B R Ambedkar on Communal Representation 1909-1947

(a) The composition of the bodies through which election to these seats will be conducted, though in most cases either predominantly European or predominantly Indian, will not be statutorily fixed. It is, accordingly, not possible in each Province to state with certainty how many Europeans and Indians respectively will be returned. It is, however, expected that, initially, the numbers will be approximately as follows: Madras 4 European, 2 Indians; Bombay(including Sind), 5 Europeans, 3 Indians; Bengal, 14 Europeans, 5 Indians; United Provinces, 2 Europeans, 1 Indian; Punjab, 1 Indian, Bihar and Orissa, 2 Europeans, 2 Indians; Central Provinces (including Berar), 1 European, 1 Indian; Assam, 8 Europeans, 3 Indians; Bombay(without Sind), 4 Europeans, 3 Indians; Sind, 1 European, 1 Indian.

(b) Seven of these seats will be reserved for Mahrattas.

(c) As explained in paragraph  9 of the statement, the number of special Depressed Class seats in Bengal- which will not exceed 10-has not yet been fixed. The number of General seats will be 80, less the number of special Depressed Class seats.

(d) One of these seats is a Tumandar's seat. The four Landholders' seats will be filled from special constituencies with joint electorates. It is probable, from the distribution of the electorate, that the members returned will be one Hindu, one Sikh and two Mohammedans.

(e) This woman's seat will be filled from a non-communal constituency at Shillong.

Under the Poona Pact the numbers for Depressed Classes were changed as follows(as was the mode of election)

"(1) There shall be seats reserved for the Depressed Classes out of the general electorate seats in the Provincial Legislatures as follows:÷

Madras 30: Bombay with Sind 15; Punjab 8; Bihar and Orissa 18; Central Provinces 20; Assam 7; Bengal 30; United Provinces 20; Total 148..."

Comment:

Under the Poona Pact,  separate electorates for Scheduled Castes were withdrawn and their representatives would henceforth be elected under joint electorates with Hindus. However, in return,  as can be seen above,  reserved seats for Scheduled Castes were granted in excess of those awarded under the 1932 Communal Award.

Ambedkar writes in Chapter VI:

...To  sum up this discussion of the Communal Award, it may be said that, as a solution of the Communal Question in its " lesser intent", there is no inequity in the Award on the ground that it gives weightage to the Muslim minorities in the Hindu Provinces. For, it gives weightage also to Hindu minorities in Muslim Provinces. Similarly, it may be said that there is no inequity in the Award, on the ground that it gives a statutory majority to the Muslims in Muslim Provinces in which they are a majority. If there is any, the statutory limitation put upon the Muslim number of seats, also gives to the Hindus in Hindu Provinces a statutory majority. But the same cannot be said of the Award in the matter of the electorates. The Communal Award is iniquitous inasmuch as it accords unequal treatment to the Hindu and Muslim minorities in the matter of electorates. It grants the Muslim minorities in the Hindu Provinces the right of self-determination in the matter of electorates, but it does not grant the same right to the Hindu minorities in the Muslim Provinces. In the Hindu Provinces, the Muslim minority is allowed to choose the kind of electorates it wants and the Hindu majority is not permitted to have any say in the matter. But in the Muslim Provinces, it is the  Muslim majority which is allowed to choose the kind of electorates it prefers and the Hindu minority is not permitted to have any say in the matter. Thus, the Muslims in the Muslim Provinces having been given both statutory majority and separate electorates, the Communal Award must be said to impose upon the Hindu minorities Muslim rule, which they can neither alter nor influence.

This is what constitutes the fundamental wrong in the Communal Award. That this is a grave wrong must be admitted. For, it offends against certain political principles, which have now become axiomatic. First is, not to trust any one with unlimited political power. As has been well said,

 "If in any state there  is a body of men who possess unlimited political power, those over whom they rule can never be free. For, the one assured result of historical investigation is the lesson that uncontrolled power is invariably poisonous to those who possess it. They are always tempted to impose their canon of good upon others, and in the end, they assume that the good of the community depends upon the continuance of their power. Liberty always demands a limitation of political authority..."

The second principle is that, as a King has no Divine Right to rule, so also a majority has no Divine Right to rule. Majority Rule is tolerated only because it is for a limited period and subject to the right to have it changed, and secondly because it is a rule of a political majority, i.e., majority which has submitted itself to the suffrage of a minority and not a communal majority. If such is the limited scope of authority permissible to a political majority over a political minority, how can a minority of one community be placed under the perpetual subjection of a majority of another community?  To allow a majority of one community to rule a minority of another community without requiring the majority to submit itself to the suffrage of the minority, especially when the minority demands it, is to enact a perversion of democratic principles and to show a callous disregard for the safety and security of the Hindu minorities.

