Vol. 1 · pages 286–290

271 EVIDENCE BEFORE THE SOUTHBOROUGH COMMITTEE 4. The Government has reserved 3 seats for the Sindh Hindus. I have proposed 4 of them, one of which should be earmarked for the untouchables of Sind to be filled by a communal electorate. 5. For the 6 cities I have reserved 17 seats. Of this I propose that Bombay should be given 10. Of the 10 seats the untouchables of the city should be given 1 seat, also to be filled by a communal electorate. 6. So far it is shown how the Sind untouchables and their fellows in Bombay can be provided for. In addition to these two seats the untouchables of the Presidency proper, excluding the city of Bombay, should be given 7 seats. The constituencies among which these 7 seats are to be distributed, I have indicated on page 7 of my previous statement. It is in this fashion that the 9 seats for the untouchables of the Presidency should be carved out. The Government of Bombay finds difficulty in defining the Depressed Classes. The difficulty is not a real difficulty, for, for all practical purposes the untouchables and the Depressed classes are the same. Knowing full well the degradation of the untouchables, the callousness of the Bombay Government is appalling. By refusing to make provision for the representation of the Depressed classes the Government have deliberately thrown the gravest of interests into the greatest of perils—a calamity which I am sure the Committee will avert. 7. Having taken out 7 seats from the 60, I propose to distribute the remaining 53 among the touchable population of the 26 districts as follows : I allow, though cannot quite agree with the Government, that the 7 districts of Sind should elect 14 members on the basis of 2 per district. But in the case of the 19 districts which are outside Sind I feel that a two-member constituency will not suffice, principally because the touchable Hindu population is not homogeneous. In order to satisfy the aspirations of the subdivisions of the touchable Hindus we must at least in some cases give up the principle of a two-member constituency. [91 (2)] To distribute the 39 seats among the 19 districts in question I should first group the districts on linguistic basis as follows : Districts Touchable Hindu Population I Gujarathi (1) Ahmedabad . . . . . . . . . 614, 286 (2) Broach . . . . . . . . . 170, 545 (3) Kaira . . . . . . . . . 556, 667 (4) Panch Mahals . . . . . . . . . 259, 929 (5) Surat . . . . . . . . . 535, 236 Total 21, 36, 663 II Marathi (1) Thana . . . . . . . . . 736, 915 (2) Kolaba . . . . . . . . . 509, 158 (3) Ratnagiri . . . . . . . . . 1, 003, 240 (4) Ahmednagar . . . . . . . . . 738, 747

272 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Districts Touchable Hindu Population (5) Khandesh East . . . . . . . . . 789, 740 (6) Khandesh West . . . . . . . . . 437, 391 (7) Nasik . . . . . . . . . 745, 965 (8) Satara . . . . . . . . . 883, 488 (9) Poona . . . . . . . . . 858, 607 (10) Sholapur . . . . . . . . . 574,152 Total . . . 72, 77, 403 III KANARESE (1) Belgaum . . . . . . . . . 734, 598 (2) Bijapur . . . . . . . . . 677, 041 (3) Dharwar . . . . . . . . . 820, 345 (4) Kanara . . . . . . . . . 372, 857 Total . . . 26, 04, 841 Grand total of touchable Hindus in the 19 Districts concerned 12,018,907. Of the 39 seats to be distributed I should give 8 seats to the Gujarati. 23 to the Marathi and 8 to the Kanarese districts. The actual constituencies may be as under : Language Districts Population in each constituency Number of the Constituency Number of Representatives to be elected by the Constituency 1 23 4 I GUJARATHI (1) Ahmednagar . . 614, 286 I 2 (2) Broach . . 727, 212 II 3 (3) Kaira . . (4) Panch Mahais . . 795, 165 III 3 (5) Surat . . II Marathi (1) Thana . . 1, 246, 073 IV 4 (2) Kolaba . . (3) Ratnagiri . . 1, 003, 240 V 2 (4) Ahmednagar . . 1, 484, 712 VI 3 (5) Nasik . . (6) Khandesh East . . 1, 227, 131 VII 3 (7) Khandesh West . . (8) Satara . . 883, 488 VIII * (9) Poona . . 858, 607 IX 3 (10) Sholapur . . 574, 152 X 3 *No Figure is shown against the Satara district in the original.

