Vol. 17, Part II · pages 291–295

268 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES recognition at the Round Table Conference. When he found that notwithstanding his opposition they were recognized as a separate element by the Communal Award of Mr. Ramsay Macdonald he threatened to fast unto death if the separate recognition of the Untouchables was not withdrawn. Again in 1945 at the First Simla Conference Mr. Gandhi raised his opposition when he found that H.M.G. had given separate recognition of the Untouchables. The Cabinet Mission were anxious to make a success of their proposals. That was not possible unless they could secure the consent of Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Gandhi demanded his price and mission gave it. That price was the sacrifice of the separate political existence of the Untouchables. Indeed one can go further and say that the proposals of the Cabinet Mission, so far as the minorities are concerned, are nothing but the reproduction of Mr. Gandhi’s formula which he resounded at the Second Round Table Conference. Mr. Gandhi said that he would recognise only three communities for political purposes (1) Hindus, (2) Muslims and (3) Sikhs. The Mission’s formula is a mere copy of Mr. Gandhi’s formula. There is no other explanation. III Grounds urged by the Cabinet Mission in justification of its decision. 6. For justifying their decision not to recognise the Untouchables as a separate element the Cabinet Mission has relied upon the results of the elections to the Provincial Legislative Assemblies which took place in February 1948. In the course of the debate in Parliament on the Cabinet Mission’s proposals which took place on 18th July 1946, the members of the Mission have tried to make out the following points :— (i) That, in the election, the Congress captured all seats reserved for the Untouchables; that therefore the Congress represented the Untouchables. That being the case there was no justification for giving separate representation to the Untouchables. (ii) That, the following of the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation and my own was confined only to Bombay and Central Provinces.

269THE CABINET . . . . . . . . . UNTOUCHABLES Futility of the grounds 7. These are monstrous propositions and will not stand close an honest scrutiny. The Cabinet Mission, to start with committed a great mistake in adopting the results of the election as a basis for assessing the representative character of the Congress. In doing so, the Mission failed to take into account the following circumstances :— (i) The Hindu electorate was throughout the war intensely anti-British and although it did war work it did not do it willingly. The Congress Party which was antiBritish and had non-co-operated with the war effort was a hot favourite of the Hindu electorate. The other parties particularly the Scheduled Castes suffered in the election because they were pro-British and had cooperated in the war effort. (ii) Just before the date fixed for election, the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief staged the trial of the I.N.A. men. The Congress at once took up the cause of the I.N.A. men and made it an election issue. The trial was the principal factor which enhanced the influence of the Congress which was on the wane. (iii) The issue over which the election was fought was Independence and Quit India. The nature of the future Constitution of India was never the issue. If it had been the issue the Congress would never have got the majority it did. (iv) The Cabinet Mission did not take into account the open hostility shown by the Returning Officers and the Polling Officers—all of whom were Caste Hindus—against the Scheduled Caste candidates who were opposing the Congress. They went to the length of rejecting their nomination papers and refusing to issue ballot papers. The Cabinet Mission did not take into account the degree of terrorism and intimidation to which the Untouchable voters were subjected by the Caste Hindus on the ground that they were not prepared to vote for the Congress candidates. In the Agra City 40 houses of the Untouchables were burnt down. In Bombay one man from the Untouchable was murdered and in

270 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the moffusil Untouchable voters in hundreds of villages were not allowed to go to the Polling stations. In Nagpur a Police Officer became so much of a partisan of the Congress that he fired without the permission of the Magistrate on a crowd of Untouchable voters just to frightern them away. There were innumerable such cases all over India. 8. If the Cabinet Mission had taken into account these circumstances they would have realized that the success of the Congress at the elections was due to purely advantageous circumstances. The results of the elections held under such circumstances should not have been taken as a justification for not giving separate representation to the Untouchables in the Constituent Assembly. How the Mission adopted a false criterion for its decision. 9. The criterion adopted by the Mission to decide whether the Congress did or did not represent the Untouchables was how many seats reserved for Untouchables were won by the Congress in the Final Election. This criterion was a false criterion because the results of the final elections are beyond the control of the Untouchables. Under the Poona Pact the final elections are determined by the Hindu votes. The true criterion which the Mission should have adopted was to find out how the Untouchables voted, how many votes were cast in favour of the Congress and how many against the Congress. This can be judged from the results of the Primary elections only and not from the results of the Final elections. For in the Primary election only the Untouchables vote. If the results of the Primary elections are taken as a basis, the decision of the Cabinet Mission, would be found to be absurd and contrary to facts. For only 28 per cent of the votes polled in the Primary elections were cast in favour of the Congress and 72 per cent against it. 10. It is said if the Untouchables felt that they were not in the Congress they should have had a Primary election for every one of the 151 seats reserved for them. As a matter of fact, there were Primary elections for 43 seats only all throughout India. Why did the Untouchables not stage a Primary election for the rest of the 108 seats ?