Ambedkar writes in Chapter XI:

After taking into account what the Muslims demanded at the R. T. C. and what was conceded to them, any one could have thought that the limit of Muslim demands was reached and that the 1932 settlement was a final settlement. But, it appears that even with this the Musalmans are not satisfied. A further list of new demands for safeguarding the Muslim position seems to be ready. In the controversy that went on between Mr. Jinnah and the Congress in the year 1938, Mr. Jinnah was asked to disclose his demands which he refused to do. But these demands have come to the surface in the correspondence that passed between Pandit Nehru and Mr. Jinnah [Nehru's reply to Jinnah in Extra (4B)] in the course of the controversy and they have been tabulated by Pandit Nehru in one of his letters to Mr. Jinnah. His tabulation gives the following items as being matters of disputes and requiring settlement :—

(1) The fourteen points formulated by the Muslim League in 1929.

(2) The Congress should withdraw all opposition to the Communal Award and should not describe it as a negation of nationalism.

(3) The share of the Muslims in the state services should be definitely fixed in the constitution by statutory enactment.

(4) Muslim personal law and culture should be guaranteed by statute.

(5) The Congress should take in hand the agitation in connection with the Shahidganj Mosque and should use its moral pressure to enable the Muslims to gain possession of the Mosque.

(6) The Muslims' right to call Azan and perform their religious ceremonies should not be fettered in any way.

(7) Muslims should have freedom to perform cow-slaughter.

(8) Muslim majorities in the Provinces,  where such majorities exist at present, must not be affected by any territorial re-distribution or adjustments.

(9) The ' Bande Mataram' song should be given up.

(10) Muslims want Urdu to be the national language of India and they desire to have statutory guarantees that the use of Urdu shall not be curtailed or damaged.

(11) Muslim representation in the local bodies should be governed by the principles underlying the Communal Award, that is, separate electorates and population strength.

(12) The tricolour flag should be changed or alternately the flag of the Muslim League should be given equal importance.

(13) Recognition of the Muslim League as the one authoritative and representative organization of Indian Muslims.

(14) Coalition Ministries should be formed.   

    With this new list, there is no knowing where the Muslims are going to stop in their demands. Within one year, that is, between 1938 and 1939, one more demand and that too of a substantial character, namely 50 per cent. share in every thing, has been added to it. In this catalogue of new demands there are some which on the face of them are extravagant and impossible, if not irresponsible.

As an instance, one may refer to the demand for fifty-fifty and the demand for the recognition of Urdu as the national language of India. In 1929, the Muslims insisted that in allotting seats in Legislatures, a majority shall not be reduced to a minority or equality. This principle, enunciated by themselves, it is now demanded, shall be abandoned and a majority shall be reduced to equality. The Muslims in 1929 admitted that the other minorities required protection and that they must have it in the same manner as the Muslims. The only distinction made between the Muslims and other minorities was as to the extent of the protection. The Muslims claimed a higher degree of protection than was conceded to the other minorities on the ground of their political importance. The necessity and adequacy of protection for the other minorities the Muslims never denied. But with this new demand of 50 per cent. the Muslims are not only seeking to reduce the Hindu majority to a minority but they are also cutting into the political rights of the other minorities. The Muslims are now speaking the language of Hitler and claiming a place in the sun as Hitler has been doing for Germany. For their demand for 50 per cent. is nothing but a counterpart of the German claims for Deutschland Uber Alles and Lebenuraum for themselves, irrespective of what happens to other minorities.

   Their claim for the recognition of Urdu as the national language of India is equally extravagant. Urdu is not only not spoken all, over India but is not even the language of all the Musalmans of India. Of the 68 millions of Muslims only 28 millions speak Urdu. The proposal of making Urdu the national language means that the language of 28 millions of Muslims is to be imposed particularly upon 40 millions of Musalmans or generally upon 322 millions of Indians.

    It will thus be seen that every time a proposal for the reform of the constitution comes forth, the Muslims are there, ready with some new political demand or demands. The only check upon such indefinite expansion of Muslim demands is the power of the British Government, which must be the final arbiter in any dispute between the Hindus and the Muslims. Who can confidently say that the decision of the British will not be in favour of the Muslims if the dispute relating to these new demands was referred to them for arbitration ? The more the Muslims demand the more accommodating the British seem to become. At any rate, past experience shows that the British have been inclined to give the Muslims more than what the Muslims had themselves asked. Two such instances can be cited.

One of these relates to the Lucknow Pact. The question was whether the British Government should accept the Pact. The authors of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report were disinclined to accept it for reasons which were very weighty. Speaking of the weightages granted to the Muslims by the Lucknow Pact, the authors' of the Joint Report observed:—

" Now a privileged position of this kind is open to the objection, that if any other community here after makes good a claim to separate representation, it can be satisfied only by deducting the non-Muslim seats, or by a rateable deduction from both Muslim and non-Muslim ; and Hindu and Muslim opinion are not likely to agree which process should be adopted. While, therefore, for reasons that we explain subsequently we assent to the maintenance of separate representation for Muhammadans, we are bound to reserve our approval of the particular proposals set before us, until we have ascertained what the effect upon other interests will be, .. and have made fair provision for them."

