A bold venture: P. V. Rajamannar dismissed the charge that the recommendations of his committee were an attempt “to wreck the Constitution or introduce revolutionary changes”. Here, he is receiving a gift of
U.S. law books from John Wiggin, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Information Service, Madras, on December 12, 1958, when he was the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court. At right is Justice Basheer Ahmed
Sayeed of the High Court.
| Photo Credit: THE HINDU ARCHIVES
The decision of the DMK government, led by M.K. Stalin, to constitute a three-member high-level committee on the Centre-State relations has run into opposition, expectedly, from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ally, Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar). Over 50 years ago, the recommendations of the Rajamannar Committee, which was also constituted by the DMK government in September 1969 to study the same subject, were out in May 1971. Then, different parties, some of which are now allies of the DMK, were critical of the recommendations. Among them were two Congress parties — one spearheaded by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and the other led by Morarji Desai, K. Kamaraj, and other leaders; the two Communist parties; and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the precursor to the BJP.
The committee was headed by former Chief Justice of the Madras High Court P.V. Rajamannar, and A. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar, former Vice-Chancellor of Madras University, and P. Chandra Reddy, another former Chief Justice of the High Court, were the members. The committee recommended that the base of devolution of revenue to the States be widened. It suggested that a number of subjects — to cite a few, stock exchanges, futures markets, and regulation and development of oil fields — be transferred from the Union List to the State List. It called for the transfer of several subjects from the Concurrent List to the State List.
Among the subjects identified by the committee for the transfer were trade unions, industrial and labour disputes, shipping and navigation on inland waterways, factories, electricity, newspapers, and books and printing processes.
Redistribution of entries
Another key recommendation was that an Inter-State Council, consisting of all Chief Ministers, be constituted, with the Prime Minister as the Chairman. The committee also suggested the formation of a committee for redistribution of entries in the Union and Concurrent Lists of the Constitution, according to materials available with The Hindu archives.
Similar to the criticism made by the newly elected president of the BJP State unit, Nainar Nagenthran, that the demand for complete autonomy for States would weaken the country, there were apprehensions that the Rajamannar Committee was formed as a prelude to the launch of a separatist agitation. In April 1971, replying to the four-day debate in the Assembly on the Governor’s address, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi emphasised that his government’s demand for more powers for the States should not be mistaken for a demand for secession. He felt that the transfer of more powers to the States would strengthen the federal set-up. Once decentralisation was effected, the Centre would be able to function more efficiently. Later, Karunanidhi clarified that the committee’s report was not “the forerunner to any agitation” against the Centre. The day after the report was made public, the Chief Minister, speaking at a public meeting in Vellore on May 28, stressed that the intention was not to have any confrontation with the Centre but to ensure the provision of “wider powers” to the States for speedy implementation of development programmes.
Indira Gandhi’s response
On the day the committee’s report was released in Chennai, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told Parliament that the Administrative Reforms Commission, which studied the question in the latter half of the 1960s, concluded that the present provisions of the Constitution were adequate for regulating the relationship and resolving the disputes.
Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee contended that the recommendations of the committee would promote “regionalism to a dangerous extent”. Accepting them would mean the beginning of the end of India as a nation, he said in his presidential address at the party’s general council session in Udaipur on July 3, 1971. A strong Centre, however. did not mean weak States. The necessity of decentralisation should be accepted for the resolution of genuine difficulties of the States in financial and industrial development. But the attempt to achieve the disintegration of India in the name of decentralisation must be foiled, Vajpayee declared. CPI(M) leader E.M.S. Namboodiripad told the media in Chennai in July 1972 that the key recommendations of the committee went “against autonomy, against the unity of India, and against social progress”. Criticising the ruling DMK for “not being clear in its demand for State autonomy”, the veteran leader, also a former Chief Minister of Kerala, thought that one of the important recommendations — any difference between the States be left to the proposed Inter-State Council — would not help to resolve the problems facing the States.
Kamaraj’s take
In an interaction with the media in Tiruchi in May 1972, CPI general secretary C. Rajeswara Rao said the recommendations would kill the very concept of solidarity. Next month, Kamaraj said at a public meeting in Salem that the “bogey” of State autonomy had been raised to “cover up the failure” of the State government to improve the lot of the common man. The State government often pleaded inability to implement welfare and development schemes on the ground that the Central government was “not giving enough powers or enough money”, but while making its demand for more powers, the State government had not spelt out spheres where it should have more powers, nor had it presented concrete schemes for which the funds or powers were required. It was “vaguely demanding” more powers, he said.
However, Rajamannar dismissed the charge that the recommendations were an attempt “to wreck the Constitution or introduce revolutionary changes”. His committee’s purpose was “to augment the resources of the States and enable them to get more powers within the framework of the Constitution”. Acknowledging that under the present Constitution, the States enjoyed a certain amount of autonomy but that was a question of degree. An attempt was made by the committee to get more powers for the States to enable them to find more resources, he explained. On the day the findings were released in May 1971, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said he was in favour of “more financial powers” for the States. Nineteen years later, when the National Front, comprising the DMK, was in power at the Centre, the Rajamannar Committee’s recommendation of creation of the Inter-State Council was accepted. The public focus has returned to the Rajamannar Committee, with the DMK government constituting another panel on the same subject.
Published – April 22, 2025 10:52 pm IST