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698 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
examine and his certificate should be countersigned by a tahsildar. I think the administrative difficulty that is suggested is this : How is a village officer to approach a woman in the village to find out whether she is literate or not ? Would you make it depend upon the woman who wants to get her vote having to approach and make an application ?
Sir Philip Hartog : I think that is the only possible way. She would have to have sufficient interest to say, either herself or through her husband : “I wish to be placed on the roll ; I am literate and am willing to be tested.”
C74. Mr. Butler : How does that difter from application ?
Lady Layton : I do not think we have objected to application on the part of literacy in our Memorandum. We do not object. We think that the people who are already recognised as literate in any educational qualification that is admitted should be put automatically on the roll. Beyond that it must be a matter of application.
C75. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : So really this objection raised on the basis of inquiries made in households, which might be objectionable, would not arise ?
Sir Philip Hartog : May I just say, it seems to me to be an appropriate point to make reference to two answers of the Secretary of State bearing directly upon the point which has been raised by Dr. Ambedkar. In answer to question 7437 the Secretary of State said : “In future, for future generations of girls or women, it will be a comparatively simple matter to adopt your educational registers and returns for electoral purposes, but in Provinces where that has not been done hitherto, there will be very considerable difficulty in doing it for the first election.” Now, I should like to point out that if you read that with another answer of the Secretary of State, he says at page 817, question 7214 : “There will be no change for X years.” In answer to the Marquess of Salisbury, he suggests that in the Act of Parliament he would say for X number of years there can be no alteration of the franchise. Consequently, it would be of little use to have a register for the second, third or fourth elections, if those second, third or fourth elections came within the period of X years. Let me take the question of number. The total number of literate women is estimated in the Lothian Report to be a million and a quarter. It is on page 86 of that Report. Of those, 3,45,000 are in Madras, with regard to whom there is no difficulty. That leaves over for the rest of India the relatively small number of 8,75,000. Now, if it was possible to put
3,45,000 Madras women on the rolls for one election, and that must have been done at some time or another, why is it impossible to put 8,75,000 women on the rolls for the whole of the rest of India ?
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Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Mrs. Hamid Ali on behalf of All India Women’s Conference and two other Women’s Associations
*C334. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Did you say there would be no difficulty about the Muhammadan households ?
*Minutes of Evidence, Vol. II-C, 29th July 1933, pp. 2314-21.