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22 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
“5. This Session further authorizes the Working Committee to frame a Scheme of Constitution in accordance with these basic principles, providing for the assumption finally by the respective regions of all powers such as defence, external affairs, communication, customs, and such other matters as may be necessary.”
What does this Resolution contemplate ? A reference to para 3 of the Resolution will show that the Resolution contemplates that the areas in which Muslims predominate shall be incorporated into independent States. In concrete terms, it means that the Punjab, the North-Western Frontier Province, Baluchistan and Sind in the North-West and Bengal in the East instead of remaining as the provinces of British India shall be incorporated as independent States outside of British India. This is the sum and substance of the Resolution of the Muslim League.
Does the Resolution contemplate that these Muslim provinces, after being in corporated into States, will remain each an independent sovereign State or will they be joined together into one constitution as members of a single State, federal or unitary ? On this point, the Resolution is rather ambiguous, if not self-contradictory. It speaks of grouping the zones into “Independent States in which the Constituent Units shall be autonomous and sovereign.” The use of the term “Constituent Units” indicates that what is contemplated is a Federation. If that is so, then, the use of the word “sovereign” as an attribute of the Units is out of place. Federation of Units and sovereignty of Units are contradictions. It may be that what is contemplated is a confederation. It is, however, not very material for the moment whether these Independent States are to form into a federation or a confederation. What is important is the basic demand, namely, that these areas are to be separated from India and formed into Independent States.
The Resolution is so worded as to give the idea that the scheme adumbrated in it is a new one. But, there can be no doubt that the Resolution merely resuscitates a scheme which was put forth by Sir Mahomed Iqbal in his Presidential address to the Muslim League at its Annual Session held at Lucknow in December 1930. The scheme was not then adopted by the League. It was, however, taken up by one Mr. Rehmat Ali who gave it the name, Pakistan,