1174 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Committee I bow my head in grateful thanks. I am not unmindful of conveying our thanks even to those critics who in their superior wisdom had thought fit to criticise the shortcomings of the members of the Drafting Committee. But I am constrained to say that they have looked into this matter from a perspective that is faulty, from an outlook that is wrong and from a focus that is out of alignment.
Sir, the Drafting Committee was not a free agency. They were handicapped by various methods and circumstances from the very start. We were only asked to dress the baby and the baby was nothing but the Objectives Resolution which this Constitutent Assembly passed. We were told that the Constitution must conform and remain within the four corners of that Objectives Resolution. Moreover, Sir, whatever we did had to be considered and accepted by this House. How dare any member of the Drafting Committee be so arrogant as to thrust the opinion of seven members against a total number of 308 in this House ?
Sir, it is an acknowledged principle of psychology that man is a creature of environments. The Draft Constitution which the members of the Drafting Committee were privileged to place before this House could not evade this universal principle. They had to take the environment and the circumstances prevailing in the country into consideration and many of the provisions which are against the sense of democracy, even of the members of the Drafting Committee, had to be embodied here on account of forces which were superior to that of the Drafting Committee.
Sir, I remember that many sections of our Draft Constitution had to be recast as many as seven times. A draft section is prepared according to the best in each of the members of the Drafting Committee. It is scrutinised by the particular Ministerial department of Government. They criticise it and a fresh draft is made to meet their criticism or requirements. Then it is considered by the biggest bloc, the majority party in the House—I refer to the Congress Parliamentary Party, who alone can give the imprimatur of adoption in this House : and sometimes we found that they made their own recommendations which had to be put into the proper legal and constitutional shape by the members of the Drafting Committee.
Sir, no human-made constitution or document is perfect and it is a trite saying that the actual always falls short of the ideal. Even though I am a member of the Drafting Committee. I have very great objection to many of the principles that have been embodied in this Constitution. It does not lie in my mouth to criticise individual provisions of the Draft Constitution,