z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-08.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 617
IN THE FEDERAL STRUCTURE COMMITTEE 617
Lords are to be the governing principle in Canada, but the privileges of the House of Commons in Canada are not affected there.
† Dr Ambedkar: The views which have been expressed so far have struck one note which I think is common to all; and that is, that in regulating the relations of the two Houses in the future Constitution of India, there should be equality of status, equality of power, granted to them, except of course in such small and minor matters as the right of initiative with regard to Money Bills and the right of voting. Bearing that, the general consensus of opinion, I think, was that the two Houses should enjoy equality of position.
Now, in all humility and with all respect to the gentlemen who have spoken before me, I must say that I cannot agree with their views. The reason for the difference of opinion that exists between myself and them appears to me to arise from the simple fact that we take a totally different view of the functions and the purposes of the Second Chamber. I could quite understand the views of those gentlemen who propounded yesterday the proposition that the two Houses must enjoy co-equal powers if our Legislature were so constituted that each Chamber represented, to use ancient language, separate Estates of the Realm. If the Lower House were composed of classes which were not represented in the Upper Chamber, and if the Upper Chamber were composed of classes which were not represented in the popular Chamber, then there would be something to say for a view of the sort that was expressed yesterday. But, if our Legislature were constituted on the plan of what I call separate Estates of the Realm, I, for one, would not give my consent to a bicameral Legislature ; for, speaking for the masses—I am a rival of Mahatma Gandhi in this respect—speaking for the masses, I could not consent to such a Legislature, and thereby consign their destiny to a government working under a system of this kind and thus to use an expression of the late Lord Asquith—functioning under a system of false balances and loaded dice.
As a matter of fact, the Houses of our Legislature, unless I am mistaken, are not going to be constituted on the basis of separate representation of separate Estates. If I understand correctly the composition of the future Legislature, I take it that the Lower Chamber will be a popularly constituted Chamber—a Chamber which will represent each and every class, each and every shade of public opinion. That being so, I submit that we cannot have a Second Chamber which would claim to be its rival or which could claim to have co-equal status. That being my view, I submit, Lord Chancellor, that so far as the question propounded in sub-head ( ii ) of Head No. 3 is concerned, I would answer it by saying that the decisive voice must be vested in the Lower Chamber.
Chairman: Would you put that in the constitution, Dr. Ambedkar ?
†Proceedings of the Federal Structure Committee and Minorities Committee, Vol. 1, pp. 266-70.