204 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
relationship between such inter-related polities depends upon which of them is the law-giving polity. It will be granted that in such group of polities there is one that is supreme in the sense that from a variety of reasons mostly historical it is competent to give law to the other polities. In federal countries it is the State Governments which are the law-giving polities. They occupy a pivotal position. They are the depositories of sovereign powers original as well as residuary. They can claim independent existence, have their own resources and discharge their own functions. The Federal Government, on the other hand, is the creature of the State Governments. It can have no powers and no functions other than those which the States have been pleased to transfer to it by an act of self-abnegation. It is therefore truthful as well as becoming to speak of the financial relationship between the State and Federal governments as one of separation of sources and contributions from the yield. [1] For there the States have their separate resources which they lawfully own and can therefore be spoken of as surrendering their revenues to make contributions to the Central Government after paying for their own services. But the same was inconsistent with the position of the Provincial Governments. Far from pivotal, the Provincial Governments formed the weakest entities in the group of administrative polities functioning in India. Up to 1833 the Provinces had separate rights to surrender in a foedus and had the government of India been then organized on a federal basis the position of the Provinces would have been very much the same as those of the States in federal countries. But with the establishment of the Imperial system by the Act of 1833 the last chance of creating a federation in India vanished. By that Act the sovereignty of the Provinces was so entirely crushed that no trace was left of it to permit of a truly federal element ever to enter into their relationship with the Central Government. Since that Act the government of the country has been entrusted to a single authority charged with the sole responsibility for the good government of the country. As no single administration could support the Atlantean load of governing such a vast country with the help of central bureaux, great powers were delegated to the Provincial Governments. But this must not obscure the fact that they were literally the
1 Of course, it is not necessary that there should be a federal system. A legalized system of decentralization will be equally compatible with separation of sources and contributions from the yield.