Vol. 2 · pages 581–585

560 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES My friend used that argument, that we must not have adult suffrage because we shall not have polling booths and polling officers. I should like to remind him of what would be the situation if he were told that he had been wronged by an individual, that he had a good case which, if he brought it to the Court would certainly succeed, but that he could not be given redress because we had not sufficient judges in the High Court. How would he like that position? Surely, if the franchise is an inherent right, and if there are administrative difficulties in the effectuation of that franchise, then the remedy is not to curtail the franchise, but the remedy is to provide the necessary machinery, so that every man or woman capable of enjoying that franchise shall be in a position to give effect to it. Sir, it seems to me that the difficulties of administering the franchise which have been placed before us arise from two different sources. We are told that the constituencies in India are very vast; and, surely, as ‘we see from the Report of the Simon Commission, they are of a most fabulous character. It is said that if you increase the number of electors in the existing constituencies, as they exist today, the whole machinery will break down. My submission to this Conference is this : Surely this difficulty can easily be met. It seems to me this difficulty can be met in this way. It seems to me that the difficulty arises largely because of the composition and strength of your Legislative Councils today ; that composition is so very limited that you cannot help having the large constituencies that you have today. It seems to me that from the standpoint of numbers the existing strength of the legislatures in the Provinces is ridiculous. Let us have the figures for a moment before our mind’s eye. I find on comparison that Madras, Bengal and the United Provinces have more or less the same population as France, Great Britain and Italy. The Madras Legislative Council consists of 132 members; the Bengal Legislative Council consists of 140 members ; the United Province Legislative Council consists of 123 members. On the other hand, France has a Lower Chamber which consists of 626 members ; Great Britain has somewhere over 600, and Italy has 560 members. Take, on the other hand, Bombay and the Punjab, which are more or less on a par in the matter of population. Bombay has 114 members ; the Punjab has 94. Bombay and the Punjab are more or less equal in population to Spain; if you take the Lower Chamber in Spain, you find it consists of 417 members. I know it is not in existence now, but that is another matter. It is a matter of constitution. In France it is in existence with a large number. Then take the Central Provinces in which the Legislative Council has 73 members. I find that the population of the Central Provinces is equal to that of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia has 313 members. Assam has 53 members ; in population it is equal to Portugal, and Portugal has 146 members. Now, surely if you are going to cramp these vast aggregations of people into Legislative Councils which do not exceed 140 in membership, you

561IN SUB-COMMITTEE NO. VI are bound, as a result, to have very large constituencies. Why are you afraid of increasing the numbers in the Legislature ? I cannot understand it. If you are not afraid, and if you follow the parallels in other countries, then surely you can very easily reduce the size of the electorates, and thereby remove one of the difficulties that is said to exist in the matter of adult suffrage. Then another difficulty which was pointed out was that it was said we should not have a sufficient number of polling officers. Now that difficulty to ray mind also does not seem to be of a very serious character. It seems to me that if all the college students in India could be drafted into the service of the electoral departments, this difficulty could be very easily solved. Some of my friends on the other side laugh at it, but I do not know why. I know, as a matter of fact, that in the census all college students, and school boys also, help the census department in carrying on the enumeration. If, for instance, the same system were adopted on the polling day, if all the college students were asked to help in this matter and I have not the slightest doubt that they would come to the rescue of the department, then surely we should have more polling officers than we need on the occasions of this sort. It seems to me, therefore, that the difficulties of the situation are not insuperable. Let me point this out to my friends opposite who object to adult suffrage on this ground. It seems to me their position is of a somewhat curious character. Where a member of the British Delegation raises a difficulty, and says there are heaps of difficulties in the way of India, and, therefore, India must not have Dominion Status or responsible Government, the gentlemen sitting opposite would not allow the English gentlemen to take advantage of the difficulties; they would tell him at once : “Why, you bolster up difficulties to put down our claims. These are difficulties which surely can be met.” Let me tell him that we on this side are also not prepared to allow you to take advantage of this difficulty. We say that if there are difficulties in the way of getting the power in our hands, those difficulties ought to be solved. We are not going to let you have the advantage of the situation. Sir, so far I have dealt with the arguments which have been presented against adult suffrage. Now let me put one or two arguments which I think are in favour of adult suffrage, and which in my opinion, are more or less decisive. The first argument that I will put is this, that you cannot have in India any system of suffrage short of adult suffrage which will give equality of representation to all the castes and communities in India; there is no other system you can devise for India which will give that result. Take, for instance, the existence of constituencies. In Bengal and in the Punjab the Muhammadans form a majority of the population. You have in Sind also, as apart from Bombay, the Muhammadans in a majority. Now what is the state of the Muhammadan communities in these Provinces ?

