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16 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
History is not wanting in instances of constitutions threatened with disruption. There is the instance of the Southern States of the American Union. Natal has always been anxious to get out from the Union of South Africa and Western Australia recently applied, though unsuccessfully, to secede from the Australian Commonwealth.
In these cases actual disruption has not taken place and where it did, it was soon healed. Indians, however, cannot hope to be so fortunate. Theirs may be the fate of Czechoslovakia. In the first place, it would be futile to entertain the hope that if a disruption of the Indian constitution took place by the Muslim Provinces separating from the Hindu Provinces, it would be possible to win back the seceding provinces as was done in the U.S.A. after the Civil War. Secondly, if the new Indian constitution is a Dominion Constitution, even the British may find themselves powerless to save the constitution from such a disruption, if it takes place after its foundations are laid. It seems to be, therefore, imperative that the issue of Pakistan should be decided upon before the new constitution is devised.
If there can be no doubt that Pakistan is a scheme which Indians will have to resolve upon at the next revision of the constitution and if there is no escape from deciding upon it, then it would be a fatal mistake for the people to approach it without a proper understanding of the question. The ignorance of some of the Indian delegates to the Round Table Conference of constitutional law, I remember, led Mr. Garvin of the Observer to remark that it would have been much better if the Simon Commission, instead of writing a report on India, had made a report on constitutional problems of India and how they were met by the constitutions of the different countries of the world. Such a report I know was prepared for the use of the delegates who framed the constitution of South Africa. This is an attempt to make good that deficiency and as such I believe it will be welcomed as a seasonable piece.
So much for the question whether the book is seasonable. As to the second question, whether the book is readable no