the Andhra State, but, anyhow, everybody seems to be talking that whatever town is selected for the purpose of a capital, it shall be a temporary capital. That is what I hear. Now, Sir, it strikes me – whether they select a town which is Vijayawada or Kurnool or some other place – that they may be spending a certain amount of money for the construction of the necessary buildings for the housing of the capital. Surely, there must be the Secretariat: surely, there must be the houses for the Ministers.
Shri C.G.K. Reddy (Mysore): That is very important.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: …and various other things in order that the capital may come into existence. I have no idea of the amount of money the new Andhra Government proposes to spend on the creation of this temporary capital. After what is being said that this will only be a temporary capital and that the permanent capital will be selected at a later stage, what would happen? In my judgement, what would happen is this: the five crores of rupees or so that might be spent initially on the construction of a temporary capital would all be a waste and another five or ten crores of rupees will have to be spent on what the Andhras might regard as the permanent capital for their new State. I do not know whether the hon. the Home Minister or the hon. the Finance Minister who, I believe, in his most charitable way gives grants to anybody who wants to come and ask for a grant, is prepared to give five crore of rupees for a temporary capital and another five or ten crores of rupees for a temporary capital and another five or ten crores for a permanent capital. That would certainly be a wonderful way of managing the finances of this country.
Then, Sir, looking at the financial position of the new State, it has been shown that the new State will begin with a deficit of Rs.5 crore. May optimistic Andhras who are more keen on having an Andhra State than on stability told the investigator – Mr.Justice Wanchoo – that, in their judgement, there were a variety of means whereby they could bridge the gap and make the State self-sufficient.
Mr. Justice Wanchoo examined every one of the suggestions that were made to him by the various parties of the Andhra people; and he has, in unmistakable terms, said that all these are fertile imagination and that it is neither possible to increase the revenues of the new State, nor is it possible to reduce the expenditure; at the most, anything may happen either by the way of increasing the revenue or by the way of reducing the expenditure. Nonetheless, the new Andhra State will begin with a deficit of Rs.2½ crore. That is the least that the Andhras will have to face, to begin with. Well, it is the concern of the Andhras whether they could make good this deficit which may be Rs.5½ crore or which may be Rs.2½ crore; we have not much to say about it; it is for them.
Then there is a third point which I would like to put to my hon. friend the Home Minister. It seems to me that my hon. friend has not considered what I might call the demographic picture of the Andhra State. What is the social composition of this State? When I am dealing with the social composition of Andhra, I beg of my Andhra friends not to mistake me. It is not that I am making the statement, which I am about to make, by way of accusation against the Andhras, but it is a general proposition which I am enunciating and which I shall develop at the conclusion of my speech.
Sir, as I said, I am not an Andhra. But I belong to what might be called a political group – I shall not give it the honorific name of a ‘Party’ – which is called the Scheduled Caste Federation. As the Leader of that group, I had the occasion to move round in the Andhra country in order to see what the condition of the Scheduled Castes there is. My picture is this that, in this Andhra country, there are, as everywhere else, as a I am going to show, some big communities and some very small communities. Of the big communities, the biggest, I believe, is the Reddy community; below the Reddys come the Kamma; below the Kammas come the Kapu; and below them come the unfortunate Scheduled Castes people working as landless labourers. That is primarily the picture of this area. As I said, this is not a lonely case. There are many other areas of the same pattern.
The second thing I noticed is this that all the lands practically are in possession of the Reddys. The Reddys are the biggest landlords there. Next, probably, come, the Kammas, to which my friend Professor Ranga belongs. I was told very recently how great is this evil; I was told in a very vivid way by one of the Congressmen himself. I do not know whether he would feel offended if I mention his name. It would lend great authority to the statement that I am making, but I shall not mention his name as I have not asked him.
An Hon. Member: Is he a Member of this House?
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: He is a Member of the Lower House.
