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The Executive Committee of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee yesterday resolved that “if His Majesty’s Government contemplates handing over of power to the existing Government of Bengal, which is determined to form Bengal into a separate sovereign State and which, by its composition, is a communal party Government, such portions of Bengal as are desirous of remaining within the Union of India should be allowed to remain so and be formed into a separate province within the Union of India.”
The resolution further raid that while framing the constitution of Bengal As a province within the Union, if it was not found possible to provide joint electorates and adult franchise with essential minority safeguards as the basis of the constitution, Bengal should be divided into two provinces and such portions as were desirous of framing the constitution on that basis should be allowed to form a separate province of their own.
Dr Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, Mr K. C. Neogy, M.L.A. (Central), Dr B C. Roy and Mr Nalini Ranjan Sarkar attended the meeting of the Committee by special invitation.
The Committee expressed the view that India had a fundamental unity, geographically, culturally, ethnically and politically and that in the present international setting, maintenance of this unity was vitally necessary for the defence of India and for her proper future development.
This unity will be ineffective unless there was a strong centre, and so the Committee considered that the Cabinet Mission’s decision of allotting the Centre only the three subjects Defence, Foreign Affairs and Communications had been inadequate.
At any event, the Union constitution should contain clear and definite provisions giving effective authority to the Central Government to implement its directives in matters concerning fundamental rights, protection of minorities and of backward tribes, and these subjects must be made a Central responsibility.
The Committee considered that joint electorates with adult franchise should be the basis of the constitution of the Union of India and its component parts.
While welcoming H.M.G.’s decision a transfer power to the people of the country by June 1948, the Committee insisted that power as a whole could be transferred to the Central Government.
It recorded its disapproval of the clause in the statement of February 20 that H.M.G. may transfer power even to the Government of some of the existing provinces as the would break up Indian unity and cut off Bengal from the rest of India and was likely to result in handing over of power to some communal party m Bengal.
Garo And Chittagong Tracts
By another resolution, the Committee noted that certain portions of eastern and south-eastern Bengal the Garo area, Chittagong tracts, etc., were determined to remain within the Union of India. Having contiguous connection with other parts of the Indian Union, such portions had their inalienable right to remain within the Union.
So the Committee expected that in the new constitution effective facilities would be provided for these portions to remain within the Union, if necessary by incorporating them with any other province within the Union and contiguous to them.
The Committee also favoured the setting up immediately of regional Ministry functioning in two different regions of Bengal in the interim period pending the final transfer of power.
It recorded with regret that the Bengal Government had failed to give protection to the law-abiding citizens and, particularly, to the minority community as also to maintain law and order within the province. The Government as at present functioning had forfeited the confidence of the law-abiding and peaceful citizens of the province.
A Government guided and dominated by a communally composed party could not discharge its obligations towards the citizens irrespective of class and community. The communal nature of the Government now functioning in Bengal was mainly responsible for the social disorder, open defiance of law and order and the general lack of efficiency and integrity usually expected in Governmental institutions and offices.
Hence, the Committee considered that m the interim period pending the final transfer of power, the only other alternative was to set up immediately regional Ministries functioning in two different regions according to the desire of the people inhabiting those I regions, as had been suggested for the Punjab.
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