What is the use of talking that the service people were serving while we were in jail? I myself was arrested; I have been arrested several times. But that has never made any difference in my feeling towards people in the services.
I do not defend the black sheep; they may be there. But are there not many honest people among them? But what is the language that you are using? I wish to place it on record in this House that if, during the last two or three years, most of the members of the services had not behaved patriotically and with loyalty, the Union would have collapsed. Ask Dr John Matthai. He is working for the last fortnight with them on the economic question. You may ask his opinion. You will find what he says about the Services. You ask the Premiers of all provinces. Is there any Premier in any province who is prepared to work without the Services? He will immediately resign. He cannot manage. We had a small nucleus of a broken Service. With that bit of Service, we have carried on a very difficult task. And if a responsible man speaks in this tone about these Services, he has to decide whether he has a substitute to propose, and let him take the responsibility. This is not a Congress platform. It is said that we promised Rs. 500 for the Ministers in the Karachi resolution. There is a long distance between Karachi and Delhi today. It is a different thing. You want Rs. 45 a day free of income-tax. What is the use of talking about Rs. 500 today? It is very wrong.
But I am prepared to admit that if the Indian Government is to be run today on the basis of Gandhian philosophy without an army, I am prepared to change the whole thing. You are today spending 160 to 170 crores of rupees per year on the army. Are you going to change that set-up? Tomorrow the whole of India will be run over from one end to the other, if you have not got a strong army.
The Police, which was broken, has been brought to its proper level and is functioning fairly efficiently. The Heads of the Departments of the Police in every province are covered under this guarantee. Are you going to change that? Are you going to put your Congress volunteers as captains? What is it that you propose to do?
I am grieved to find that in a Parliament of this kind, Members, senior Members, speak in this strain. I would refer you to the Indian Independence Act which gave birth to this Parliament, and you find that the guarantees have been included there. When the Indian Independence Act was to be passed in Parliament, the draft was sent here. The leaders of the nation were called for; the Cabinet was there, the Congress President was there, your President was there, and your Leader today was there. Mahatma Gandhi was also present. Every section was scrutinised and the draft was approved. After that, it was passed in Parliament.
Now, these guarantees were circulated before that to the provinces. All provinces agreed. It was also agreed to incorporate these into the Constituent Assembly’s New Constitution. That is one part of the guarantee. Have you read that history? Or, you do not care for the recent history after you began to make history? If you do that, then I tell you we have a dark future. Learn to stand upon your pledged word, and, also, as a man of experience I tell you, do not quarrel with the instruments with which you want to work. It is a bad workman who quarrels with his instruments. Take work from them. Every man wants some sort of encouragement. Nobody wants to put in work when every day he is criticised and ridiculed in public. Nobody will give you work like that. So, once and for all, decide whether you want this service or not. If you have done with it and decide not to have this service at all, even in spite of my pledged word, I will take the Services with me and go. The nation has changed its mind.
The Services will earn their living. They are capable people. They were trained in a different setting. I know a senior Member of the Service with about twenty-five years’ service who went to England for higher education and training in the Civil Service, and spent about fifty thousand rupees. He took a loan; he had not the money. But there is a glamour for the Civil Service on the part of the Indian youth. He went there, he passed with distinction and came here. He served very ably, very loyally the then Government and later the present Government. His business is to serve the Government—that he is serving. He had a sense of patriotism. Often he came into difficulties with the then Government when he had to carry out orders against the Congress people, putting them in jail and otherwise. But he could not go beyond a certain limit. Now all his balance today at the end of twenty-five years’ service is ten thousand rupees, and his wife and children, when he dies, will get some provident fund.
These were the circumstances in which many of the service people took their training, came here, and served. Now we can say, “Very well, they did it with open eyes, let them suffer.” Then you make up your mind to prepare for a substitute. We have already a substitute. We have started a training school here in India; we have fixed the cadre, proposals for which have been approved by Provinces—you know all that.
If you want an efficient all-India service, I advise you to allow the services to open their mouths freely. If you are a Premier, it would be your duty to allow your Secretary, or Chief Secretary, or other services working under you, to express their opinion without fear or favour. But I see a tendency today that in several provinces the services are set upon and told, “No, you are servicemen, you must carry out our orders.” The Union will go—you will not have a united India, if you have not a good all-India service which has the independence to speak out its mind, which has a sense of security that you will stand by your word and that after all there is the Parliament, of which we can be proud, where their rights and privileges are secure. If you do not adopt this course, then do not follow the present Constitution. Substitute something else. Put in a Congress Constitution or some other Constitution or put in an RSS Constitution—whatever you like—but not this Constitution. This Constitution is meant to be worked by a ring of Service which will keep the country intact. There are many impediments in this Constitution which will hamper us, but in spite of that, we have in our collective wisdom come to a decision that we shall have this model wherein the ring of Service will be such that will keep the country under control.
This is part of ThePrint’s Great Speeches series. It features speeches and debates that shaped modern India.