পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (প্রথম খণ্ড).pdf/৪৫

উইকিসংকলন থেকে
এই পাতাটির মুদ্রণ সংশোধন করা হয়েছে, কিন্তু বৈধকরণ করা হয়নি।
বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ প্রথম খণ্ড
২০

 12. This decision does not. However blind us to the very real Muslim apprehensions that their culture and political and social life might become submerged in a purely unitary India, in which the Hindus with their reality superior numbers must be a dominating element. To meet this the Congress have put forward a scheme under which provinces would have full autonomy subject only to a minimum of central subjects, such as foreign affairs, defense and communications.

  Under this scheme provinces, if they wished to take part in economic and administrative planning on a large scale, could cede to the centre optional subjects in addition to the compulsory ones mentioned above.

 13.  Such a scheme would, in our view, present considerable constitutional disadvantages and anomalies. It would be very difficult to work a central executive and legislature in which some ministers, who dealt with compulsory subjects, were responsible to the whole of India while other ministers, who dealt with optional subjects, would be responsible only to those provinces who had elected to act together in respect of such subjects. This difficulty would be accentuated in the central legislature, where it would be necessary to exclude certain members from speaking and voting when subjects with whom their provinces were not concerned were under discussion. Apart from the difficulty of working such a scheme, we do not consider that it would be fair to deny to other provinces, which did not desire to take the optional subjects at the centre, the right to form themselves into a group for a similar purpose. This would indeed be no more than the exercise of their autonomous powers in a particular way.

 14.  Before putting forward our recommendations we turn to deal with the relationship of the India States to British India. It is quite clear that with the attainment of independence by British India, whether inside or outside the British Commonwealth, the relationship which has hitherto existed between the Rulers of the. States and the British Crown will no longer be possible. Paramountcy can neither be retained by the British Crown nor transferred to the new government. This fact has been fully recognized by those whom we interviewed from the states. They have at the same time assured us that the States are ready and willing to cooperate in the new development of India. The precise form which their co-operation will take must be a matter for negotiation during the building up of the new constitutional structure and it by no means follows that it will be identical for all the States. We have not therefore dealt with the States in the same detail as the provinces of British India in the paragraphs which follow.

 15. We now indicate the nature of a solution which in our view would be just to the essential claims of all parties and would at the same time be most likely to bring about a stable and practicable form of constitution for All-India.

 We recommend that the constitution should take the following basic form:

 (1) There should be a Union of India, embracing both British India and the States, which should deal with the following subjects: foreign affairs, defense and communications: and should have the powers necessary to raise the finances required for the above subjects.