z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-05.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 334
334 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
reason why I recommend joint responsibility is because I fear that the principle of individual responsibility will, never permit the growth of a common political platform transcending the boundaries of caste and creed. It will perpetuate groups and the Presidency will for ever be condemned to a rule of Government by Coalition of groups which by their readiness to form new combinations, will plague the administration with instability and which by their preference for a policy of menoeuvres to a policy of ideas, will fatally affect the integrity of the work of the administration. Under joint responsibility although a party may be a collection of units of varying views yet members of each unit, not only shall be forced to do the best they can to formulate a unified policy but will be compelled to be bound by it. The habit of submitting to a party programme which is wider than the group programme will furnish a kind of education, the need of which must be keenly felt by all who know the conditions of India.
How to secure joint responsibility is a matter of some importance. To do it by express terms of law will leave no liberty either to the Head of the administration or the Legislature to dismiss a minister without dismissing the whole of the executive. It is therefore better to leave it to convention. The question how to make the convention operative still remains. It seems to me that if instead of the Governor choosing the ministers, the task was entrusted to one of the ministers to choose his colleagues, a cabinet so formed is bound to function on the basis of joint responsibility and would yet leave room for getting rid of an individual minister without changing the whole personnel of the government I therefore suggest that the Governor should be instructed not to undertake directly the task of appointing individual ministers but to choose a chief minister and leave to him the work of forming a government.
My colleagues have recommended that there should be 7 ministers to take charge of the administration of the Presidency. I am unable to concur in the recommendation in so far as it fixes the number of ministers. It may be that the future government of the Presidency might be able to do with less than 7 or may feel the necessity for having more than 7 to make no mention of having to appoint ministers without portfolios for satisfying the personal ambitions of members of the Legislature without whose support it may not be possible to carry on the government of the Province. Under these circumstances the wisest course seems to me to leave the question of the number of ministers open to be determined by the Legislature of the day.
CHAPTER 3
THE POSITION AND POWERS OF THE GOVERNOR
- Under the existing constitution the Governor of a Province does not occupy a well defined position. He has not the position of a constitutional head representing the Crown in the Province without any responsibility for the government of the Province. Nor is his position such as to invest him