THE question of the right of the provinces vis-à-vis the proposed union was one of about a hundred questions which the Secretary of State for India, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, answered at a two-hour Press conference… . He was asked: Just as the provinces have the right to opt out of the groups, will they have the right to secede from the Indian Union, say within two years?

Ans: They will not have the right to opt out in a period of two years. What they will have the right to do is to ask for a revision of the constitution at the end of ten years.

Q. Supposing Assam, which has a Congress Ministry, decided not to come into the group with Bengal, which has a Muslim League Ministry, would Assam be allowed to join any other group?

Ans: The right to opt out comes later, for this reason, that the whole picture should be understood before the option is exercised.

Q. Can a province [opt to] go into another section? [He] replied that if the right was given to a province to opt into another section and that section did not want it, a rather awkward situation would arise.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2021