CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATES 77
Mr. Vice President (Dr. H. C. Mookherjee) : Before I call upon the next member to address the House, I have here forty slips of members who wish to speak. The matter is so urgent and so important that I should like everybody to have an opportunity of airing his views on the Draft Constitution. May I therefore appeal to the speakers not to exceed the time-limit which I have fixed as ten minutes ?
*Shri T. Prakasam : (Madras : General): Sir, the Draft Constitution introduced by Dr. Ambedkar, the Honourable member in charge, is a very big document. The trouble taken by him and those who are associated with him must have been really very great. My Honourable friend Mr. T. T. Krishnamachari, when he was speaking, explained the handicap under which the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar had been labouring on account of’ as many as live or six members of the Committee having dropped out and their places not having been filled up………
† Dr. Joseph Alban D’souza (Bombay : General) : Mr. Vice-President. never before in the annals of the history of this great nation, a history that goes back to thousands of years has there ever been, and probably will there ever be, greater need—nay. Sir, I may even say as much need—as at this most vital and momentous juncture when this Honourable House will be considering clause by clause, article by article, the Draft Constitution for a Free, Sovereign, Democratic Indian Republic—as much need for a quiet and sincere introspection into our individual consciences for the purpose of giving unto Caesar what unto Caesar is due as much need for a keen spirit of fraternal accommodation and co-operation whereby peace, harmony and goodwill will be the hall-marks of our varied existences individually as well as collectively ; as much need for a sufficient breadth of vision so that the complex and the difficult problems that we have to face in connection with this constitutional set-up may be examined primarily from the broader angle of the prosperity and progress of the country as a whole ; and lastly, as much need for an adequately generous and altruistic display of that well-known maxim “Love thy neighbour as Thyself”, so that in the higher interests of the nation as a whole, sentimental, emotional, parochial particularisms may not be allowed unduly to influence the decisions of fundamental policy affecting the nation as a whole.
It has been admitted by several Members—particularly by every Member who has spoken before me—that the Draft Constitution is an excellent piece of work. May I say that it is a monumental piece of
*CAD, Vol. VII. 6th November 1948. p. 257.
† Ibid., p. 260.