962 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
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STATES REORGANISATION BILL, 1956
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay) : Mr. Deputy Chairman, the storm centre of the debate on this Bill as I see it from the papers is the position assigned to the City of Bombay. As is obvious from the Bill this City which was a premier city in the civic affairs of this country has been brought down to the level of Adaman and Nicobar Islands—what has been described in our Constitution as the territories of India. That means that these territories and now the City of Bombay will not have any Legislature or Executive. Nobody in his widest dreams could have conceived of such a madness. A city which has been in the forefront of India, which has taught politics of India, is now placed on the level of the Laccadive and Maldive Islands and the Nicobar Islands. I am sure that the Government which has fostered this proposal must have the strongest reasons, incontrovertible reasons, in order to justify the decision that they have taken. There have been contestants to the claim for the City of Bombay. There are the Maharashtrians who claim that the city belongs to them. There are our Gujarati friends; I do not know on what basis they lay their claim, but they claim a kind of an easement over the city. They say that they will not allow the city to go into the possession of the Maharashtrians and the quarrel is going on. It has been admitted by no less a person than Mr. Morarji Desai that Bombay belongs to Maharashtra. I have read his speech which he delivered to the Gujarat Maha Pradesh Congress, or something like that, in which he categorically made this statement that Bombay belongs to Maharashtra. If that is so, I am quite unable to understand what objection there can be for the city of Bombay to be given to Maharashtra. Under the British regime when citizenship was common, any man could go anywhere and reside and the
*P. D., (R. SO, Vol. 12-A of 1956, 1st May 1956, pp. 834-46.