Vol. 9 · pages 436–440

CHAPTER IV HINDU OPPOSITION THE demands set forth in those resolutions fall into three categories (1) Political, (2) Educational and (3) Economic and Social. Taking the political demands first it is obvious that they ask for three safeguards :– (1) That the Legislature shall not be merely representative of the people but it shall be representative separately of both categories Hindus as well as Untouchables. (2) That the Executive shall not be merely responsible to the Legislature, which means to the Hindus, but shall also be responsible both to the Hindus as well as to the Untouchables. (3) That the administration shall not be merely efficient but shall also be worthy of trust by all sections of the people and also of the Untouchables and shall contain sufficient number of representatives of the Untouchables holding key positions so that the Untouchables may have confidence , in it. These Political demands of the Untouchables have been the subject matter of great controversy between the Untouchables and the Hindus. Mr. Gandhi, the friend of the Untouchables, preferred to fast unto death rather than consent to them and although he yielded he is not reconciled to the justice underlying these demands. It will be well if I set out at this stage what the Hindu or the Congress Scheme of representative Government is. It is as follows :– (1) The Legislature to be elected by Constituencies which are to be purely territorial. (2) The Executive to be drawn solely from the Majority party in the Legislature. (3) The Administration to be run by a public service based entirely upon considerations of efficiency.

408 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The Hindus of the Congress describe their own pet scheme as a National Scheme and call the scheme put forth by the Untouchables as the Communal Scheme. As I will show, there is no substance in this distinction. It is a case of damning what you do not like by the easy method of giving it a bad and a repelling name. Such tactics can’t give strength to a case which is inherently weak. To expose its weakness let me examine the merits of the socalled National Scheme. Before proceeding it might be desirable to note the points of agreement and the points of difference between the two. Both have the same object, inasmuch as both stand for a representative Legislature. The point of difference lies in the method of devising a scheme which will make the Legislature a truly representative Legislature. The so-called national scheme insists upon the territorial constituency as being both proper and sufficient for producing a representative Legislature in India. What is called the Communal Scheme denies that a territorial constitution can produce a truly representative legislature in India in view of the peculiar social structure of the Indian Society as it exists today. The issue can a purely territorial constituency produce a really representative legislature in India ? It is round this issue that the controversy has centered. The so-called National Scheme of the Hindus generally appeals to the Westerner and he prefers it to the so-called Communal Scheme. This is largely because the Westerner knows and is accustomed only to the system of territorial constituency. But there can be no doubt that this so-called National Scheme is on merits quite unsound and on motives worse than communal. That it is unsound will be quite obvious to any one who will stop to examine the assumptions which are involved in the alleged efficacy and sufficiency of the territorial constituency. What are these assumptions ? To mention only those which are most important, (1) It assumes that the majority of voters in a constituency represents the will of the constituency as a whole. (2) That it is enough to take stock of the general will of the constituency as expressed by the majority and mat the will of any particular section however much it may be in conflict with the will of the majority may be ignored without remorse and without being guilty of any inequity.

409 MR. GANDHI AND THE EMANCIPATION OF THE UNTOUCHABLES : HINDU OPPOSITION (3) That the representative who is elected by the voters will represent the wishes and interests of the voters and that there is not the danger of the representative allowing the interest of his class to dominate and override the interests and wishes of the voter who elects him. Every one of these assumptions is a false assumption unjustified by any theory and unsupported by experience. The history of Parliamentary Government furnishes abundant proof in support of this assertion and even the history of England tells the same tale. It is wrong to suppose that the majority in all circumstances can be trusted to represent the will of all sections of people in the constituency. As a matter of fact it can never do so to any satisfactory degree. If at all, it can only give a very pale reflection of the general will and even that capacity for pale reflection must depend upon how numerous and varied are the interests which are consciously shared by the different sections of the constituency and how full and free is the intereplay between them. It is obvious that where, as in India, there are no interest which are shared, where there is no full and free interplay and where there are no common cycles of participation for the different sections, one section large or small cannot represent the will of the other. The will of the majority is the will of the majority and nothing more, and no amount of logical ingenuity can alter the fact and to give effect to it is to allow full play to the tyranny of the Majority. Again it is wrong to suppose that the representative elected to the Legislature will represent the wishes of the voters who elect him and forget or subordinate the interests of the class to which he belongs. The case of the representative is a case of divided loyalties. He is confronted with two-rather with three- conflicting duties (1) a duty to himself, (2) a duty to the class to which he belongs, and (3) a duty to the voters who have elected him. Omitting the first from our consideration it is common experience that the representative prefers the interests of his class to that of his voters. And why should any one expect him to act otherwise ? It is in the nature of things that a man’s self should be nearer to him than his constituency. There is a homely saying that man’s skin sits closer to him than his shirt. To the members of the Legislature it is true more often than not that his class is his skin

