Vol. 2 · pages 371–375

352 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the system of mixed electorates superior to that of the separate electorates as a means of protection to the minority. The Mohamedan minority seems to think that the Council is, like the Cardinals’ conclave, convened for the election of the Pope, an ecclesiastical body called for the determination of religious issues. If that was true then their insistence on having few men but strong men would have been a wise course of conduct. But it is time the community realised that Council far from being a religious conclave is a secular organisation intended for the determination of secular issues. In such determination of the issues, the finding is always in favour of the many. If this is so, does not the interest of the minority itself justify a system which compels others besides its own members to support its cause ? 59. The second ground on which the claim to separate electorates is made to rest is that the Mohamedans are a community by themselves ; that they are different from other communities not merely in religion but that their history, their traditions, their culture, their personal laws, their social customs and usages have given them such a widely different outlook on life quite uninfluenced by any common social ties, sympathies or amenities; that they are in fact a distinct people and that they do so regard themselves even though they have lived in this country for centuries. On this assumption it is argued that if they are compelled to share a common electorate with other communities, the political blending consequent upon it will impair the individuality of their community. How far this assumption presents a true picture, I do not step to consider. Suffice it to say, that in my opinion it is not one which can be said to be true to life. But conceding that it is true and conceding further that the preservation of the individuality of the Mohamedan community is an ideal which is acceptable to that community one does not quite see why communal electorates should be deemed to be necessary for the purpose. India is not the only country in which diverse races are sought to be brought under a common Government. Canada and South Africa are two countries within the British Empire where two diverse races are working out a common system of government. Like the Hindus and the Mohamedans in India, the British and the Dutch in South Africa and the British and the French in Canada are two distinct communities with their own distinctive cultures. But none has ever been known to object to common electorates on the ground that such a common cycle of participation for the two communities for electoral purposes is injurious to the preservation of their individualities. Examples of diverse communities sharing common electorates outside the Empire are by no means few. In Poland there are Poles, Ruthenians, Jews, White Russians, Germans and Lithuanians. In Latvia, there are Latvians, Russians, Jews, Germans, Poles, Lithuanians and Esthonians. In Esthonia, there are Germans, Jews, Swedes, Russians, Latvians and Tartars. In Czechoslovakia, there are Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Magyars, Ruthenians. Jews and Poles. In Austria, there are Germans, Czechs and Slovenes; while

353PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE in Hungary there are Hungarians. Germans, Slovaks, Roumanians, Ruthenians. Croatians, and Serbians. All these groups are not mere communities. They are nationalities each with a live and surging individuality of their own, living in proximity of each other and under a common Government. Yet none of them have objected to common electorates on the ground that a participation in them would destroy their individuality. 60. But it is not necessary to cite cases of non-Moslem communities to show the futility of the argument. Cases abound in which Mohamedan minorities in other parts of the world have never felt the necessity of communal electorates for the preservation of their individuality against what might be termed the infectious contagion of political contact with other communities. It does not seem to be sufficiently known that India is not the only country where Mohamedans are in a minority. There are other countries, in which they occupy the same position. In Albania, the Mohamedans form a very large community. In Bulgaria, Greece and Roumania they form a minority and in Yugoslavia and Russia they form a very large minority. Have the Mohamedan communities there insisted upon the necessity of separate communal electorates ? As all students of political history are aware the Mohamedans in these countries have managed without the benefit of separate electorates ; nay, they have managed without any definite ratio of representation assured to them. In India, at any rate, there is a consensus of opinion, that as India has not reached a stage of complete secularisation of politics, adequate representation should be guaranteed to the Mohamedan community, lest it should suffer from being completely eclipsed from the political field by the religious antipathy of the majority. The Mohamedan minorities, in other parts of the world are managing their affairs even without the benefit of this assured quota. The Mohamedan case in India, therefore, overshoots the mark and in my opinion, fails to carry conviction. 61. The third ground on which it is sought to justify the retention of separate communal electorates of the Mohamedans, is that the voting strength of the Mohamedans in a mixed electorate may be diluted by the non-Mohamedan vote to such an extent that the Mohamedan returned by such a mixed electorate, it is alleged, will be a weak and instead of being a true representative of the Mohamedans will be a puppet in the hands of the non-Mohamedan communities. This fear has no doubt the look of being genuine, but a little reasoning will show that it is groundless. If the mass of the non-Muslim voters were engaged in electing a Mohamedan candidate, the result anticipated by the Mohamedans may perhaps come true if the non-Muslims are bent on mischief. But the fact is that at the time of general election there will be many non-Mohamedan candidates standing for election. That being the case, the full force of all the nonMuslim voters will not be directed on the Mohamedan candidates. Nor will the non-Mohamedan candidates allow the non-Mohamedan voters to waste their votes by concentrating themselves on the Mohamedan candidates. On the contrary, they will engage many voters, if not all, for themselves. If this