Notwithstanding this grave flaw in the Lucknow Pact, the Government of India, in its despatch referred to above, recommended that the terms of the Pact should be improved in so far as it related to the Muslims of Bengal. Its reasons make a strange reading. It argued that :—

" The Muhammadan representation which they the authors of the Pact  propose for Bengal is manifestly insufficient. It is questionable whether the claims of the Muhammadan population of Eastern Bengal were adequately pressed when the Congress-League compact was in the making. They are conspicuously a backward and impoverished community. The repartition of the presidency in 1912 came as a severe disappointment to them, and we should be very loath to fail in seeing that their interests are now generously secured. In order to give the Bengal Muslims a representation proportionate to their numbers, and no more, we should allot them 44 instead of 34 seats [due to them under the Pact]."

This enthusiasm for the Bengal Muslims shown by the Government of India was not shared by the British Government. It felt that as the number of seats given to the Bengal Muslims was the result of an agreement, any interference to improve the bargain when there was no dispute about the genuineness of the agreement, could not but create the impression that the British Government was in some special sense and for some special reason the friend of the Muslims. In suggesting this augmentation in the seats, the Government of India forgot to take note of the reason why the Muslims of the Punjab and Bengal were not given by the Pact seats in proportion to their population.

The Lucknow Pact was based upon the principle, now thrown to the winds, that a community as such was not entitled to political protection. A community was entitled to protection when it was in a minority. That was the principle underlying the Lucknow Pact. The Muslim community in the Punjab and Bengal was not in a minority and, therefore, was not entitled to the same protection which it got in other Provinces where it was in a minority. Notwithstanding their being in a majority, the Muslims of the Punjab and Bengal felt the necessity of separate electorates. According to the principle underlying the Pact they could qualify themselves for this only by becoming a minority which they did by agreeing to a minority of seats. This is the reason why the Muslims of Bengal and the Punjab did not get the majority of seats they were entitled to on the population basis.

The proposal of the Government of India to give to the Bengal Muslims more than what they had asked for did not go through. But the fact that they wanted to do so remains as evidence of their inclinations.

The second occasion when the British Government as an arbiter gave the Muslims more than they asked for was when the Communal Decision was given in 1932. Sir Muhammad Shafi made two different proposals in the Minorities Sub-Committee of the R. T. C. In his speech on 6th January 1931, Sir Muhammad Shafi put forth the following proposal as a basis for communal settlement :—

" We are prepared to accept joint electorates on the conditions named by me : Firstly, that the rights at present enjoyed by the Musalmans in the minority Provinces should be continued to them; that in the Punjab and in Bengal they should have two joint electorates and representation on a population basis; that there should be the principle of reservation of seats coupled with Maulana Mahomed Ali's condition."

In his speech on 14th January 1931 before the same Committee he made a different offer. He said :—

" To-day I am authorized to make this  offer : that in the Punjab the Musalmans should have through communal electorates 49 per cent. of the entire number of seats in the whole House, and should have liberty to contest the special constituencies which it is proposed to create in that Province : so far as Bengal is concerned that Musalmans should have through communal electorates 46 percent, representation in the whole House, and should have the liberty to contest the special constituencies which it is proposed to create in that Province; in so far as the minority Provinces are concerned, the Musalmans should continue to enjoy the weightage which they have at present through separate electorates, similar weightage to be given to our Hindu brethren in Sind and to our Hindu and Sikh brethren in the North-West Frontier Province. If at any time hereafter  of the representatives of any community in any Provincial Legislative Council or in the Central Legislative Council desire to give up communal electorates and to accept joint electorates then there after the system of joint electorates should come into being."

The difference between the two proposals is clear. "Joint electorates, if accompanied by statutory majority. If statutory majority was refused, then a minority of seats with separate electorates." The British Government took statutory majority from the first demand and separate electorates from the second demand and gave the Muslims both when they had not asked for both.

(end quote)

Comment

The Communal Award 1932 was used as basis for assigning seats in the Government of India Act 1935.

Table 6. Allocation of Seats under the Government of India Act, 1935, for the Lower House of the Federal Legislature for British India, by Province and by Community

Comment:

When in 1939, M.A. Jinnah demanded 50% representation for 25% Muslims on the basis of the two-nation theory, as can be seen in Table 7,  in the Federal Assembly  operating under the Government of India Act 1935, the number of  Muslim seats already constituted 80% of the number of  Hindu seats.

Table 7. General and Muslim Distribution of Seats by Number and Percentages in the Federal Legislature under Government of India Act 1935