144 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
make laws for a Province or any part thereof with respect to any of the matters enumerated in the Provincial Legislative List.”
Sub-clause (4) says :
“A law made by the Federal Legislature which that Legislature would not but for the issue of a Proclamation of Emergency have been competent to make shall cease to have effect on the expiration of a period of six months after the Proclamation has ceased to operate, except as respect to things done or omitted to be done before the expiration of the said period.”
Therefore, my submission to the House is that we are really not doing anything that is unusual having regard to the Defence of the Realm Act and the Defence of India Act and having regard to the provisions contained in section 102.
There was one comment which my honourable friend Mr. Jamnadas Mehta made that although my desire was to confine these emergency powers to communal conflicts and communal riots, the language used in this amendment is not such as would, in the end, confine the operation of this amendment to communal riots. His argument was that the word “community” does not necessarily mean religious community and that it is used as commercial community, industrial community and labour community and secondly, the Government will use its powers for the purpose of invoking this legislation even in labour disputes.
Now, my first submission on that point is this, that this part of the proclamation is certainly not going to be the subject of bearing the interpretation because it is a matter to be determined by the Government in its own discretion. It is not going to any court and the emergency proclamation is not going to be a question in a Court of Law as to whether it has been properly invoked or not, all that the court will be concerned in finding is whether a proclamation has been issued. Whether the proclamation has been properly issued or not would be a matter for Government and this Government would be amenable to this House if the Government uses its power to make a proclamation for purposes which are not intended either by Government or myself or any members of the Opposition.
The other thing that I would like to submit is this that I admit that the word “community” is used popularly in a wide sense, but before I came here I did refer to the Oxford Dictionary in order to satisfy myself, because I am myself more anxious than Mr. Jamnadas Mehta is, that this measure should not be extended to labour disputes.
Mr. Jamnadas M. Mehta: As anxious, not more.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: If you will allow me to say, I am more anxious. Therefore, I say that if you can suggest a better language I am perfectly prepared to accept any change that you propose, but so far as I am able to understand the word and so far as any help can be derived from a standard dictionary, I have no doubt in my mind that the word “community” does mean basically—apart from the extended use to which