708 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
we must distinguish the case of Indian States which are going to be incorporated into the Constitution as integral entities without any kind of modification with regard to their territory or any other matter. For instance, take Mysore, which is an independent State today and will come into the Constitution as an integral State without perhaps any kind of modifications. The other case relates to States which have been merged together with neighbouring Indian Provinces; and the third case relates to those States that are united together to form a larger union but have not been merged in any of the Indian Provinces. Now in regard to a State like Mysore there is no doubt that the Constitution of Mysore will contain a similar provision with regard to article 270 that the assets and liabilities and properties of the existing Government of Mysore shall continue to be the properties, assets and liabilities of the new Government. Therefore it is not necessary to make any provision for a case of the kind in article 270. Similarly about States which have been united together and integrated, their Covenant will undoubtedly provide for a case which is contemplated in article 270. Their Covenant may well state that the assets and liabilities of the various States which have joined together to form a new State will continue to be the assets and liabilities of the new integrated State which has come into being by the joining together of the various States.
Then we come to the last case of States which have been mergd with the Provinces. With regard to that I see no difficulty whatever about article 270. Take a concrete case. If a State has been merged in an Indian Province obviously there must have been some agreement between that State which has been merged in the neighbouring Province and that neighbouring Province as to how the assets and liabilities of that merged State are to be carried over,— whether they are to vanish, whether the merged State is to take its own obligations, or whether the obligations are to be taken by the Indian Province in which the State is merged. In any case what the article says is that from the commencement of this Constitution—these words are important and I will for the moment take it that it will commence on 26th January—any agreement arrived at before that date between the Indian Province and the State that has merged into it will be the liability of the Province at the commencement of the Constitution. If, for instance, no agreement has been reached before the commencement of the Constitution, then the Central Government as well as the Provincial Governments would be perfectly free to create any