852 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
consult my cabinet collegues in order to know what sort of reply I should give to this Resolution. They said that the better thing would be for me to transfer the Resolution either to the Prime Minister or to the late Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel which I very gladly did, because I did not want the responsibility to fall upon my shoulder for the answar that might be given to that. Resolution. It was then arranged between the mover of the Resolution and the members of the high command of the Congress, that although they were not prepared to accept the Resolution in all its generality so as ‘to apply to all the multi-lingual provinces then existing, they were prepared to consider the question of creating an Andhra Province. The members of the Drafting Committee were waiting to know what exactly they should enter Andhra as a separate province in the Schedule of the States. Hon. Members who are particular to know about this will find in a foot-note to the first draft of the Drafting Committee’s report that I referred to the Prime Minister in order to let me know whether Andhra should be entered in the Schedule to the Constitution, I got no reply, with the result that Andhra then did not become a separate province. It was a great surprise to me that when practically for twenty years, a party had stood by the principle of linguistic provinces, it should have developed cold feet after twenty years. Surely, 20 years was a long period for even the greatest dullared to think over the matter and come to a clear conclusion as to whether the principle that was adopted in 1921 was a mistaken principle and ought completely to be withdrawn, or whether it was a principle which should be pursued with certain modifications. The result has been that from 1949 up to this period, there has been a vacillating attitude on the part of the Government, once saying that there shall be no linguistic provinces, at another time saying, “Yes, we shall create an Andhra Province”. And unless and until one honourable gentleman had sacrificed his life for the sake of creating an Andhra Province, the Government did not think it fit to move in the matter. I have no idea and I do not wish to be harsh on the Government; but I am dead certain in my mind that if in any other country a person had to die in order to invoke a