Dr. K.N. Katju: I do not like it to be called the Lower House.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: When we were discussing this question, my friend told me that was by no means peculiar. There was a certain village in the Andhra area. The entire land of the village measured 1,400 acres. Out of that, only 14 acres were owned by private individuals; the rest of it was owned by a single Reddy. One has just to imagine the picture…
Shri P. Sundarayya (Madras): Let us confiscate it.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: I have no idea what they have done. The third fact he told me was that all trade in the village was in the hands of the Reddys…
An Hon. Member: What is wrong?
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: The lowest village officer is also a Reddy; the ‘mulki’ is also a Reddy. Well, Sir, I want to know for myself, especially in view of the fact whether the reservation, which was so blissfully granted to us by the Congress Party for ten years, is going to disapper.
An Hon. Member: You accepted it.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Yes. What else can one do; if you can’t get puri you must get roti. Sir, in view of the situation that is obtaining there, you can imagine what is likely to be the position of the Schedule Castes. What provision has my hon. friend made for the purpose of granting protection against tyranny, against oppression, against communalism, that is sure to be rampant not only in the Andhra Pradesh but everywhere in the States similarly situated. One of the greatest regrets that I have is that the Home Member, whose duty it is to see that every citizen is well protected against the tyranny of the majority, has come here with a Bill with no idea, with no conception as to what the State is likely to be and What is likely to happen to millions of people. I know, Sir, he is a highborn person.
Dr. K.N. Katju: Who I? I started life in a normal manner….
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: But the fact is that he is Kashmiri Pandit. Even if he takes to the profession of a Bhangi he will still remain a Kashmiri Pandit. He may never suffer. All people may respect him for his ancestry, for his noble birth, for his learning. What about us who have been tyrannised for the last 2,000 years?
Shri H.P. Saksena (Uttar Pradesh): But we all respect you.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: I may die in ten years time. Now, Sir, these-are the three considerations which I thought I should urge before my hon. friend, the Home Minister, for his consideration. There is still time even in this House, if he likes.
Shri K.S. Hegde: Is it the suggestion that Andhra should have a different tradition altogether?
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: I am going to suggest that. That is what I am going to tell him, that he has not applied his mind to this subject.
Shri K.S. Hegde: That will be applicable to all the States.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: I have said so.
Shri K.S. Hegde: It is a general proposition.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Wait a minute now, please. Mr. Chairman, we are not going to finish our troubles with the creation of the Andhra State. There are plenty of other States which are making a similar demand and I think it is therefore necessary for the Government to find out whether there are any other ways and means whereby we could keep the multi-lingual provinces as they are, and remove the feelings and the lots of blemishes that arise there from and only in excusable cases resort to the creation of a linguistic State. I have been devoting a certain amount of attention to this question because I know that this is going to be one of our most critical questions. Sir, my suggestions are twofold. Wherever I find a multi-lingual State I would vest the Governor there with certain special powers to protect the minorities in that State.
That is one proposition that I would place before the Government for its consideration. I shall presently cite some authority in order that they may not think that this is my imagination. I am going to cite some constitutional precedents. And the second thing that I would like to be done would be that in all such States where there are multilingual people you should establish by law committees of members belonging to different linguistic sections which would have the right to hear and the right to ask the Ministry whether they are doing justice to their problems. Also they should have the right to appeal to the Governor to set aside any act of injustice that might have been done to any one section. I think, if these three things are done, we should be able to keep the States as they are, at any rate in the first stage. If ultimately we find that we do not succeed even with these measures, then fate may take us to the logical extreme end, namely to have linguistic State.
