z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-07.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 569
IN SUB-COMMITTEE NO. VI 569
to take these into account, you are restricting and not enlarging their possibility of action.
Dr. Ambedkar: I should like, if I may, to ask one question with regard to the conclusion which you, Sir, have read out, and at which you said the Sub-Committee had arrived. Does that conclusion imply that the Franchise Committee will have the liberty to consider a variety of franchises for different communities, to arrive at the result that the voting strength shall be proportional to the strength of those communities ?
Chairman: I do not think that is it. We have to give guidance to the Franchise Committee ; they will fill in the details. We are, as it were, the architects, and they are the masons and builders.
Dr. Ambedkar: I understand that, but what I should like to know is whether that conclusion gives liberty to the Franchise Committee to have a different franchise for the different communities with the object of securing equality.
Chairman: No. The first sentence says that we recommend that in any given area the franchise qualification should be the same for all communities. We will now proceed with our discussion on the educational qualification.
† Mr. Jadhav : Would any Legislative Council have the power to go back after ten years and restrict the franchise? Some of them might wish to do that.
Chairman : Their powers would be powers of extension, not of diminution.
Dr. Ambedkar: I should like to say a word on this subject, without prejudice to the position we have taken all along. It seems to me that as compared with the alternatives which have been suggested, one by Mr. Joshi that there should be some law providing for automatic extension, and the other, the main proposal, that the matter should be left to the sweet will of the Legislatures, the recommendations made by the Simon Commission seems to me to be better and to be more readily acceptable from my point of view. It might be much better, as I say, to have some authority which will investigate at the end of a definite period exactly what has been the result of the working of the franchise up to that period. That body will be able to see what disparity there has been as between the different provinces. That body will be able to see what is the machinery existing at the end of the ten years, in order to cope with the elections if the franchise were to be altered, and that body, being impartial itself, will be able to deal with the rights of the mass of the people much more readily, in a much more just and equitable way, than the class-conscious people who may be installed as a result of the limited franchise which we are introducing today. For these reasons it seems to me that the proposals of the Simon Commission are better than the alternatives.
Sir Cowasji Jehangir: Who is to set that up ?
† Proceedings of the Sub-Committee No. VI (Franchise), pp. 138-39.