Plan to end Constitutional Deadlock
Dr.Ambedkar outlined what he described as the Skeleton Act of the Government of India [Preliminary Provisions Act). The main promises of the Act were as follows: (1) A poll of Muslims and non-Muslims be taken for or against separation. If the majority of Muslims were In favour of separation and a majority of non-Muslims were against separation, steps must be taken to delimit the areas wherever it was possible by redrawing provincial boundaries on ethnic and cultural lines by separating the Muslim-majority districts from the districts in which the majority consisted of non-Muslims. (2) A Boundary Commission should be set up. preferably an International Commission. (3) Partition of the country into Hindustan and Pakistan.
He agreed for a separate referendum of non-Muslims, only to decide whether they preferred to go in Pakistan or come into Hindustan,
In his scheme a Council was provided. It could not be mistaken by a Federation. It was not even a Confederation. It could be used as a coupling between Hindustan and Pakistan. Pakistan or Partition of India pp. 384-390.
India’s Sovereignty and Paramountcy
Dr. Ambedkar upheld India’s paramountcy and sovereignty with regard to princely states. He remarked, “When the whole of sovereignty is transferred the territory of that particular ruler becomes the territory of India, with complete sovereignty vested in the Indian Union”. He said that he would ask the interim government at the Centre to take the following steps: “(1) To notify his Majesty’s Government that the British Parliament has no right to pass any law abrogating paramountcy and that any clause to that effect in the forthcoming legislation conferring Dominion Status on India would be treated by the people of India as repugnant to their sovereignty and therefore null and void. (2) To declare that the government of India will never recognise any Indian State as sovereign independent state. (3) To inform the U.N.O. that admitting an Indian State which declares itself as sovereign independent state to the membership of U.N.O. would meet with the strongest objection from the people of India as a violation of the sovereign rights of the Union of India.
Constitution is Socialistic
K.T. Shah tabled an amendment to the first Article of the Constitution. It said, “India shall be a secular, federal, socialist Union of States”.
Dr. Ambedkar said that the amendment is superfluous. He remarked, “If these Directive Principles are not socialistic in their direction, and in their content, I fall to understand what more socialism can be. These socialistic principles are already embodied in our Constitution. C.A. Debates, Vol. VII, p. 709.
Economy Democracy
Dr. Ambedkar observed that the proposed Constitution sought to establish political democracy and to lay down an ideal before those who would be forming the Government. That ideal was economic democracy. To Dr. Ambedkar, the Directive Principles have a great value, for they lay down that “our ideal is economie democracy – Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. VII, p. 494.
Agricultural Labour
Dr. Ambedkar had before him not only industrial labour but also agricultural labour. According to him, similar conditions of work, provident funds, employer’s liability, workmen’s compensation, health insurance including invalidity pensions would be open to all sorts of labour, whether it is industrial labour or agricultural labour. Constitutional Assembly Debates, Vol. IX p. 944-945.
