Vol. 17, Part III · pages 66–70

37PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT on the majority to consent to the safe-guards for the minorities. But there rests upon the minorities an obligation of equal sanctity not to insist on such safeguards as will block the way to the unity of all. From this point of view, the scheme of joint electorates and reserved seats must be pronounced to be superior to that of separate electorates. It meets the realities of the present and also helps the ideal of the future. 15. There is another matter which must be of special concern to the Depressed Classes for their safety. That relates to their entry into the public services. The power to administer laws is not less important than the power to make laws. And the spirit of the legislator may easily be violated if not nullified by the machinations of the administrator. This is not only the reason why the Depressed Classes should show special concern for securing power of control over adminstration. Often time sunder pressure of work or under difficulties of circumstances law has to leave good deal of discretionary power in the hands of the heads of the administrative department. The welfare of the people must greatly depend upon how impartially this discretionary power is exercised. In a country like India where the public service is alomst exclusively manned by people of one community there is a great danger of this vast discretionary power being abused for the aggrandisement of a class. The best antidote against it is to insist on a proper admixture of castes and creeds including the Depressed Classes in the public services of the country. We should demand a certain percentage in the public service to be preserved for the Depressed Classes and there will be no difficulty in guaranteeing this safe-guard to us by a clause in the constitution. Such a protection you could have dispensed with if there was any chance of the Depressed Classes being represented in the future cabinets of the country. But there is not the remotest chance of this in view of the fact that the Depressed Classes will always remain in minority. This makes it all the more necessary why you must insist upon such a guarantee. IV. Depressed Classes and the Simon Commission. 16. I have drawn your attention to the various safeguards that I think we need must have in the constitution

38 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES of self-governing India, I will now turn to the recommendations of the Simon Commission in our behalf. The Simon Commission has no doubt sympathetically considered the case of the Depressed Classes for constitutional safeguards. The Commission has attempted to give a true picture of the conditions of the Depressed Classes, although that picture is by no means complete. They have only referred to the difficulties of the school and the well. They form but a very small part of the long list of the grievances of these-unfortunate classes. All the same it must be conceded that the necessity to the Depressed Classes of constitutional safeguards is more truly realized by the Simon Commission than it was by the Montford Report. But I am sorry to say that both as regards the manner of our representation and the strength of our representation the recommendations of the Simon Commission are very disappointing. 17. At present the Depressed Classes, as you are aware, are represented by nomination. Those of us who have had the misfortune of representing you in the councils will tell you of the evil effects of the system of representation by nomination. And I am glad to say that in the evidence given before the Simon Commission by our people all over India, the system was universally condemned. It deprives our people of their liberty to choose their best men to represent them and it leaves our nominated representatives no freedom of action. It is regretable that the Simon Commission does not discard that vicious system. It still clings to it and recommends that the Governor may nominate representatives of the Depressed Classes if suitable candidates are not available for election. Not only this, the Simon Commission makes a most undesirable proposal by recommending that the Governor may authorise persons who are themselves not members of the Depressed Classes to represent them in the legislatures. These are however reserve measures the consideration of which need not detain us much. But the main proposal of the Simon Commission is in my opinion equally unacceptable. According to it the Depressed Classes are to be represented by election in a system of joint electorates with reserved seats. This, no doubt, would make great advance in our present position if the recommendation had nothing more

39PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT in it. But this proposal is conditioned by the proviso that no candidate from the Depressed Classes will be allowed to stand for election unless his fitness is certified by the Governor of the Province. The reason why such a system is unacceptable is because it makes the proposed system of election so much akin to the system of nomination now prevalent that there is nothing to choose between them. And in cases in which the Governor chooses to certify only one candidate in a constituency, the system of election will in practice be nothing else than nomination pure and simple. There is no knowing how the system of certification will work and what will be the elements that will be taken into account in granting it. The Commission suggests that the Governor should certify “after consultations with the Associations of the Depressed Classes or otherwise as he thinks best.” In either cases we ought not to consent to it. If the system of consultation with Associations is adopted, it will only result in the multiplication of bogus asssociations with no other object except that of supporting their pet candidates howsoever unacceptable they might be to the generality of the people. On the other hand if the system adopted is “otherwise,” then there can be doubt that it will degenerate into the worst sort of officialdom and will leave the power of certification into the hands of the Mamlatdars and the Tahasildars. For, it is on their reports that the Governor will have to act, if he is to act some intelligent basis. You know what class of Officers these Mamlatdars or Tahasildars are, and the attitude they generally bear to the Depressed Classes and to their intelligentsia. You can therefore well imagine what sort of persons they are likely to recommend for certification. 18. I cannot agree with the Commission that there is any special necessity of certification in the matter of the representation of the Depressed Classes. If the object is to rule out ineffectives from the legislature then I submit that there are many other interests whose representation in the legislatures must be made subject to the process of certification. If ineffectiveness implies want of the knowledge of English and inability to deliver speeches in it, then I know of instances in the Bombay Legislative Council where many of the Non-Brahmin members and a vast majority of the Sind Muslim members are

