z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-09.indd MK SJ+DK 21-9-2013 680
680 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the thing as I see it. You know in the White Paper there is one condition laid down for the inauguration of the Federation : that is the joining of a certain number of Indian States. Then for the transfer of finance an important condition is laid down, and that is the introduction of the Bank. What I want to ask you is this : Would the Princes be prepared to join the Federation if finance was not a transferred subject ?
Mir Maqbool Mahmood : I have no definite instructions on that question, but I do not think that, considering the trend of their discussions, they would be prepared to.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : They would not be prepared to join the Federation if finance was not a transferred subject ?
Mir Maqbool Mahmood : I do not think so.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Coming to other matters, in the course of the evidence that you gave last time, Mir Maqbool, you stated that in case all the Princes did not join the Federation at once you would like to have a system introduced whereby those Princes who would join the Federation should be allowed to have the benefit vicariously of the votes of those who did not join. I have put it correctly ?
Mir Maqbool Mahmood : That represents only one aspect of the position.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : That is the position you take?
Mir Maqbool Mahmood : That is half the truth, not the full truth. We contemplate two aspects of the position.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I know your Confederation ?
Mir Maqbool Mahmood : Not that : One is, that States which are entering will do so on the assumption that the States’ position in the Federation would be 40 per cent. in the Upper House and one-third in the Lower House ; that is with regard to the States which entered, individually ; the other is in regard to those States which are outside, that they are also affected by the decisions of Federation. Those are the two aspects, and I understood your question referred to the second.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I just want you to concentrate your attention, if you please, on this point : I thought I understood from you, last time, that you wanted to lay down as one of the conditions, that if all the States did not enter the Federation at once in the beginning, and that if only some entered and other kept out. you would like a system of weightage, so to say, in which those Princes who entered the Federation would claim, or cast, votes vicariously, those which were the share of those which did not enter. That is the position ?
Mir Maqbool Mahmood : Yes.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Now what I want to ask you with regard to that, is this : What would be the position of those States which would not enter the Federation at the start, but whose votes were used by those who did enter vis-a-vis the Federation, with respect to taxation and with respect to Federal Legislation ? Would Federal Legislation be operative in