Deriminalisation of Politics :Constituent Assembly Debates

CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY OF INDIA DEBATES (PROCEEDINGS)-

VOLUME VII

Friday, the 31st December 1948.

Decriminalisation of Politics 

Shri B. H. Khandekar (Kolhapur) :

Now, I wish honourable Members to revive their memory of their college days and to think of a very great book on political philosophy--the Republic of Plato. Plato in trying to give us an ideal state, makes it incumbent on the Governors to have absolutely no personal interest in any property. He goes even further and says that Governors should not have even families. We in this country talk a lot of idealism, of very high ideals, but when it comes to actual practice, it seems to me that we fall deplorably low. If it is impossible to carry out Plato's utopian ideas, at least we should go as far as possible to approach the ideal. I would not have been so suspicious but for the singular service rendered by my honourable Friend Mr. Kamath in giving a particular example, a deplorable case, a scandalous case from a certain State in this country where a person, although convicted for black marketing, became a Minister. That is really most scandalous. It is not only in the States but also in the provinces that there are so many rumours about widespread corruption. These might be rumours but you cannot have smoke without fire: as the Sanskrit saying goes:

"Yatra yatra dhoomah

Tatra tatra wahnih."