Then, Sir, Gandhiji was very keen on cottage industries to be organised on the basis of self sufficiency. This item had a top priority in his ‘constructive programme’. Here this is also lacking. I am an orthodox Gandhite and surely I am not a socialist and so I do not want to wipe away all the big industries. In the context of things today, the various industries in the country are very helpful, but if and when they are to be abolished, they should be abolished en masse. You cannot bring in socialism by stages, by socialising one industry after another. When socialism comes, it should cover everything, all at a time. If total socialism comes all of a sudden, there will be no loss to anybody, because the loss sustained by anybody on one count will be made upon the other count, because all property becomes absolutely a socialised property. To say in the Draft Constitution that people shall not be deprived of their property without adequate compensation means that India will ever belong to the vested interests. Today there is not even a blade of grass which does not belong to somebody or the other. There is not even one particle of sand which does not belong to somebody or the other. According to this Constitution, if the future generations want to socialise all property and all means of production, then every particle of sand and every blade of grass will have to be compensated for. I want to know, wherewith will they compensate this total wealth: it would all be in the hands of individuals who will demand compensation. So, compensation will be impossible. Gandhiji had said that the wealthy should consider themselves only as custodians of wealth. He never went to the extent to which we are going in this Draft Constitution. I therefore tell you, Sir, that before we sign this Constitution, we should see that we do not sow seeds of a bloody revolution in India. Only if revolution is meant to be avoided we should let the door remain open for coming generations, if they ever so desire, to socialise all vested interests and all means of production in the country. If we shut the door as we have done against future socialisation, by our Article 24(2), I submit, the youth of India will rise and knock at the door and smash it and the result would be a bloody revolution. (cheers). Therefore, Sir, I would plead that we should scrap this sub-clause altogether and make it possible in future for the Parliament to socialise all property and all means of production without being compensated for. It is also a sort of mistake, Sir, to say that we are a sovereign body. I do not think we are a sovereign body in the sense in which a Constituent Assembly should be. The sovereignty that we enjoy is the sovereignty that the British enjoyed in India: It is a transferred sovereignty. Real sovereignty will belong only to the Parliament which comes after the introduction of adult franchise. That Parliament must therefore be more morally and constitutionally competent than us to decide issues of this nature.
