DRAFT CONSTITUTION 1131
The point under debate is this : Does this Constitution or does it not acknowledge, recognise and proclaim that it emanates from the people ? I say it does.
I would like honourable Members to consider also the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States. I shall read a portion of it. It says : “We the people of the United States”— I am not reading the other parts— “We the people of United States do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” As most Members know, that Constitution was drafted by a very small body. I forget now the exact details and the number of the States that were represented in that small body which met at Philadelphia to draw up the Constitution. (Honourable Members : There were 13 States). There were 13 States. Therefore, if the representatives of 13 States assembled in a small conference in Philadelphia could pass a Constitution and say that what they did was in the name of the people, on their authority, basing on it their sovereignty. I personally myself, do not understand, unless a man was an obsolute pedant, that a body of people 292 in number, representing this vast continent, in their representative capacity, could not say that they are acting in the name of the people of this country. (‘ Hear, hear’)
Maulana Hasrat Mohani : I do not think, it is only a community.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : That is a different matter, Maulana. I cannot deal with that. Therefore, so far as that contention is concerned, I submit that there need be no ground for any kind of fear or apprehension. No person in this House desires that there should be anything in this Constitution which has the remotest semblance of its having been derived from the sovereignty of the British Parliament. Nobody has the slightest desire for that. In fact we wish to delete every vestige of the sovereignty of the British Parliament such as it existed before the operation of this Constitution. There is no difference of opinion between any Member of this House and any Member of the Drafting Committee so far as that is concerned.
Some Members, I suppose, have a certain amount of fear or apprehension that, on account of the fact that earlier this year the Constituent Assembly joined in making a declaration that this country will be associated with the British Commonwealth, that association has in some way derogated from the sovereignty of the people. Sir, I do not think that is a right view to take Every indepedent country must have kind of a treaty with some other country. Because one sovereign country makes a treaty with another sovereign country, that country does not become less