White Paper on Indian States (1950)/Part 6/Government of India's Approach; Transfer of Power to People
Government of India's Approach: Transfer of Power to People
152. Neither progressive public opinion in India, nor the Central Government, deriving its strength from the will of the people, could adopt, or even acquiesce in an attitude of unconcern toward the elementary rights of the people of the States. Since 1929, the Congress had openly declared that the States "should be brought in line with British India by the introduction of responsible Government." The democratic upsurge could not be contained in the territories formerly called British India. Indeed independence of India could have no meaning if the people of the States did not have the same political, social and economic freedom as was enjoyed by the people of the Provinces. The Government of India had to take note of the awakening in States. It was clear beyond doubt that only a positive and bold approach would avert the explosive situation towards which the States were heading.
153. It is no doubt true that in States democratic institutions did not have opportunity and time to take root, a sudden change over from an absolutist regime to a democratic order therefore involved an element of risk. At the same time the Government of India could not ignore the patent fact that it was no longer possible to dole out power to the people in niggardly measures. For generations the people of States had been fed on cliches such as "democracy is a slow-growing plant"; "States must evolve Constitutions suiting their genius and requirements with well-defined checks'"; "States must not import from outside a single mass produced Constitution" etc. With the liberation of India from the foreign yoke the people were in no mood to allow such cobweb of verbiage to cloud the issue of transfer of power to them. There was great danger therefore in introducing an element of gradualness in the process of scaling down autocracy from is exalted perch. It was in this context that complete elimination of the autocracy of Rulers was decided upon; full and final transfer of power from the Rulers to the people hes been an essential feature of all the schemes adopted for the integration of States.
154. In the process of the merger of States with the Provinces or their Constitution into Centrally administered areas, transfer of power to the people is automatic in that the merged States become part of the administrative units which are governed by the popular Governments of the Provinces and the Centre as the case may be. So far as the Provincially merged States are concerned under the arrangement made by virtue of the statutory orders issued under Section 290A of the Government of India Act, 1935, provision was made for the representation of the people of the merged States in the Provincial Legislature. Pursuant to this provision, the Provincial Legislatures have been expanded by including in them representatives of the merged States. The Legislatures so expanded are those of Bombay, Madras, Madhya Pradesh, U.P., Orissa, Bihar, Punjab and West Bengal which now have 132 additional members representing the people of the merged States. With the enforcement of the new Constitution, the process of the merger of States in Provinces has been completed and the States concerned will now be enabled to send their representatives to the Provincial Legislatures in the same manner as other territories forming part of Provinces. In the Centrally administered areas, apart from their democratisation in the form of responsibility of the administration to the Central Legislature, the Chief Commissioners are to be assisted by Advisory Councils. Such Councils with a majority of popular representatives have already been established in two of the newly created Centrally administered units, namely, Himachal Pradesh and Kutch. The question of setting up similar Councils in the other units is under consideration. The people of these States will also be represented in the Central Legislature.
155. As regards the Unions of States, wherever practicable popular interim Ministries were set up to conduct their administration. Three of these Unions namely, Saurashtra, Travancore-Cochin and Madhya Bharat have Legislatures functioning in them and their Ministries are responsible to their respective Legislatures. Even in the States so far unaffected by any scheme of merger or integration, the movement for full responsible government has rapidly developed. There are now only three States continuing as separate units, viz. Hyderabad, Mysore and the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Popular Governments have been established in two of them, the only exception being Hyderabad where a popular Government will be set up as soon as the first Legislature of the State under the new Constitution is summoned. The Constitution of India assigns to the Rajpramukh, the Council of Ministers and the Legislature the same functions as are exercisable by their counterparts in the Provinces. This completes, in all respects, the process of transforming the autocratic set-up in States into a full-fledged democratic order.