273 EVIDENCE BEFORE THE SOUTHBOROUGH COMMITTEE 1 2 34 III K ANARESE (1) Belgaum . . 1,411,639 IX 4 (2) Bijapur (3) Dharwar (4) Kanara . . 1,193,202 XII 4 Total number of representatives for the 19 districts 39. The Principal advantage of such a grouping is that the demand of the Marathas and the Lingayats can be satisfied without resorting to communal representation. There is no sacredness about a district that can plead against transcending its boundaries for political purposes when such a transcending enables us to minimise the field for communal representation. 8. I have differed from the Government of Bombay on the number of representatives to be given to the Mohamedans. Of the two bases, population and the Congress Scheme, the Government of Bombay have preferred the latter without even making a show of reasoning. In doing so they have contravened the most considered opinion of the authors of the Reforms Scheme who say that there is no basis other than that of negotiation for the proportion of Mohammedan representation fixed in the Congress League Scheme. It must be urged that looking to its composition the Congress is a body whose vicarious promises can never be binding on the vast population who have played no part in its deliberations. 9. The Mohammedans of this presidency form 20 per cent of the total population. On the basis of population therefore, they are entitled only to 20 seats out of the 100 elective seats. But tempering population by need I think 24 seats ought to satisfy them. Any excess over this cannot be tolerated as it will be at the cost of the other communities. Of these 24, the 7 districts of Sind on the basis of 2 per district will return 14 Mohammedans. The other 10 seats may be distributed as follows : Population No. of Representatives (1) Bombay City . . . 179, 246 2 (2) Northern Division . . . 342, 696 2 (3) Central Division . . . 367, 509 3 (4) Southern Division . . . 457, 997 3 Total . . . 10 I should prefer linguistic grouping to divisional grouping even in the case of the Mohammedans. I fail to see how a Mohammedan from Thana can have any affiliation with a Mohammedan of Surat though both the districts come under the same division. To group together for political purposes people who are ethnically different is absurd.

274 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Mr. Bhimrao R. Ambedkar called and examined Sir Frank Sly: He was a professor in the Sydenham College of Commerce. He graduated from the Elphinstone College, Bombay and was an M.A. of the Columbia University, New York. He was a Mahar by caste and his statement dealt largely with the depressed classes. So far as the Hindu community was concerned, he divided them into two classes, touchables and untouchables; a distinction which was unmistakable in practice and more convenient than a division by castes. He recognised also a distinction between Brahmins and non-Brahmins, but this was of less importance. The distinction between Brahmin and non-Brahmin would not make much difference as regards the attitude of voter to a candidate, but the distinction between touchable and untouchable would make a very great difference. He did not think there was any necessity for communal electorates for non-Brahmins as, if three-member constituencies were granted according to his supplementary statement, non-Brahmins would get some seats. From the figures in para 16 of his written statement he intended to show that on a uniform property qualification, a community which might be in a minority with regard to population might be in a majority in respect of voting strength ; some of the communities that he had mentioned might be minorities in the whole province, but majorities in particular districts. They should try to reduce the fever for communal representation as much as possible, and he therefore recommended three-member constituencies. He wanted a variation of the franchise for the untouchables ; but, if constituencies with more than two members were adopted, the lowering of the franchise became a matter of less importance. In the case of a small constituency, for instance, the Marathas, it might be desirable to group them. If a particular community had a majority of votes in a constituency, there was no need for that community to have separate communal representation. If the untouchables had a majority of votes in a particular constituency, he would not ask for communal representation. It was because they were in a minority and would always remain so on a uniform franchise that he asked for separate representation. His justification for asking for a low franchise was that as a result of being untouchable, the untouchables had no property ; they could not trade because they could not find customers. He remembered a case in which a Mahar woman was taken to the police court for selling water-melons. He was not aware of the conditions outside the Bombay Presidency. In the mills in the Bombay Presidency the untouchables were not yet allowed to work in the weaving department ; in one case an untouchable did work in the weaving department of a mill saying that he was a Mohammedan, and when found out, he was severely beaten.

275 EVIDENCE BEFORE THE SOUTHBOROUGH COMMITTEE The definition of an “untouchable” as a person who would cause pollution by his touch, was a satisfactory one for electoral purposes. It was not the case that some castes were considered to be untouchable in some districts and touchable in others. According to his classification the untouchables amounted to about 8 per cent of the population, but he had proposed 9 seats which would make about 9 per cent. These seats should be filled by separate communal election. He was aware that the untouchable in his present state of development was in no way qualified to give a responsible vote. In the whole Bombay Presidency there were one B.A. and 6 or 7 matriculates among the depressed classes. The proportion of those who were literate in English was very small, but not much smaller than in the case of the backward classes. The depressed classes, especially the Mahars and the Chamars, were fit to exercise the vote. He would also give them the votes by way of education. He could find at least 25 or more men amongst them who had passed the 6th or the 7th Standards of a High School, and, although the number was not large, the 9 seats which he suggested for the depressed classes could be filled from amongst them. Such a candidate in practical matters would be as good as a graduate although, the latter might be able to express himself better. He was opposed to any system under which the representatives of the depressed classes were drawn from other classes. Representation by missionaries, for instance, would not be representation in any real sense of the word. He suggested large constituencies for the depressed classes; if such large constituencies had been accepted for the Mohammedans he did not see why they were not practicable in the case of the depressed classes. In order to obtain the required number of seats for the depressed classes he would reduce the number of seats suggested by Government for the Mohammedans, from 18 to 10. This reduction was justifiable, as on the population basis the Mohammedans were only entitled to 20 per cent of the seats. He did not consider the Congress League Pact as binding on all. Mr. Hailey : Untouchables were persons to whom certain rights of citizenship had been denied. For instance, it was the right of every citizen to walk down the street, and if a man were prevented from doing so, even temporarily, it was an infringement of his right. Whether a man was prevented from exercising his rights by law or social custom, made very little difference to him. Government had recognised custom and persons belonging to the untouchable classes were not employed in Government service.