Vol. 9 · pages 331–335

302 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES As you are. aware, I have no personal knowledge of the facts which happened prior to my release from the jail. But I was present at the meeting of the Working Committee which passed the resolution dated 10th June 1922, appointing Mr. Deshpande as the Convener of the Sub-Committee. It was not then mentioned that there was any understanding about any particular member acting as the convener of the Sub-Committee and the whole resolution was passed merely to complete the necessary formalities in regard to the payment of money. It was felt that a formal resolution of the Sub-Committee was necessary before any expenditure could be sanctioned. Mr. Deshpande was accordingly appointed as the convener and a sum of Rs. 500/- was voted for the expense of these preliminary steps. By an oversight, the resolution as drafted omitted to mention the sanction of Rs. 500/-. You will thus observe that it was not due to the unwillingness of the Working Committee to sanction Rs. 10,000/- for Untouchability, but the true reason for framing the resolution in the manner it was framed was that I have explained above. Nothing could be farther from the intention of the Working Committee than a desire to under-rate the importance of the work your Sub-Committee was called upon to do or in any way to ignore the valuable advice tendered by you. On your letter being placed before the last meeting of the Working Committee, the omission of the grant of Rs. 500/- was supplied and I was instructed to communicate with you on the subject. It will be a great pity if the Sub-Committee is deprived of the benefit of your experience and special knowledge of the whole question of Untouchability and I will ask you, therefore, in public interest, to reconsider your decision and wire to my office at Allahabad withdrawing your resignation from the Sub-Committee. I need hardly add that any resolutions arrived at by your Sub-Committee will receive all the consideration they deserve at the hands of the Working Committee. As to the alteration in the Working Committee’s resolution in regard to separate wells and schools, the best course would be for your Sub-Committee to recommend the change and for the Working Committee to adopt it. I am afraid you are under a misapprehension as regards the grant to The Independent, of Allahabad, and The Congress of Delhi. In reference to the former, all that has been done is to sanction the application of the U. P. Provincial Committee to advance as a loan to the “Nationalist Journals” Ltd., Rs. 25,000/- from the funds already granted to that committee and in reference to the latter, the application for a grant of a loan was wholly rejected. Yours sincerely, MOTILAL NEHRU, Bombay, July 23, 1922. General Secretary.

303 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : APPENDIX I (3) SWAMIJI’S REJOINDER DEAR PANDIT MOTILAL JI, I received your letter of 23rd July 1922 addressed from Bombay about my resignation from the Untouchability Sub-Committee, I am sorry I am unable to reconsider it because some of the facts brought out by me in my first letter have simply been ignored. (1) Kindly enquire of Mr. Rajagopalachariar whether I did not first propose that at least one lakh should be given in cash out of the funds in the hands of the All-India Congress Committee, whether he did not move an amendment substituting words for the above which purported to promise that when the plan of work formulated by the Sub-Committee was accepted by the Working Committee, that Committee would allot as much money for Untouehability department as it could then spare and whether I did not accept his amendment when the President called me aside and explained the exact financial position at the time. If this is the fact, then why did the amendment not appear with the resolution ? (2) Did you enquire of Mr. Vithalbhai J. Patel whether the members of the All-India Congress Committee did not propose me as the convener of the Sub-Committee and whether he did not then say— “As Swami Shradhanand’s name occurs first naturally he will be the convener and therefore there was no need of moving any fresh resolution at all?” I enquired about this from Dr. Ansari and he wrote back to me on June 17th, 1922, saying that I was appointed convener. Dr. Ansari is with you and you can verify it from him. I hope Mr. Patel has not forgotten all about it. (3) Then the immediate work among the Untouchables here is very urgent and I cannot delay it for any reason whatsoever. Kindly have my resignation accepted in the next meeting of the Working Committee, so that I may be free to work out my own plan about the removal of Untouchability. This was my position at the end of July last. My experience in the Amritsar and Mianwali Jails and the information I gathered there have confirmed me in the belief that unless sexual purity (Brahmacharya) is revived on the ancient Aryan lines and the curse of Untouchability is blotted out of the Indian Society, no efforts of the Congress nor of other patriotic organisations out of the Congress will avail in their efforts for the attainment of Swaraj. And as national self-realization and virile existence is impossible without Swaraj, I, as a Sanyasi, should devote the rest of my life to this sacred cause—the cause of sexual purity and true national unity. Yours, etc. Delhi, July 23, 1922. SHRADHANAND SANYASI. zz

