254 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
cutting long-standing ties. The Government of India must give and the Provinces must receive ; for only so can the growing organism of self-government in the Provinces draw air into its lungs and live.”
The path to provincial independence therefore lay through a satisfactory division of functions and finances between the Provincial and Central Governments. Of the two, the task of dividing the functions was comparatively an easier one. For facilitating the necessary division of functions the following principles were laid down by the Government of India. [1]
“7. There are certain subjects which are at present under the direct administration of the Government of India. The Government of India maintain separate staffs for their administration and the Provincial Governments have no share in it. The category is easily recognizable, and for the most part there will not be much room for doubt as to the subjects to be included in it. At the other end of the line are matters of predominantly local interest which, however much conditions must vary between Provinces, will, generally speaking be recognized as proper subjects for provincialization.
“8. Between these extreme categories, however, lies a large indeterminable field which requires further examination before the principles determining its classification can be settled. It comprises all the matters in which the Government of India at present retain ultimate control, legislative and administrative, but in practice share the actual administration in varying degrees with the Provincial Governments. In many cases the extent of delegation practised is already very wide. The criterion which the Government of India apply to these is whether in any given case the Provincial Governments are to be strictly the agents of the Government of India, or are to have (subject to what is said below as to the reservation of powers of intervention) acknowledged authority of their own. In applying this criterion the main determining factor will be not the degree of delegation already practised, which may depend on mere convenience, but the consideration whether the interests of India as a whole (or at all events interests larger than those of one Province), or on the other hand the interests of the Province essentially preponderate.
1 Memorandum for the Functions Committee by the Government of India, Annexture II to the Report of the Committee Cmd. 103 of 1919.