and to prevent them from exploitation. There is a general clause; an attempt. I believe. will be made to promote the social and economic well being and so on. of people. And to adjust relationship between landlords and tenants and between employers and labor Sir, that is not enough either as a Directive Principle or a Fundamental Right because we do maintain that the cultivator, the man who produces the food grains should be the owner of the land which he is tilling (Applouse). This should be provided for in our Constitution, At least this should be the aim of this Government....
...Now Sir, there were other problems that came up. There was nothing in the Constitution regarding them, not even in the Directive Principles-regarding the principle of giving military training and establishing military bases for purposes of giving to the people of East Bengal encouragement to come forward and to take part in the defense of their country. There is nothing regarding foreign exchange. There is no provision to say that there shall be development side by side and in equal measure. There is nothing regarding Services and so on. What is the use of this Constitution? This Constitution hits shelved all the problems and all that it has got a certain number of clauses taken from c Government of India Act, 1935 and wherever they have departed from it, woe to this country I
...Now, Sir, we come to the question of provincial autonomy. It is a matter on which you cannot come to finality here. At the same time you have to consider that if the two wings-East and West do not come to an agreement, what should be done. I feel, as I have pointed out, that the ruling party of West Pakistan want to have and eat the cake.
They have taken their parity in the constitution over and over again. They have pointed it out that this shall stand even if the number of members increases in the National parliament. I am sorry to state that all that goes with parity has been ignored by them. I maintain that the people of Bengal would not have accepted parity had it not been coupled with regional autonomy. This was the thing which was placed before them; One group in one part should not dominate over another group in another part: everything should be done by agreement and by a process of give and take and not by force. For that reason there should be equality obviously, West as a nation, as a group was piched against the East as a nation or as a group. I am using the word “nation” in the loose sense and not in the sense of Pakistani nation. Therefore, inasmuch as they were separated on account of distance they must have regional autonomy. That was the basis of parity and the further basis of parity was that if Bengal was to speak it should speak together and for that we must have joint electorate.....
[Excerpts from the speech delivered by Mr. Mohammad Ali, Prime Minister, on the Fourth Draft Constitution]
1st February, 1956,
Sir, Pakistan came into existence as the result of a struggle by the Muslims of the sub-continent to win a homeland for themselves in which they would be free to live their own way of life and develop their own culture.