271THE CABINET . . . . . . . . . UNTOUCHABLES The argument is absurd for the following reasons :— (i) Primary election is not obligatory. It becomes obligatory only when there are more than four candidates contesting one seat. It is not realized that anyone who stands for Primary election must also face the necessity of having to stand for Final election. The inability of the Untouchables to bear the expense of double election make it very difficult to induce members of the Untouchable communities to stand for Primary election. The fact that there have been Primary elections only for 43 seats cannot be made the basis for the inference that the Untouchables do not claim to be separate from the Congress. (ii) It is the Congress who must be asked as to why it did not put up 4 candidates in every consituency in the Primary elections. For if the Congress claims to represent the Untouchables, it should have put up more than 4 candidates on Congress ticket in every constituency and brought about Primary elections in each of the 151 constituencies and ousted every other party from coming into the Final election. The Congress did not do this. On the other hand, even in the 43 Primary elections, the Congress put up only one candidate in each constituency on the off-chance of his coming within the first 4 and then getting him returned in the Final Election with the Hindu votes. This shows that the Congress knew that the Untouchables had no confidence in the Congress. (iii) It is only in 1937 that the Untouchables for the first time got their right to vote. It is only after 1937 that the Untouchables started organizing themselves for conducting elections. From the mere fact that Scheduled Castes Federation was outmatched by the Congress in the elections, it is wrong to conclude that the Untouchables are with the Congress. The Cabinet Mission ought to have made allowance from the unequal strengh of the Congress and the Scheduled Castes Federation in fighting elections drawing any conclusions adverse to the Federation from the results of the elections.

272 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Futility of the grounds urged by the Mission in justification of their decision 11. The members of the Cabinet Mission argued that Dr. Ambedkar’s following was confined to the Scheduled Castes in the Bombay Presidency and the Central Provinces only. There is no foundation for this statement. The Scheduled Castes Federation is functioning in other Provinces as well and it has won therein notable electoral successes, as great as, if not greater than, in Bombay and the Central Provinces. In making this statement the Mission has failed to take into account the single victory Dr. Ambedkar obtained in the election to the Constituent Assembly. He stood as a candidate from the Bengal Provincial Legislative Assembly. He topped the poll as the general seats were concerned, beating even Mr. Sarat Chandra Bose the Leader of the Congress Party. If Dr. Ambedkar has no influence outside Bombay and Central Provinces how did he get elected from Bengal? It must be further remembered that there are 30 seats for the Scheduled Castes in the Bengal Provincial Assembly. Out of the 80 as many as 28 were elected on the Congress ticket. Of the two who belonged to his party one fell ill on the day of the election. Notwithstanding this Dr. Ambedkar topped the poll. This could not have happened unless the Scheduled Caste members of Bengal elected on the Congress ticket had voted for him. It must also be remembered that Scheduled Castes in Bengal do not belong to the community to which Dr. Ambedkar belongs. This shows that even those Scheduled Caste members who belong to the Congress and who do not belong to his community regard him as the leader of the Scheduled Castes. This completely disproves the statement made by the members of the mission. 12. The member of the Cabinet Mission argued that for the sake of maintaining uniformity in the composition of the constituent Assembly they had to adopt in the case of the Untouchables the result of the Final elections as they had done in the case of the other communities. The argument is a form of special pleading which has no force. The mission knew the final election of the Muslims, the Indian Christians and the Sikhs was by separate electorates.