40 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES quite innocent of English. Seldom have they asked a question or made a speech. I dare say that our friends who are representing the Depressed Classes on the various Legislative Councils will be able to recall similar instances in their Provinces. If certification is not necessary in their case I fail to understand why it is necessary in the case of the Depressed Classes only. We must therefore reject the scheme of representation outlined by the Simon Commission and demand the right to elect our own representatives of our own choice untrammelled by any conditions or limitations whatsoever. We are certainly the best judges of our own interests, and we must not allow even the Governor to assume the authority to determine what is good for us. 19. I do not know how you feel about the scheme framed by the Simon Commission for the composition of the Central Legislature. In the present state the form of election to the Council of State as well as to the Legislative Assembly is direct. The Simon Commission recommends that the Council of State should retain its present constitution, but that the Legislative Assembly should be constituted upon the basis of indirect elections by members of the Provincial Legislatures regulated by the system of proportional representation. I am not a supporter of the system of indirect elections and in my minute of dissent which I wrote as a member of the Bombay Provincial Simon Committee, I have condemned it. But the system in the form in which it is clothed by the Simon Commission has its advantages as well as disadvantages. First of all it avoids the problem of joint or separate electorates in the representation of minorities. Secondly, it eliminates the evils of a double franchise, one for the Provincial Councils and another for the Assembly. Thirdly, it makes the Assembly a more manageable body. On the side of the disadvantages it must be mentioned that the system is bound to weaken the tie between the people and their Government and is sure to retard the growth of national unity by concealing the vision of the country as a whole from the gaze of the people. But whether the balance lies on the side of advantages or whether it lies on the side of disadvantages, the scheme of the Simon Commission must find a place

41PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT in the constitution of the Central Legislature. The only question is about its proper place, whether it will be more appropriate for the Assembly or the Council of State, it is obvious that it cannot be applied to both. For, it is a great weakness of the system of indirect elections that it exhausts itself in the very first use. It may be depended upon for securing some reality of representation when the elector is only once removed from the voter. But it must lose all its reality if it were worked through the instrumentality of an elector who is twice removed from the voter. That means if their system is applied to the Legislative Assembly there will be no resource left for the construction of the Council of State if it is decided to retain the two chamber system in the Central Legislature. Now the Council of State is the ugliest deformity in the whole structure of the Government of India and it cannot be allowed to remain in the condition in which it is, if it is to discharge in a satisfactory manner the functions of a revising chamber. If I am correct in the view I have taken, then it follows that direct election should be the basis of the Legislative Assembly and indirect elections from Provincial Legislatures with the system of proportional representation would be the most appropriate devise for the constitution of the Council of State. But whatever be basis that may ultimately be adopted for the constitution of the Central Legislature indirect elections must remain the easiest method for the representation of the Depressed Classes in either of them. This is not a result to be deplored. On the contrary as compared with nomination it marks a great advance in our position. 20. In the Provincial Legislatures constituted as at present, the Depressed Classes are very poorly represented. The Southborough Committee in 1919 did a great wrong to them in this respect and even the Government of India recommended an increase in the miserable quota of their representation fixed by that Committee. But the wrong remained unredressed at the time. The Muddiman Committee appointed in 1923 pointed out how very meagre was the representation of the Depressed Classes in the Councils and suggested a large augmentation of the same. But although here and there a member was added nothing substantial was done to remove this grievance. In their weak