PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 899
economic independence against their oppressors nor have they got the means to prosecute their oppressors.
The second thing which the Commissioner does not seem to emphasise very much and which I know very well myself from my experience of twenty years is that in a large number of cases the police force is in league with the caste Hindus. Ninety per cent, of the police force is drawn from the caste Hindus. Only a few per cent, and a very small one is now being recruited from the Scheduled Castes but this only to the posts of police sepoys. There are no officers amongst them. The result is that the upper grade policemen are in league with the caste Hindus. More often they refuse to record the complaints of the Scheduled Castes when they go to the Thana, in their station diary even though the offence may be cognisable. They throw them out, turn them out and tell them to go away. They do not record the complaint and secondly if they do, they probably would conduct the investigation in such a slipshod manner that ultimately the case fails. In this situation I ask the Hon. the Home Minister whether he thinks that there is any duty upon him or not. I ask him whether the breaches of the law which are being reported and witnessed by Scheduled Castes or other people are not breaches of the fundamental law and the fundamental rights ? Are not fundamental rights part of the Constitution ? If you are allowing a large mass of bullies and hooligans to trample upon the fundamental rights, are you not bringing the Constitution to contempt ? Is it not your duty to create a special department either within the Home Ministry itself or separately for this purpose ? The United States has got a Judicial Department, the duty and the function of which is to see that the Constitution and the Federal laws are respected. I think it is high time that the Home Minister realises that if the Constitution is to function, if it is to be the law of the land, if all people are to recognise it, his duty is to see that it is enforced, and the only way in which he can enforce it is to take upon himself the duty of enforcing it and not leave it even to the State Governments who can never do it, not even to the Police who has no desire to do it, and not even to the Scheduled Castes who have no means