304 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES APPENDIX II POLITICAL SAFEGUARDS FOR DEPRESSED CLASSES Supplementary Memorandum on the claims of the Depressed Classes for Special Representation, submitted to the R. T. C. by Dr. Bhimrao R. Ambedkar and Rao Bahadur R. Srinivasan. IN the memorandum that was submitted by us last year dealing with the question of political safeguards for the protection of the Depressed Classes in the constitution for a self-governing India, and which forms Appendix III, to the printed volume of Proceedings of the Minorities Sub-Committee, we had demanded that special representation of the Depressed Classes must form one of such safeguards. But we did not then define the details of the special representation we claimed as being necessary for them. The reason was that the proceedings of the Minorities Sub-Committee came to an end before the question was reached. We now propose to make good the omission by this supplementary memorandum so that the Minorities Sub-Committee, if it comes to consider the question this year, should have the requisite details before it. (1) EXTENT OF SPECIAL, REPRESENTATION A. Special Representation in Provincial Legislatures. (i) In Bengal, Central Provinces, Assam, Bihar and Orissa, Punjab and the United Provinces, the Depressed Classes shall have representation in proportion to their population as estimated by the Simon Commission and the Indian Central Committee. (ii) In Madras, the Depressed Classes shall have twenty-two per cent representation. (iii) In Bombay: (a) in the event of Sind continuing to be a part of the Bombay Presidency, the Depressed Classes shall have sixteen per cent, representation; (b) in the event of Sind being separated from the Bombay Presidency the Depressed Classes shall enjoy the same degree of representation as the Presidency Muslims, both being equal in population. B.—Special Representation in the Federal Legislature. In Both Houses of the Federal Legislature, the Depressed Classes shall have representation in proportion to their population in India. RESERVATIONS We have fixed this proportion of representation in the Legislatures on the following assumptions :—

305 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : APPENDIX II (1) We have assumed that the figures for the population of the Depressed Classes given by the Simon Commission (Vol. I, p. 40) and the Indian Central Committee (Report p. 44) will be acceptable as sufficiently correct to form a basis for distributing seats. (2) We have assumed that the Federal Legislature will comprise the whole of India, in which case the population of the Depressed Classes in Indian States, in Centrally Administered Areas, and in Excluded Territories, besides their population in Governor’s Provinces, will form very properly an additional item in calculating the extent of representation of the Depressed Classes in the Federal Legislature. (3) We have assumed that the administrative areas of the Provinces of British India will continue to be what they are at present. But if the assumptions regarding figures of population are challenged, as some interested parties threaten to do, and if under a new census the Depressed Classes show a lower proportion, or if the administrative areas of the Provinces are altered, resulting in disturbing the existing balance of population, the Depressed Classes reserve their right to revise their proportion of representation and even to claim weightage. In the same way, if the All-India Federation does not come into being, they will be willing to submit to readjustment in their proportion of representation calculated on that basis in the Federal Legislature. (2) METHOD OF REPRESENTATION 1. The Depressed Classes shall have the right to elect their representatives to the Provincial and Central Legislature through separate electorates of their voters. For their representation in the Upper House of the Federal or Central Legislature, if it is decided to have indirect election by members of the Provincial Legislatures, the Depressed Classes will agree to abandon their right to separate electorates So far as their representation to the Upper House is concerned subject to this : that in any system of proportional representation arrangement shall be made to guarantee to them their quota of seats. 2. Separate electorates for the Depressed Classes shall not be liable to be replaced by a system of joint electorates and reserved seats, except when the following conditions are fulfilled :— (a) A referendum of the voters held at the demand of a majority of their representatives in the Legislatures concerned and resulting in an absolute majority of the members of the Depressed Class having the franchise. (b) No such referendum shall be resorted to until after twenty years and until universal adult suffrage has been established,

306 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES (3) NECESSITY OF DEFINING THE DEPRESSED CLASSES The representation of the Depressed Classes has been grossly abused in the past inasmuch as persons other than the Depressed Classes were nominated to represent them in the Provincial Legislatures, and cases are not wanting in which persons not belonging to the Depressed Classes got themselves nominated as representatives of the Depressed Classes. This abuse was due to the fact that while the Governor was given the power to nominate persons to represent the Depressed Classes, he was not required to confine his nomination to persons belonging to the Depressed Classes. Since nomination is to be substituted by election under the new constitution, there will be no room for this abuse. But in order to leave no loophole for defeating the purpose of their special representation we claim (i) That the Depressed Classes shall not only have the right to their own separate electorates, but they shall also have the right to be represented by their own men. (ii) That in each Province the Depressed Classes shall be strictly defined as meaning persons belonging to communities which are subjected to the system of Untouchability of the sort prevalent therein and which are enumerated by name in a schedule prepared for electoral purposes. (4) NOMENCLATUBE In dealing with this part of the question we would like to point out that the existing nomenclature of Depressed Classes is objected to by members of the Depressed Classes who have given thought to it and also by outsiders who take interest in them. It is degrading and contemptuous, and advantage may be taken of this occasion for drafting the new constitution to alter for official purposes the existing nomenclature. We think that they should be called “Non-Caste Hindus,” “Protestant Hindus,” or “Non-Conformist Hindus,” or some such designation, instead of “Depressed Classes.” We have no authority to press for any particular nomenclature. We can only suggest them, and we believe that if properly explained the Depressed Classes will not hesitate to accept the one most suitable for them. We have received a large number of telegrams from the Depressed Classes all over India supporting the demands contained in this Memorandum. Nov. 4th 1931. zz