Before I point out these glaring defects and serious omissions, I would like to draw your attention to certain observations made by the Mover of the Draft Constitution. I would not go into unnecessary details, because those points have been effectively dealt with by a number of previous speakers. But I cannot refrain from making certain observations. The one thing – and to me it appears very objectionable – which I wish to reply to is Dr. Ambedkar’s remark that the Indian soil is not suited to democracy. I do not know how my friend has read the history of India. I am myself a student of history and also of politics and I can say with definiteness that democracy flourished in India much before Greece or any other country in the world. The entire western world has taken democratic ideas from Greece and it is generally regarded that Greece was the country where democracy first of all flourished. But I say and I can prove it to the hilt that democracy flourished in India much earlier than in Greece. I shall not go into the facts and figures, yet I would draw his attention to two or three points with regard to this matter. He might remember, as I know he has read history and he is also a scholar of Sanskrit, that even during the time of Buddha, democracy flourished in India. It is an oft-quoted phrase which I want to repeat here and it is this: that certain traders went from northern India to the south. The King of southern India asked them as to who was the ruler of northen India. They replied: “Deva, KechiddeshaGanaadhinahKechidRajaadhina” It means: some of the countries in the north are governed as republics, while there are others which are governed by kings.
