Vol. 9 · pages 121–125

92 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES able to see the object which the Hindus had in demanding four candidates as the minimum for a valid primary election was to place the Hindus in a position to capture the seat for an election of such a representative of the Untouchable candidate, who would be their nominee and who would be most willing to be the tool of the Hindus. To get such an Untouchable elected in the final election he must first come in the panel, and he can come in the Panel only if the panel is a large panel. As the election to the panel is by separate electorates consisting exclusively of Untouchable voters it is obvious that if there is only one candidate in the Panel then he would be the staunchest representative of the Untouchable and worst from the standpoint of the Hindus. If there are two, the second will be less staunch than the first and therefore good from the standpoint of the Hindus. If there are three, the third will be less staunch than the second and therefore better from the standpoint of the Hindus. If there be four the fourth will be less staunch than the third and therefore best from the point of view of the Hindus. The Panel of four could therefore give to the Hindus the best chance of getting into the Panel such representatives of the Untouchables as is most suitable to the Hindus. That Is why they insisted before the Hammond Committee that for a valid panel the minimum number must be four. The object of insisting upon the system of compulsory distributive vote was the same namely to enable the Hindus to capture the seats reserved for the Untouchables. Under the cumulative vote the elector has as many votes as there are seats. He may give them all to one candidate or he may distribute them over two or more candidates as he may desire. Under the distributive system of voting the elector has also as many votes as there are seats, but he can give only one vote to any one candidate. Although the two look different yet in effect there may be no difference, because even under the cumulative vote a voter is not prevented from distributing his votes. He is free to give one vote to one candidate. But the Hindus did not want to take any chance. Their main object was to flood the election to the seat reserved for the Untouchables in the joint electorate by using the surplus votes of the Hindus in favour of the Untouchable candidate, who happens to be their nominee. The object was to outnumber the Untouchable voters and prevent them from electing their

93 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL own nominee. This cannot be done unless the surplus votes of the Hindu voters were diverted from the Hindu candidate towards the Untouchable candidates. There is a greater chance of the diversion of these surplus votes under the distributive system than there is under the cumulative system. Under the former the Hindu voter can give only one vote to the Hindu candidate. The other vote not being of use to the Hindu candidate is usable only for an Untouchable candidate. The distributive system thus had the possibility of flooding the election to the seat reserved for the Untouchables and this is why the Hindus preferred it to the system of cumulative voting. But they did not want to leave it to chance. For, even the distributive system from their point of view was not fool-proof. Under the distributive system there was no compulsion upon the voter to use all his votes. He may use one vote for the caste Hindu candidate and may not at all use the balance of his votes. If this happened the purpose of getting in their untouchable nominee would be defeated. Not to leave things to chance, the Hindus wanted that the distributive system of voting should be made compulsory so that a caste Hindu voter whether he wants it or not can have no option but to vote for the Untouchable candidate who may be the nominee of the Hindus, and thus make his election sure and certain. In the light of these considerations, it cannot but appear that the Poona Pact was only the first blow inflicted upon the Untouchables and that the Hindus who disliked it were bent on inflicting on it other blows as and when circumstances gave them an occasion to do so. The two contentions, which the Hindus raised before the Hammond Committee, furnish the best evidence of the existence of a conspiracy by the Hindus the object of which was to make the Poona Pact, as it could not be repudiated, of no benefit to the Untouchables. The story of how the Congress dealt with the political demands of the Untouchables cannot be left here for the simple reason that it does not end here. The subsequent parts of it are more instructive than those that have gone before. X Continuing the story, the next part of it relates to the election that took place in February 1937 to the Provincial Legislatures, as reconstituted under the Government of India Act, 1935.

