406 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
nations and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights. It is, therefore, quite impossible for anybody to conceive that the personal law shall be excluded from the jurisdiction of the State. Having said that I should also like to point out that all that the State is claiming in his matter is a power to legislate. There is no obligation upon the State to do away with personal laws. It is only giving a power. Therefore, no one need be apprehensive of the fact that if the State has the power, the State will immediately proceed to execute or enforce that power in a manner that may be found to be objectionable by the Muslims or by the Christians or by any other Community in India.
We must all remember—including Members of the Muslim community who have spoken on this subject, though one can appreciate their feelings very well—that sovereignty is always limited, no matter even if you assert that it is unlimited, because sovereignly in the exercise of that power must reconcile itself to the sentiments of different communities. No Government can exercise its power in such a manner as to provoke the Muslim community to rise in rebellion. I think it would be a mad Government if it did so. But that is a matter which relates to the exercise of the power and not to the power itself.
Now, Sir, my friend, Mr. Jaipal Singh asked me certain questions about the Adibasis. I thought that that was a question which could have been very properly raised when we were discussing the Fifth and the Sixth Schedules, but as he has raised them and as he has asked me particularly to give him some explanation of the difficulties that he had found, I am dealing with the matter at this stage. The House will realize what is the position we have laid down in the Draft Constitution with regard to the Adibasis. We have two categories of areas,— scheduled areas and tribal areas. The tribal areas are areas which relate only to the province of Assam, while the scheduled areas are areas which are scattered in provinces other than Assam. They are really a different name for what we used in the Government of India Act as ‘partially excluded areas’. There is nothing beyond that. Now the scheduled tribes live in both, that is, in the scheduled areas as well as in the tribal areas and the difference between the position of the scheduled tribes in scheduled areas and scheduled tribes in tribal areas is this : In the case of the scheduled tribes in the scheduled areas, they are governed by the provisions contained in paragraph V of the Fifth