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52 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Syndicate or on the Academic Council. I recognise, and I realise fully as well as my honourable friend Professor Hamill does, that these two bodies are no doubt bodies which are to be manned by experts, who will run the show of the University. But I have to remind him that the Senate is entirely intended to be a legislative body, a body which has to put forth the needs of the backward communities and to suggest the facilities that are necessary for meeting them. The Senate in my opinion, corresponds exactly to our Legislative Council, and we have in this Legislative Council members from the depressed classes, who are appointed not because they desire to displace any honourable members who are sitting here on the Government side but their only business here is to point out to the Government what are the needs of the communities which are suffering under disabilities. That is all we are asking, and I think when my honourable friend makes the point he absolutely forgets what the Senate is intended to be.
Now, Sir, before I close, I wish to state one thing most emphatically, Sir, there is a demand from honourable members belonging to the Swaraj party that we must have provincial autonomy. Sir, it is a demand which is a welcome demand. But, Sir, I beg to submit that when three-fourths of the population is drenched in ignorance and does not know its rights and responsibilities there can be no hope of autonomy. If we do get self-government notwithstanding the fact that three-fourths of the population is drenched in ignorance, our representative system will be a sham, and there would be a rule of wealth against poverty, of power against weakness. That is really what it will be. I, therefore, say, Sir, that if we desire to have provincial autonomy, we must ensure two things. One thing is that every access must be given to every grade of modern education to the communities which are educationally backward, in order that they may realise their rights and liabilities of citizenship, and secondly, in order that every access may be given to these communities, it is absolutely necessary, under the present circumstances, that special representation should be provided for them.
Before I sit down, Sir, I do wish one matter cleared up. You, Sir, have given us a ruling yesterday about which I am not quite clear. I understand, Sir, from your ruling yesterday that the principle of communal representation has been ruled out. Now, by that I understand that the principle of communal representation in the ordinary sense of that word, namely, that the voters of a particular communities are to be grouped together to elect a member from that community is ruled out. That is my interpretation of your ruling. So that, we are debarred now from raising the question of communal representation on the various bodies of the University in that sense of the term. But I do not think that your ruling goes so far as to say that we shall have no say in the matter as to how the 40 seats which are reserved for nomination shall be distributed. I submit that that particular matter is still open for the honourable members of this House to discuss in the select committee or at the second reading. I should like to ask, therefore, my honourable friend the Minister of Education that in his concluding