94 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES This was the first occasion in its life-time that the Congress came down to fight an election. It was also the first time that the Untouchables got the privilege to elect their own representatives. Some leaders of the Untouchables, who were siding with the Congress when the Poona Pact was being forged—such as the late Dewan Bahadur M. C. Raja—cherished the fond hope that the Congress will not inter-meddle in the elections of the Untouchables to the seats reserved for them. But this hope was dashed to pieces. The Congress had a double purpose to play its part in the election to the reserved seats of the Untouchables. In the first place, it was out to capture in order to build up its majority which was essential for enabling it to form a Government. In the second place, it had to prove the statement of Mr. Gandhi that the Congress represented the Untouchables and that the Untouchables believed in the Congress. The Congress, therefore, did not hesitate to play a full, mighty and, I may say so, a malevolent part in the election of the Untouchables by putting up Untouchable candidates on Congress ticket pledged to Congress programme for seats reserved for the Untouchables. With the financial resources of the Congress it made a distinct gain. The total number of seats allotted to the Untouchables under the Government of India Act, 1935 are 151 1. The following table shows how many were captured by Untouchable candidates who stood on the Congress Ticket. Table 5 Province Total Seats Reserved for the Untouchables Total Seats Captured by the Congress United Provinces … … … 20 16 Madras … … … … … 30 26 Bengal … … … … … 30 6 Central Provinces … … … 20 7 Bombay … … … … … 15 4 Bihar … … … … … 15 11 Punjab … … … … … 8 Nil Assam … … … … … 7 4 Orissa … … … … … 6 4 Total … … … 151 78 1. This number of 148 seats was raised to 151 in making adjustments of seats for Bihar and Orissa.

95 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL This shows that the Congress got just about fifty-one per cent of the seats reserved for the Untouchables. The Congress in capturing 78 seats left only 73 seats to be filled by true and independent representatives of the Untouchables. The Untouchables were worse off under the Poona Pact than they would have been under the Prime Minister’s Award. In point of effective representation, the Untouchables got less than what the Prime Minister had given them. The Congress on the other hand gained by the Poona Pact. Although under the Poona Pact it gave 151 to the Untouchables it took back 78 and thereby made a handsome profit on its political transaction. This is by no means the sum total of the losses which the Congress inflicted on the Untouchables in the elections of 1937. There was another and a greater blow which the Congress inflicted on the Untouchables. It deprived them of any share in the Executive. From the very beginning, I had been pressing in the discussions in the Round Table Conference that the Untouchables must not only have the right to be represented in the legislature, they must also have the right to be represented in the Cabinet. The woes of the Untouchables are not due so much to bad laws as to the hostility of the administration, which is controlled by the Hindus who import into administration their age-old prejudices against the Untouchables. The Untouchables can never hope to get protection from the police, justice from the judiciary or the benefit of a statutory law from the administration, so long as the Public Services continued to be manned by the Hindus. The only hope of making the Public Services less malevolent and more responsible to the needs of the Untouchables is to have members of the Untouchables in the higher Executive. For these reasons, I had at the Round Table Conference pressed the claim of the Untouchables for the recognition of their right to representation in the Cabinet with the same emphasis as I had done for the recognition of their right to representation in the Legislature. The Round Table Conference accepted the validity of the claim and considered ways and means of giving effect to it. There were two ways of giving effect to this proposal. One was to have a statutory provision in the Government of India Act so as to make it a binding obligation which it would be impossible

96 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES to evade or to escape ; the other way was not to have a statutory provision but to leave it to a gentleman’s agreement—to a convention—as is the case in the English Constitution. I and the representatives of the other minorities although we did not insist upon the first in deference to the wishes of some leading Indians not to show such distrust in our own countrymen were not prepared to accept the second alternative as there was no enforceable sanction behind it. A via media was agreed upon. It was to introduce a clause in the Instrument of Instructions to the Governors imposing an obligation upon them to see that in the formation of the Cabinet representatives of the Minorities were included. The clause ran as follows :— “In making appointments to his Council of Ministers our Governor shall use his best endeavours to select his Ministers in the following manner, that is to say, to appoint in consultation with the person who in his judgment is most likely to command a stable majority in the Legislature those persons (including so far as practicable members of important minority communities) who will best be in a position collectively to command the confidence of the Legislature. In so acting, he shall bear constantly in mind the need for fostering a sense of joint responsibility among his Ministers.” What happened to this provision is an interesting story. The Congress declared that they were not prepared to accept the Government of India Act 1985 for various reasons which it is not necessary to reproduce. It was obvious to all and even to many Congressmen that there was no sincerity behind this declaration. It had no other motive but to enhance the prestige of the Congress in the eyes of the public by making it appear that the Congress was a radical and revolutionary body which was out to destroy and bury British Imperialism which is a legend, the Congress has all along tried to create. It was a mere matter of tactics. The Congress wanted to take the powers which the Governors had been given under the Constitution to intervene whenever matters which were his special responsibilities were involved. The Congress did not mind, making the declaration rejecting the Constitution because it thought that as it was the only body which could run the new Parliamentary system the British Government would be obliged to come to terms with it. The British Government threatened to bypass the Congress. It not only appointed 1st April 1987 as the date of the inauguration of the Provincial