Sir, I am speaking not as a member of the Drafting Committee but as a representative from the very benighted province of Assam. On-behalf of Assam I express our heartfelt gratitude to those honourable Members who spoke on Friday last viz., Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru, Mr. B. Das, and Professor Saksena who were kind enough to extend their support for Assam’s claim for a fairer deal from the Centre. If my honourable Friends will listen to what I have got to say-and whatever I will say I will quote from documents that have been supplied by the Constituent Assembly-I am perfectly sure that they will show us the same sympathy and support. By a happy coincidence, the Constituent Assembly, yesterday supplied each Member with two pamphlets which have been issued by the External Affairs Department giving a detailed description of the Excluded and Partially Excluded areas of Assam and the North-eastern Frontier Tribal and Excluded areas. As the time is so short, I do not think honourable Members had either the time or, shall I say, the inclination to go through these pamphlets. Therefore, I have to give you a word-picture of the conditions of Assam, not merely its topography and geography, but its economic, political and financial conditions.
