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730 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
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Mr. M. K. Acharya, Mr. L. M. Deshpande, and Mr. J. L. Bannerjee, on behalf of the All-India Varnashram Swarajya Sangha
*10,753. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Mr. Acharya, do I understand you correctly, when I say that what you want is that the Legislature should not have competence to pass laws affecting what you call the fundamentals of religion ?
Mr. M. K. Acharya: Yes.
10,754; Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: And that before any such law is introduced you want a sort of previous sanction obtained from heads of religious institutions ?
Mr. M. K. Acharya: Yes.
10,755. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: And, thirdly, that after it is introduced it should not become law until it is passed by a two-thirds majority ?
Mr. M. K. Acharya: Yes.
10,756. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I want to ask you this : This two-thirds majority is to be two-thirds majority of the Hindu members of the Legislature or two-thirds majority of the total Legislature ?
Mr. M. K. Acharya: Of each community sought to be affected. If it is only the Hindu community it would be only the Hindu members. If it is the Muslim community there would be the Muslim members also.
10,757. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Are you able to tell us in a defined form what you regard to be the fundamentals of your religion so that it may be possible for this Committee to know to what extent the Legislature can interfere and to what extent it cannot ?
Mr. M. K. Acharya: I am willing to give a very humble lecture on the fundamentals of religion if the Committee will hear me for three hours.
10,758. Sir Austen Chamberlain: You could not give us a formula that we could get into a reasonable number of words for the section of the Act?
Mr. M. K. Acharya: That is what I said. Dr. Ambedkar is now trying to heckle me into some kind of answer in three words. I cannot.
10,759. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I am not trying to heckle you ; I am trying to understand. For legislative purposes you must give the Committee some formula which could be put into the Act so that it would be possible, both for the Speaker of the House or the Governor, or whoever may be the deciding authority, and the Courts, to find out exactly whether a particular law passed by the Legislature is ultra vires of that Legislature ?
Mr. M. K. Acharya: I have suggested, I thought, a formula which is very workable and which I have in fact taken from some —
10,760. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: You merely said they are fundamentals. You leave the whole matter undecided. What are the fundamentals ?
*Minutes of Evidence, Vol. II-C, 2nd August 1933, pp. 1605-08.