354 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES analysis is true, then it follows that very few non-Mohamedan voters will be left to participate in the election of the Mohamedan candidates, and that the fear of the Mohamedans of any mass action against Muslim candidates by non-Muslim voters is nothing but a hallucination. That the Mohamedans themselves do not believe in it is evident from what are known as the “Delhi” proposals. According to these proposals, which have been referred to in an earlier part of this report, the Mohamedans have shown their willingness to give up communal electorates, in favour of joint electorates, provided the demand for communal Provinces and certain other concessions regarding the representation of the Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal are given to them. Now, assuming that these communal Provinces have no purpose outside their own, and it is an assumption which we must make, it is obvious that the Mohamedan minority in any province must be content with such protection as it can derive from joint electorates. It is therefore a question as to why joint electorates should not suffice without the addition of communal Provinces when they are said, to suffice with the addition of communal Provinces. But this consideration apart, if there is any substance in the Muslim view that the watering of votes is an evil which attaches itself to the system of joint electorates, then the remedy in my opinion does no lie in the retention of communal electorates. The remedy lies in augmenting the numbers of the Mohamedan electors to the fullest capacity possible by the introduction of adult suffrage, so that the Mohamedan community may get sufficiently large voting strength to neutralise the effects of a possible dilution by an admixture of the non-Muslim votes. 62. All this goes to show that the case for communal electorates cannot be sustained on any ground which can be said to be reasonable. What is in its favour is feeling and sentiment only. I do not say that feeling and sentiment have no place in the solution of political problems. I realise fully that loyalty to Government is a matter of faith and faith is a matter of sentiment. This faith should be secured if it can be done without detriment to the body politic. But communal representation is so fundamentally wrong that to give in to sentiment in its case would be to perpetuate an evil. The fundamental wrong of the system, has been missed even by its opponents. But its existence will become apparent to any one who will look to its operation. It is clear that the representatives of the Muslims give law to the non-Muslims. They dispose of revenue collected from the non-Muslims. They determine the education of the non-Muslims, they determine what taxes and how much the non-Muslims shall pay. These are some of the most vital things which Muslims as legislators do, whereby affect the welfare of the non-Muslims. A question may be asked by what right can they do this ? The answer, be it noted, is not by right of being elected as representatives of the non-Muslims. The answer is by a right of being elected as the representatives of the Muslims ! Now, it is an universally recognised canon of political life that the Government must be by the consent of the governed. From what I have said above communal electorates are a violation of that

355PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE canon. For, it is government without consent. It is contrary to all sense of political justice to approve of a system which permits the members of one community to rule other communities without their having submitted themselves to the suffrage of those communities. And if as the Mohamedans allege that they are a distinct community with an outlook on life widely different from that of the other communities, the danger inherent in the system becomes too terrible to be passed over with indifference. 63. Such are the defects in the existing structure of the Council. It was framed by the Southborough Committee in 1919. The nature of the framework prepared by that Committee was clearly brought forth by the Government of India in their Despatch No. 4 of 1919 dated 23rd April, 1919, addressed to the Secretary of State in which they observed : “2. Before we deal in detail with the report (of the Southborough Committee) one preliminary question of some importance suggests itself. As you will see, the work of the Committee has not to any great extent been directed towards the establishment of principles. In dealing with the various problems that came before them they have usually sought to arrive at agreement rather than to base their solution upon general reasonings.” 64. My colleagues have not cared to consider the intrinsic value of the framework as it now stands. They have no doubt recommended that the system of nominations should be done away with and in that I agree with them. But excepting that they have kept the whole of the electoral structure intact, as though it was free from any objection. In this connection I differ from them. As I have pointed out, the whole structure is faulty and must be overhauled. I desire to point out that the object of the Reforms are embodied in the pronouncement of August, 1917, declares the goal to be the establishment of self-governing institutions. The electoral structure then brought into being was only a half-way house towards it and was justified only because it was agreed that a period of transition from the rule of the bureaucracy to the rule of the people, was a necessity. This existing electoral structure can be continued only on the supposition that the present system of divided government is to go on. The existing system of representation would be quite incompatible with a full Government and must therefore be over-ruled. 65. There is also another reason why the present system of representation should be overhauled. Representative government is everywhere a party government. Indeed a party government is such a universal adjunct of representative government that it might well be said that representative government cannot function except through a party government. The best form of party government is that which obtains under a two-party-system both of ensuring stable as well as responsible government. An executive may be made as responsible as it can be made by law to the legislature. But the responsibility will only be nominal if the legislature is so constituted that it could not effectively impose its Will on the executive. A stable government requires absence of uncertainty. An executive must be able to plan

356 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES its way continuously to an ordered scheme of policy. But that invokes an unwavering support of a majority. This can be obtained only out of a twoparty-system. It can never be obtained out of a group system. Under the group system the executive will represent not a general body of opinion, but a patch-work of doctrines held by the leaders of different groups who have agreed to compromise their integrity for the sake of power. Such a system can never assure the continuous support necessary for a stable government since the temptation to reshuffling the groups for private advantage is ever present. The existing Council by reason of the system of representation is, to use the language of Burke, “a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed, a piece of diversified mosaic, a tessellated pavement without cement, patriots and courtiers, friends of government and open enemies. This curious show of a Legislature utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on” can hardly yield to a two-party-system of government, and without a party system there will neither be stable government nor responsible government The origin of the group system must be sought in the formation of the electorates. For, after all, the electorates are the moulds in which the Council is cast. If the Council is to be remodelled so that it may act with efficiency, then it is obvious that the mould must be recast. 66. In making my suggestions for the recasting of the electoral system I have allowed myself to be guided by three considerations : (1) Not to be led away by the fatal simplicity of many a politician in India that the electoral system should be purely territorial and should have no relation with the social conditions of the country, (2) Not to recognise any interest, social or economic, for special representation which is able to secure representation through territorial electorates, (3) When any interest is recognised as deserving of special representation, its manner of representation shall be such as will not permit the representatives of such interest the freedom to form a separate group. 67. Of these three considerations the second obviously depends upon the pitch of the franchise. In another part of this Report I have recommended the introduction of adult suffrage. I am confident that it will be accepted. I make my recommendations therefore on that basis. But in case it is not, and if the restricted franchise continues, it will call for different recommendations, which I also proposed to make. For the reasons given above and following the last mentioned consideration I suggest that— I. If adult suffrage is granted there shall be territorial representation except in the case of the Mohamedans, the Depressed Classes, and the Anglo-Indians. II. If the franchise continues to be restricted, all representation shall be territorial except in the case of the Mohamedans, the Depressed Classes, Anglo-Indians, the Marathas and the allied castes and labour. III. That such special representation shall be by general electorates and reserved seats and of labour by electorate made up of registered trade unions.