grievances, or the removal of difficulties he should have the confidence of the people, and, as we have already said, confidence can be engendered only by a direct election which for reasons already given, should be by a restricted franchise.
111. The Basic Democracies scheme, however, is of considerable importance and very useful as far as local government is concerned. Those who were against Basic Democrats forming as electoral colleague, apparently to add force to their contention, minimized the importance of the scheme by stating that Basic Democracies were only an elementary step towards local self-government. There was an inclination, on their part, to brush this scheme aside with a causal remark that it was no better than that of the old Union Boards of East Pakistan. We are not in agreement with this view. In our opinion, the Basic Democracies Scheme is a more advanced system of local government than the former Union Boards. The difference between the latter and the Basic Democracies is quite fundamental. For instance, the Union Boards in East Pakistan, though their functions were several, were mainly concerned with the rural police. The members of those Boards were never trained, nor was there many personal contact between them and the organization of government. Their financial resources were very limited. But under the Basic Democracies scheme, there is close association between the non-official members and the officers of government of various grades, both in development and non- development matters. This system, in our opinion, would be of great help in educating the general mass of people in the art of managing their own affairs by coordinated effort. We would have included it in the constitution under the heading 'local government', had it not been for the act that, even for minor changes, which may become necessary as experience of the working of the scheme is gained, amendment of the constitution would be required. We would, therefore, regard it only as an existing law. We should, however. Not be understood to endorse the conferment of judicial powers on the Basic Democracies under the recent Ordinance. It may be mentioned here that the success of this system depends on the amount of cooperation given by the officers. We have interviewed a few of the members of some of the Basic democracies, and also inspected the records of some of them, and our opinion is that the members as well as the Chairman, we have come across, are quite enthusiastic about the duties assigned to them but, unless they receive real cooperation from the officers who are supposed to work with them, the scheme cannot be a success......
Electorate: Joint or Separate
112....................................................................................................
113. As regards opinions on this subject, 55.1 % are in favor of joint electorate without reservation for any section of the minorities, while 1.3% favor reservation for scheduled castes and 1.6% reservation for every minority, while the percentage in favor of separate electorate is 40.2; 4% was for separate electorate with reservation for scheduled castes, and 5% advocated separate electorate for each of the minorities; .2% were for joint electorate in East Pakistan and separate in West Pakistan, while 7% would not give franchise to non-Muslims. As far as the last mentioned opinion is concerned, we have no hesitation in rejecting it because it is based on an entire misconception.
