500 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
in the new development of India. The precise form which their Co-operation would take must be a matter for negotiation during the building up of the new constitutional structure which might not be identical for all the States.
The Cabinet Mission then indicated the nature of a solution which would be just to the essential claims of all parties and bring about a stable and practicable form of constitution for all India. It recommended that the constitution should take the following basic form :
(1) There should be a Union of India, embracing both British India and the States which should deal with the following subjects : foreign affairs, defence and communications, and should have the powers to raise the finances required for the above subjects. (2) The Union should have an executive and a legislature constituted from British India and States representatives. Any question raising a major communal issue in the lagislature should require for its decision a majority of the representatives present and voting of each of the two major communities as well as a majority of all the members present and voting. (3) All subjects other than the Union subjects and all residuary powers should vest in the Provinces.
(4) The States would retain all subjects and powers other than those ceded to the Union. (5) Provinces should be free to form groups with executive and legislatures, and each group could determine the Provincial subjects to be taken in common. (6) The constitutions of the Union and of the groups should contain a provision whereby any Province by a majority vote of its Legislative Assembly call for a reconsideration the terms of the constitution after an initial period of ten years and at ten yearly intervals thereafter.
The Cabinet Mission proposed the following constitution making machinery to enable a new constitution to be worked out. In forming any assembly to decide a new constitutional structure, the first problem was to obtain as broadbased and accurate a representation of the whole population as was