Sir, in the case of creation of linguistic States, in my judgment there appear to me to be two considerations. One is that the linguistic State must be a viable State. It may be that this is a small State which has got a culture and which has got a language and which has got a separate feeling and an entity. Yet it is so small that it cannot find the means of carrying on its Administration. People do not live on culture. People do not live on language. People live on the resources that they possess. But if God has given them culture and God has given them language but God has not given them the resources, I am afraid they cannot have the luxury of having a separate linguistic State. The second thing is this. It is only in our country that we find that linguistic provinces create difficulty. I would like to ask the question as to why there are no difficulties in Switzerland although Switzerland itself as a multilingual unit. The Cantons have French, German and Italian. Yet they are a very happy nation and they are the most prosperous nation today. Why is it that Switzerland has no provinces although it is a multi-lingual unit? The answer which I can give is this that linguism in Switzerland is not loaded with communalism. But in our country linguism is only another name for communalism.
What happens when you create a linguistic province is that you had over the strings of Administration to one single community which happens to be the majority community and I can cite many provinces where this is likely to happen. That community charged with a feeling of its own sacred existence begins to practise the worst kind of communalism which otherwise is called discrimination. Discrimination creates injustice and injustice creates ill-feeling. If our linguism was not charged with communalism our linguism would not be a danger to us at all; but the fact is that it is. But it seems to me that in order to do away with the community practising, communalism being in office these two remedies are worthwhile, namely, to give the power to the Governor to override and, secondly, to appoint small committees who can make representations either to the Ministry or to the Governor.
Now, Sir, we have inherited a tradition. People always keep on saying to me, “Oh, you are the maker of the Constitution.” My answer is I was a hack. What I was asked to do, I did much against my will.
Shri P. Sundarayya: Why did you serve your masters then like that?
Mr. Chairman: Order, order
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: But, Sir, we have inherited, on account of our hatred of the British, certain ideas about democracy which, it seems to me, are not universally accepted. We inherited the idea that the Governor must have no power at all, that he must only be a rubber stamp. If a Minister, however scoundrelly he may be, however corrupt he may be, if he puts up a proposal before the Governor, he has to ditto it. That is the kind of conception about democracy which we have developed in this country.
Shri M.S. Ranawat (Rajasthan): But you defended it.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: We lawyers defend many things. (Interruptions.) You should listen seriously to what I am saying, because this is an important problem.
Sir, as I said, we happened to develop a theory of democracy, simply because of our opposition to the British. The British must go and the British must have no power. A Governor must have no power. Let me cite two cases.
One case which I propose to cite is about the Constitution of Canada and I refer to section 93 of that Constitution. As everyone in this House knows, Canada, like ourselves, is a bilingual place. A part of it speaks English, a part of it speaks French. And what is worse still is that the English speaking people are Protestants; the French are Roman Catholics. In 1864, when the Constitution of Canada was made, the Catholics were very much afraid as to what might happen to them under the English Protestant majority and they were not prepared to come into the Constitution of a united Canada. Therefore the Parliament enacted section 93 in the Canadian Constitution.
That section does two things. It says that if any province – naturally the reference was to provinces in Protestant areas – where Roman Catholics lived passed any law with regard to certain matters which the Roman Catholics regarded as their special privilege based upon religion, they had the right to appel to the Governor General that a wrong was done to them, and the Governor General by section 93 had the right to look into their complaint. It was a statutory right of complaint. Not only did section 93 give the Catholics a statutory right of appeal against the decision of the majority to have a certain measured annulled, but it goes much further and says that the Governor General shall have the right to enact a positive measure in protection of the Catholic minority. I would like to ask my friend, the Home Member, whether, with the inclusion of section 93 in the Canadian Constitution, he regards the Canadian Constitution to be democratic or undemocratic. What is his answer?
Dr. K.N. Katju: My answer is that you had drafted this Constitution.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: You want to accuse me for your blemishes?
Mr. Chairman: He has said that he defended the present Constitution because it was the majority decision. Get along.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Sir, therefore, my submission is this that no harm can be done to democracy and to democratic Constitution if our Constitution was amended and powers similar to those given to the Governor General under section 93 were given to the Governor. At any rate, that would be some kind of a safeguard to certain small linguistic areas or linguistic groups who find that the majority in the State are not doing justice to them.
The second suggestion that I would like to make is from the English Constitution. My hon. friend must be aware of the position of Scotland in the British Constitution and therefore I would not go into greater details.