562 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES I am putting this as a feeler : My Muhammadan friends may take their stand apart from this : I am putting it as a case. What is the position of the Muhammadan communities in these Provinces under the system of franchise that we have today. The Muhammadans in Sind form something like 70 per cent of the population ; and yet, if I am not very much mistaken, their voting strength is only 49 per cent. Take, for instance, again Bengal and the Punjab; there again the Muhammadans pre-dominate in population, and yet in the voting list they are in the minority. Take again the Depressed Classes ; under the existing franchise they are nowhere at all in the electorate. I think it is a most disgraceful thing to have a franchise of this sort. You have to remember one thing : that Indian society is composed of so many castes and creeds and those castes and creeds are not related to each other in what one might call the vertical perpendicular, so that if you chop-off this mass at any particular point you get a part which is representative of all the communities in an equal degree. On the other hand, if I may put it so, they are related in such a manner that the parallel grains are, so to speak, placed horizontally one on the other, so that if you chop at any particular point you get a part which is representative of one single community only or at the most two, and the rest are not represented at all. Now surely you do not want to create a system of political Government in which only some castes and some communities will predominate. Surely you do not want to create in India a South Africa where only some people will have the vote and the rest will not. I say, if you are interested in giving every man a vote, in giving every man the political franchise, so that he may work out his destiny, then you cannot have any other system of franchise in India than that of adult suffrage. Now, let me give you another example. As I say, I am not opposed to female suffrage, and I am very obliged to our lady colleague, Mrs. Subbarayan, for supporting us in this matter. I will go with her whole-heartedly. Let roe point out one or two illustrations of what has been suggested by way of enlarging and broadening the franchise. It is suggested that there should be a franchise of literacy. I do not propose to call it a fancy franchise, but let me tell you what will be the effect of it. The effect of it would be this : that some communities would have their voting strength almost doubled, while other communities would stand where they are. Literacy in India is so unevenly distributed, that some communities would have all the increase of the franchise added to their stock, while other communities would remain where they are. Surely you do not want to create that sort of situation. Therefore my submission is, that if this Conference and the members who are assembled round this table are true to their creed, believe that India must have responsible Government, and that Government must be responsible to the people, then I submit there is no alternative to adult suffrage. Then, Sir, there is one more consideration that I would like to point

563IN SUB-COMMITTEE NO. VI out, that seems to me to be a most decisive consideration in this matter. We all of us know that the question of joint versus separate electorate is a most thorny question ; it seems to me to be a very crucial question. May I point out to this Conference that, at least in my opinion, the question of joint versus separate electorates is inextricably bound up with the question of franchise. You will not ask any minority in India, you will not compel any minority in India, and you will not get the consent of any minority in India, to agree to joint electorates unless that minority has adult suffrage. I am not going to place myself under the thumb and authority of any majority Government, unless I am certain that I can exercise in the elections electoral power which is commensurate with my social power. Unless I know that every man and every woman in the Depressed Class community will be able to exercise the vote and to determine the destiny of the candidate who is going to represent the mass of people in the country, I certainly am not going to consent to joint electorates ; certainly not. I am not going to place myself in a minority position ; I am not going to allow the majority to select my candidate. No, under no circumstances. And I think what is true of my minority may also be true of the Muhammadans. I do not wish to say something that I shall have to say in another Committee, but the point is so relevant that I cannot help making a reference. You cannot in fairness ask the Muhammadans of Bengal or the Punjab to accept joint electorates unless you place them in a majority in the electorate. You cannot deny the franchise to the Muhammadans, make a minority of them in the electoral power, and then say, “Come along and have a joint electorate”. The decisiveness of this fact was acknowledged by the Nehru Committee and by three members of the Indian Central Committee. Let me, before I conclude, make one or two remarks to my friends who will not give us adult suffrage. I made it plain at the beginning of my speech that we make the question of the grant of responsible Government to India not entirely dependent on this question. Although I know that my friend and I are only two in a Conference of 80 or 90, we represent 43 millions of people. Diwan Bahadur Ramachandra Rao: Would Dr. Ambedkar accept the proposal of Lord Zetland ? Dr. Ambedkar: We might accept the principle. But may I say that I am receiving hundreds of letters and telegrams on the subject I have brought forward. It is a crucial thing. Sir P. C. Mitter: What about the Central Legislature? Does he want adult suffrage, and what size does he want the Legislature to be ? Dr. Ambedkar: That will be a question to be decided later on. The Central Legislature, I think, ought to consist of 500 members. Sir P. C. Mitter: And adult suffrage also?

564 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Dr. Ambedkar: Yes. ***** †Sir Cowasji Jehangir: All these suggestions, I may say so with due respect to the Begum, emanate from the feeling that the franchise is the foundation of the representation in the Councils. That is so in all countries. But where we have introduced the principle of weightage for communities, that principle does not hold good. Colonel Gidney : I will now make a concrete suggestion, and my concrete suggestion is this, that in adopting the scheme suggested by Lord Zetland we should go in for direct and for indirect election. So far as direct election is concerned, I suggest there should be no further broadening of the. franchise, and that the- present franchise should remain as it is. Dr. Ambedkar: No. Colonel Gidney: That is all right. Sir Cowasji Jehangir: That should return a certain number of representatives to the Legislature, both for urban and for rural constituencies. A large number of the population will remain without the direct vote, and for that whole block of the population the franchise should be broadened. It should be on the basis of 25 per cent of the adult population, and they should return their representatives by the indirect system of election both in rural and urban areas. I make no distinction between the two. That will bring in industrial labour as well as agricultural labour. Dr. Ambedkar: It will not bring in anything of the sort. ***** ‡Dr. Ambedkar; Sir, this morning I said what I need say regarding the question of franchise ; but, without prejudice of what I have stated this morning, I should like to examine the suggestions which are put forward before this Committee for the purpose of extending the franchise. I take it that this Committee is agreed that the ideal is adult suffrage. Some of us think that it ought to be realised immediately ; the rest of our friends think that it ought to be evolved by stages. We have therefore put before us two concrete suggestions. One suggestion is that we should adopt the system of instalment and increase the suffrage by a graduated scheme of 25 per cent addition to the existing voting list, say at an interval of a certain number of years. We have on the other hand the suggestion of our noble friend the Marquess of Zetland in which also effect is sought to be given to some realisation of this ideal of adult suffrage. Now, comparing the two, I cannot help saying that I have a partiality for the suggestion of the noble Lord, although, as I say, I hold strongly that we must have undiluted adult suffrage. If it were a mere matter of choice between the two, I should certainly like to have a system which immediately lays the foundation of adult suffrage in preference to a system † Proceedings of the Sub-Committee No. VI (Franchise), pp. 68-69. ‡ Ibid., pp. 72-73.