Gandhi and Separate electorates - 1

In spite of Gandhi's objections, the 1932 Communal Award granted separate electorates to Depressed Classes with representation in provincial legislatures in the following numbers:
Madras 18; Bombay with Sind 10; Punjab 0; Bihar and Orissa 7; Central Provinces 10; Assam 4; Bengal 30? ; United Provinces 12; Total 91;

Under the 1932 Communal Award of separate electorates, Depressed Classes could vote only for Depressed Class candidates who could seek votes only among Depressed Class voters.The number of Depressed Class candidates selected would be in the above numbers.

Gandhi went on a fast onto death and essentially blackmailed BR Ambedkar to yield on separate electorates. They signed the Poona Pact in which seats were reserved in following (increased) number for Depressed Classes:

Madras 30; Bombay with Sind 15; Punjab 8; Bihar and Orissa 18; Central Provinces 20; Assam 7; Bengal 30; United Provinces 20; Total 148..." (the book says 148 but actually for me it adds up to 147)

The Poona Pact specified that only Depressed Class candidates who had been voted for by a 'primary' election held among only Depressed Classes voters could stand for election in these reserved constituencies.
The election would be thereafter be under joint or mixed electorates which meant all General voters who were franchised, (ie all franchised voters who were not Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo Indian, European) would vote for or against these above-selected Depressed Class candidates. The number of Depressed Class candidates selected would be in the Poona Pact numbers listed above.

This meant that all General Constituencies Depressed Classes would vote for Caste Hindus and seek votes from Caste Hindus in the reserved constituencies(at the minimum). Caste Hindus would vote for Depressed Class candidates in all reserved constituencies and would seek Depressed Class votes in all General constituencies.

Gandhi had previously said at the Round Table Conference in 1931:
Gandhiji on the stalemate in communal settlement, Second Round Table Conference, 13 November 1931

I have not been able to read, with the care and attention that it deserves, the memorandum sent to the delegates on behalf of certain Minorities and received this morning. Before I offer a few remarks on that memorandum, with your permission and with all the deference and respect that are your due, I would express my dissent from the view that you put before this Committee-that the inability to solve the communal question was hampering the progress of Constitution-building, and that it was an indispensable condition prior to the building of any such Constitution.

I did not share that view. The experience that I have since gained has confirmed me in that view and, if you will pardon me for saying so, it was because of the emphasis that was laid last year and repeated this year upon this difficulty, that the different communities were encouraged to press with all the vehemence at their command their own respective views. It would have been against human nature if they had done otherwise. All of them thought that this was the time to press forward their claims for all they were worth, and I venture to suggest again that this very emphasis has defeated the purpose which I have no doubt it had in view. This is the reason why we have failed to arrive at an agreement.

As representing the predominant political organization in India, I have no hesitation in saying to His Majesty's Government and to those friends who seek to represent the Minorities mentioned against their names, and indeed to the whole world, that this scheme is not one designed to achieve responsible government, though undoubtedly, it is designed to share power with the bureaucracy.


If that is the intention- and it is the intention running through the whole of that document-I wish them well, and Congress is entirely out of it. The Congress will wander, no matter how many years, in the wilderness rather than lend itself to a proposal under which the hardy tree of freedom and responsible government can never grow.

I am astonished that Sir Hubert Carr should tell us that they have evolved a scheme which, being designed only for a temporary period, would not damage the cause of nationalism, but at the end of ten years we would all find ourselves hugging one another and throwing ourselves into one another's laps. My political experience teaches me a wholly different lesson. If this responsible government whenever it comes, is to be inaugurated under happy auspices, the nation should not undergo the process of vivisection to which this scheme subjects it: it is a strain which no national Government can easily bear.
...

In my humble opinion the proposition enunciated by Sir Hubert Carr is the very negation of responsible government, the very negation of nationalism. If he says that if you want a live European on the Legislature then he must be
elected by the Europeans themselves, well, heaven help India if India has to have representatives elected by these several, special, cut-up groups. That European will serve India as a whole, and that European only, who commands the approval of the common electorate and not the mere Europeans. This very idea suggests that the responsible government will always have to contend against these interests which will always be in conflict against the national spirit-against this body of 85 per cent of agricultural population.

To me it is an unthinkable thing. If we are going to bring into being responsible government and if we are going to get real freedom, then I venture to suggest that it should be the proud privilege and the duty of every one of these so-called special classes to seek entry into the Legislatures through this open door, through the election and approval of the common body of electorates. You know that Congress is wedded to adult suffrage, and under adult suffrage it will be open to all to be placed on the voters' list. More than that nobody can ask.

One word more as to the so-called Untouchables.
I can understand the claims advanced by other Minorities, but the claims advanced on behalf of the Untouchables, that to me is the 'unkindest cut of all'. It means the perpetual bar sinister. I would not sell the vital interests of the Untouchables even for the sake of winning the freedom of India. I claim myself in my own person to represent the vast mass of the Untouchables.

Let this Committee and let the whole world know that today there is a body of Hindu reformers who are pledged to remove this blot of Untouchability. We do not want on our register and our census Untouchables classified as a separate class. Sikhs may remain such in perpetuity, so may Muhammadans, so may Europeans. Will Untouchables remain in perpetuity? I would rather that Hinduism died than that Untouchability lived...I am speaking with a due sense of responsibility, and I say that it is not a proper claim which is registered by Dr. Ambedkar when he seeks to speak for the whole of the Untouchables of India.

It will create a division in Hinduism which I cannot possible look forward to with any satisfaction whatsoever. I do not mind Untouchables, if they so desire, being converted to Islam or Christianity. I should tolerate that, but I cannot possibly tolerate what is in store for Hinduism if there are two political divisions set forth in the villages. Those who speak of the political rights of Untouchables do not know their India, do not know how Indian society is today constructed, and therefore I want to say with all the emphasis that I can command that if I was the only person to resist this thing I would resist it with my life.