z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-09.indd MK SJ+DK 21-9-2013 728
728 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Mr. J. Bannerjee : The award of His Majesty’s Government is much more acceptable to us than the Poona Pact.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I will ask you one or two questions about that. Your complaint is that the Poona Pact gives a larger number of seats to the Depressed Classes than were given in His Majesty’s Government’s Award. I want to draw your attention to the letter of the Prime Minister to Mr. Gandhi dated 8th September, 1932, and this is what he said. “The number of territorial seats allotted to Muslims is naturally conditioned by the fact that it is impossible for them to gain any further territorial seats and that in most Provinces they enjoy weightage in excess of their population ratio.” I want to draw your special attention to this. “The number of special seats to be filled from special Depressed Class constituencies will be seen to be small and has been fixed, not to provide a quota numerically appropriate for the representation of the whole of the Depressed Class population, but solely to procure a minimum number of spokesmen for the Depressed Classes in the Legislature who are chosen exclusively by the Depressed Classes. The proportion of their special seats is everywhere much below the population percentage of the Depressed Classes ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee : Quite so, because it is expected that many of the Depressed Classes, especially in Bengal, will come in through the general constituencies.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: What I want to draw your attention to is this : In giving the Communal Award and apportioning seats to the Depressed Classes His Majesty’s Government and the Prime Minister have definitely admitted that those seats are not in proportion to the population ratio and were much below ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee : Quite true but at the same time, the Prime Minister there distinctly makes it clear that the number allotted to the Depressed Classes is less than their numerical proportion, because he specifically mentions the case of Bengal, because in Bengal many of the Depressed Class members would be sure to come in through general constituencies.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: He never mentioned anything about Bengal, I can assure you ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee: Most certainly he has done so ; I have read the award carefully.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. With regard to this, there was a session held — the seventh session of the Bengal Provincial Hindu Conference at Malda, somewhere between the 17th and 19th of September, 1932, under the presidency of Mr. Ramanand Chatterjee. Is that so ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee: Very possibly.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: In the seventh session of the Bengal Provincial Hindu Conference at Malda ?