A bold adventure: PV Rajamannar dismissed the commission’s proposal to “break the constitution or introduce revolutionary changes.” Here he will receive a gift from American law books on December 12, 1958 at John Wiggin, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Information Service in Madras, when he was the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. On the right is Basheer Ahmed Sayeed of the High Court. |Picture source: Indian Archives
The DMK government led by MK Stalin decided to form a high-level high-level committee of relations with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ally Tamil Maanila Contress (Moopanar). More than 50 years ago, the DMK government also formed the Rajamannar Committee’s recommendation in September 1969, which was published in May 1971. Then, different political parties, some of whom are now DMK allies, criticized the suggestions. These included two congressional parties – one led by then-Prince Indira Gandhi and the other by Morarji Desai, K. Kamaraj and other leaders led; the two Communists; and Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the predecessor of the BJP.
The committee is led by former Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Rajamannar, with former Vice-Chancellor A. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar of the University of Madras and another former Chief Justice of the High Court, P. Chandra Reddy, who is a member. The Commission recommends expanding the basis for tax decentralization to states. It suggests transferring many topics (citing some topics, stock exchanges, futures markets, and oil fields regulation and development) from union lists to state lists. It requires several subjects to be transferred from the concurrent list to the status list.
The topics identified by the Transfer Committee include trade unions, industrial and labor disputes, transportation and navigation of inland waterways, factories, electricity, newspapers and books, and printing processes.
Reassignment of entries
Another key suggestion is that the Interstate Council, composed of all Chief Ministers, consists of all Chief Ministers. The committee also recommends the establishment of a committee to conduct simultaneous lists of the committee and the constitution based on available materials. Hindu file.
Similar to the criticism of the newly elected President of the BJP state department, Nainar Nagenthran, that the demand for a complete autonomy of the state would weaken the country, there are concerns that the Rajamannar committee was established and a prelude to the incitement of separatistism. In April 1971, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi responded to the four-day parliamentary debate in Parliament, stressing that his government’s need for more power in the states should not be mistaken for the need for division. He believes that transferring more power to states will strengthen federal settings. Once decentralization is achieved, the center will be able to function more effectively. Later, Karunanidhi clarified that the committee’s report was not a “pioneer to any inciteer” to the center. The day after the report was released, the Chief Minister addressed a public meeting in Velor on May 28, stressing that the intention was not to engage in any confrontation with the Centre, but to ensure that the states have “wider powers” to implement the development plan quickly.
Indira Gandhi’s response
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told parliament the day of Chennai’s report that the Administrative Reform Commission, which studied the issue in the second half of the 1960s, concluded that the current provisions of the Constitution were sufficient to regulate relations and resolve disputes.
Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee believes that the committee’s recommendations will promote “regionalism” to a dangerous level. In his presidential speech at the meeting of the Party General Council in Udaipur on July 3, 1971, he said that accepting them means the beginning of the doomsday in India. It does not mean a weak country. The necessity of decentralization should be accepted for solving the real difficulties of countries in financial and industrial development. Vajpayee declared that attempts to disintegrate India in the name of decentralization must be thwarted. CPI (M) leader EMS Namboodiripad said in the media in Chennai in July 1972 that the committee’s main recommendations “oppose autonomy, oppose unity in India and oppose social progress”. The senior leader (and former chief minister of Kerala) believes that the DMK, who criticized the ruling, “the need for national autonomy is unclear”, deeming that one of the important suggestions – any distinction between countries left to the proposed interstate council – would not help address the problems faced by states.
Kamaraj’s view
In May 1972, CPI Secretary-General C. Rajeswara Rao said in an interaction with Tiruchi’s media that these suggestions would kill the concept of solidarity. Kamaraj said at a public meeting in Salem next month that the “bogey” of state autonomy has been raised to “cover the failure of the state government” to improve the average person. State governments often implement welfare and development plans on the grounds that the central government “has not given enough power or enough money”, but when it comes to demands for more power, the state government does not articulate areas where it should have more power, nor does it propose specific plans for funding or power. He said it was more power to “vaguely demand.”
However, Rajamannar rejected the proposals that they were attempts to “break the constitution or introduce revolutionary change”. The purpose of his committee is to “increase the resources of the states and enable them to gain more power within the constitutional framework”. It is recognized that states enjoy a certain amount of autonomy under the current constitution, but this is a degree issue. He explained that the committee tried to provide more power to the states so that they could find more resources. The discovery was published on the day of the May 1971 release by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who said he favored the states’ “more financial power.” Nineteen years later, when the National Front (the National Front composed of the DMK) was in power in the Centre, the Rajamanal Committee’s proposal to establish an inter-national council was accepted. The public focus has returned to the Rajamanal Committee, and the DMK government formed another group on the same topic.
publishing – April 22, 2025 at 10:52 pm IST