410 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES and the constituency is a shirt which it is unnecessary to say is one degree removed than the skin. The Hindu therefore in relying upon the territorial constituency is seeking to base the political structure of India upon foundations which all political architects have declared to be unsound. The territorial constituency has long since been regarded even in European countries as a discredited piece of political mechanism. In great many European countries the representative system based on territorial constituency has been wound up and repalced by other systems of Government largely because the territorial system of representation produced neither good Government nor efficient Government. In other countries where representative institutions have survived there is an acute discontent with the result produced by the system of territorial constituencies. The proposals for occupational and functional representation, the proposals for referendum and recall all furnish proof, if proof is really wanted, that there is a great body of enlightened and intelligent opinion which is definitely against the system of territorial constituency. In these circumstances the question as to why the Hindu insists upon a political mechanism which is discredited everywhere excites a certain amount of curiosity. The reason he gives is that it is the only mechanism which is consistent with nationalism. I am not convinced that this is the real explanation. The real explanation to my mind is very different. The Hindu prefers the territorial constituency because he knows that it will enable him to collect and concentrate all political power in the hands of the Hindus, and who can deny that his calculation is incorrect ? In a purely territorial constituency the contest, the Hindu knows, will be between a huge majority of Hindu voters and a small minority of Untouchable voters. Given this fact the Hindu majority - if it is a purely territorial constituency - is bound to win in all constituencies. But the Hindus besides relying upon their majority can also rely upon other factors which cannot but work to strengthen that majority. Those factors have their origin in the peculiar nature of the Hindu Society. The Hindu Social system which places communities one above the other is a factor which is bound to have its efect on the result of voting. By the Hindu Social system the Communities are placed in an ascending scale of reverence and a decending scale of contempt. It needs no prophet

411 MR. GANDHI AND THE EMANCIPATION OF THE UNTOUCHABLES : HINDU OPPOSITION to predict what effect these social attitudes will have on voting. No Caste Hindu will cast a vote in favour of an Untouchable candidate, for to him he is too contemptible a person to go to the Legislature. On the other hand there will be found many voters among the Untouchables who would willingly cast their votes for a Hindu candidate in preference to an Untouchable candidate. That is because he is taught to revere the former more than himself or his Untouchable kinsmen. I am not mentioning the other means which are often resorted to for catching votes of the poor, illiterate, unconscious, unorganised body of voters which the Untouchables are. A combination of all these circumstances is bound to work in the direction of augmenting the representation of the Hindus. Under a system of purely territorial constituencies it is quite certain the Hindus will have assured to them a majority. They can draw for their majority upon themselves as well as upon the Untouchables. It is equally certain that the Untouchables will lose all seats. They must; firstly because they are a minority, and secondly because the Hindus can successfully exploit the weaknesses of the Untouchables which makes them offer their votes to the Hindus as one offers burnt meat to his gods. Understood in the light of these forces which are sure to make the territorial constituency profitable to the Hindus by enabling them to loot the political power which the Untouchable would become possessed of if the Communal Scheme came into operation, there can be no doubt that the National Scheme is from the result side, if not from the motive side, worse than the Communal Scheme. zz