z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-06.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 474
474 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
departments are exclusively assigned to the depressed classes and certain departments are departments into which they are not allowed to enter.
- Certain kinds of occupations are forbidden to them ?
Dr. Ambedkar: In the mills, yes.
- I think you said they are not allowed to go into the weaving department ?
Dr. Ambedkar: Yes.
- If they became members of the same trade union, would the workers in the weaving department decline to allow them in ?
Dr. Ambedkar: They would decline to allow them in. If I may mention one thing, in the recent Bombay strike this matter was brought up prominently by me. I said to the members of the union that if they did not recognise the right of the depressed classes to work all the departments, I would rather dissuade the depressed classes from taking part in the strike. They afterwards consented, most reluctantly, to include this as one of their demands, and when they presented this to the millowners, the millowners very rightly snubbed them and said that if this was an injustice, they certainly were not responsible for it.
- It is not altogether merely a case of the employers wanting to get cheap labour and confining certain departments to the depressed classes for economic reasons ?
Dr. Ambedkar: No, it is untouchability.
- Would there be anything of this in the situation ? The better-paid Indian, say, declines to allow the untouchable to come into his department for fear that the effect of their lower wages would be to depress wages in his department ?
Dr. Ambedkar : No. There is no distinction on the basis of wages.
- That does not come into it at all ?
Dr. Ambedkar: No, not at all.
- It is merely a question of untouchability ?
Dr. Ambedkar: Quite so.
- Mr. Cadogan: They can be members of the trade union ?
Dr. Ambedkar: Yes.
- Mr. Premchand: Can you give me a strict definition of the classes who will be on a special register of the electorate as the depressed classes ?
Dr. Ambedkar: Castes which cause pollution.
- Is the principle that the lower the standing of a community the greater the electoral advantage it should command over others, justifiable ?
Dr. Ambedkar: Yes.
- If all minorities are granted additional seats, what then will constitute the majority ?
Dr. Ambedkar: If minorities put together make up a majority there is no majority and the question does not arise. There may be class distinctions among the minorities. I can quite conceive the Mahomedans in the Bombay Presidency being divided into two groups, one favouring the capitalists and