The general criticism is that the draft is a replica of the 1935 Act, but we cannot forget the fact that we have got a legacy of the British Imperialist ad-ministration which goes by the name of the Parliamentary system of Government. The trouble was that we were depending on it and we will have to depend on it even after the Constitution is put into operation. The trouble arose from one point, viz., just as the British administrators who wanted to keep India centrally and provincially as a single unit, we in our bewilderment and anxiety tried to bring India centrally and provincially as a strong unit and this centralisation of power has led to all the troubles. There are two ways of making India a strong unit. One is by the method of centralisation of power and the other is by decentralisation; but centralisation is possible only through parliamentary system which now goes under the safe words ‘democratic methods’, but in this draft we can’t find anything that is democratic and decentralisation is totally absent. It is a great tragedy that in making the constitution of a great country with thirty crores of people, with a great culture behind it and the great principles and teachings of the greatest man of the world on the surface, we were only able to produce a constitution that is totally foreign to us. The arguments put forward by the Chairman of the Drafting Committee are not at all convincing. He has said that we are very late in making the Draft Constitution. But I can cite examples which will show that his arguments are not sound. The Drafting Committee recommends that the President of the Union can nominate fifteen members to the Council of States. Then another plea is that the term of the legislature should be more than four years. There is another misnomer in the Draft and that is about the selection or the election of the Governors. The Committee feels that if the Governor and the Chief Minister who is responsible to the Legislature are elected by the people then there will be friction between the two. But the remedy they have suggested is worse than the disease. There is a panel and the President is to select from the four one person as a Governor. If the Centre happens to have a Congress President and if a province is having a Socialist majority, suppose the Socialist party recommends three from their party and one from the Congress, certainly the President at the Centre will select the Congress man to be the Governor. Certainly this will lead to friction. We find that this direct recruitment to Governorship is taken from the Government of India Act and it shows that we have not left out even a comma from it.