But he will remember two things. One is this that although Scotland and England are one – nobody can say that they are two separate countries – still there is a special Secretary of State for Scotland under the British Constitution to look after the interests of the Scottish people. He must have gone to London, I think, various times. (The Hon. Minister indicated by signs – three) three times. Surely, he must have passed by the Parliament Street and just by the side of 10, Downing Street, there is a big brass board ‘Scottish Office; which is the place where the Secretary of State for Scotland sits. That is the one provision which the British have made. They have not argued, as my friends have argued, that this is a recognition of communalism. Have they? Scotland came and joined England some hundreds of years ago and yet the British people, in order to recognise the sentiments of the Scots, in order to respect their feelings, have created statutorily an office called the Secretary of State for Scotland.
The second thing to which I would like to refer is this that in the British Parliament there are two Committees. One is a Committee for Wales and Monmouthshire and there is another Committee for Scotland consisting of Scottish members. All Bills referring to Scotland have to be sent to the Scottish Committee so that the Scottish members may have their full say in the matter. In the same way the members of Wales and Monmouthshire are also brought on committees connected with their affairs. It is by placating the sentiments of smaller communities and smaller people who are afraid that the majority may do wrong, that the British Parliament works. Sir, my friends tell me that I have made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody. But whatever that may be, if our people want to carry on, they must not forget that there are majorities and there are minorities, and they simply cannot ignore the minorities by saying, “Oh, no. To recognise you is to harm democracy.” I should say that the greatest harm will come by injuring the minorities. I fear sometimes that if the minorities are treated in the way in which they are being treated in our Bombay State – I do not want to be parochial, but my friends have been telling me, as I am not there and I do not take any interest in my State, as you know, and I do not even like to call myself a Maharashtrian – I do not know what will ultimately happen. I am fond of Hindi, but the only trouble is that the Hindi-speaking people are the greatest enemies of Hindi.
Mr. Chairman: Dr. Ambedkar, is an aside.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: It is an aside. Now, Sir, I am told that the Ministers are drawn from the two provinces. The clever members of the Ministry draw all the funds for developing the resources in that particular area, and the other area gets nothing. The same is being said about the Rayalaseema area, that the coastal people are generally able to get larger funds for their area and the Rayalaseema people get nothing. If my friend could make a provision in the Constitution that there shall be constituted lawfully under this very Bill a committee consisting of the members belonging to Rayalaseema, who will have the right to represent to the Governor and to the members of the Ministry that their part is to be included, I think a large part of the grievance would disappear. Similarly, Sir, I find that our Bengali Members are considerably agitated over the fact that part of Bihar – they say – is Bengal. I do not know; it may be, because originally Bengal spread over everywhere. The Governor General had a very large area, and wherever the Governor General went, the Bengalis also went with him.
Mr. Chairman: Go on with the Andhra Bill
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: Yes, I am only giving an illustration. My illustration is this, that supposing such was the case that the Biharis were not treating the Bengalis well. Well, the only way open for solving this problem would be that there should be a committee of the Legislature consisting of the Members who are Bengalis and who would have the right to represent their grievances to the Ministry as well as to the Governor or to the President. When all these things fail, then I suppose we shall have to go to the naked proposition that we shall be linguists first and linguists last, and that we shall not recognise India.
If that is to be or ultimate aim, well, may God save us! But, Sir, my submission to my hon. friend is this that he should examine carefully some of the points I have made, particularly in the last part of my speech, and see whether he can find any solution to the problem of linguistic provinces, based on the suggestions that I have made, in the new measure that he may have to bring – he may not be very willing to bring a new measure, but he may have to bring it.
Source: Speeches of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in the Rajya Sabha
Words: 4075
Lead 1: People always keep on saying to me, “Oh, you are the maker of the Constitution.” My answer is I was a hack. What I was asked to do, I did much against my will.
Lead 2: My friends tell me that I have made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody.
