972 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Hyderabad should be made the second capital of India. You can have your Delhi and for some seasons it may be good. But you must have a capital in Southern India, where people may feel that their Government is nearer to them. I suggested at one time that Hyderabad should be made the second capital of india. It is one of the most beautiful towns that I have ever seen in India. It has got all the necessities and amenities which a capital may require. All that may be necessary would be to have a sort of Legislative Assembly and Council of State. If that is done, then the people in the South with whom I have had many talks, would feel that their Government is nearer, that it is not so far away as Delhi. Delhi to the Southern people is a kind of a foreign territory. It is hot and they do not want to stay for long. I hope my hon. friend will take these points into consideration.
Sir, I am not in a condition to speak very long, nor have I got many other points to urge. But there is one thing that I would like to say. I had hoped that this Report of the S.R.C.† would have been placed before, not merely the party people, but generally before all, and they should have obtained the common advice of all the citizens of India and should have given effect to their decision. Sir, it was my hope that what we would settle now, we would settle for ever, because it is a very foolish thing for a gardener to plant a tree today and to uproot it tomorrow, to see whether it has taken root. That way the plant will never live. I cannot help reminding my hon. friend of the statement of Tom Paine that whatever is wrongly. settled is never permanently settled; it has to be resettled. If you are going to settle these things with the help of your party, remember that your party is not perpetual. You can seethe signs of waning even now before your eyes.
If whatever you do you do without the consent of the Opposition, I have not the least doubt about it that when the Opposition would come into power, they would uproot the thing and replant it. Such a thing would be most dangerous for us. Sir, I have done.
† State Reorganisation Committee.