244 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Classes from the Hindus to have claimed special representation for themselves. [1] If their point of view had been accepted the total number of Depressed Classes would have swelled to enormous proportions. But they received no support either from the Untouchables or from the high caste Hindus. The Hindus were opposed to the move which was calculated to increase the population of the Depressed Classes. The Untouchables did not want to be included in their category any class of people who were not really Untouchables. The proper course for these backward communities was to have asked to make a division of Touchable Hindus into advanced and backward and to have claimed separate representation for the Backward. In that effort the Untouchables would have supported them. But they did not agree to this and persisted in being included among the Depressed Classes largely because they thought that this was easier way of securing their object. But as the Untouchables opposed this the backward communities turned and joined the Hindus in denying the existence of Untouchables, more vehemently than the Hindus.
In this struggle between the Touchables and Untouchables the latter did not get any support from the Mahomedans. It will be noticed that in the Punjab Provincial Franchise Committee, only one Mahomedan supported the representative of the Untouchables in his assertion that there are in the Punjab communities which are treated as Untouchables. The rest of the Mahomedan members of the Committee did not join. In Bengal the Hindu and the Mahomedan members of the Bengal Provincial Franchise Committee agreed not to express any view on the matter. It is rather strange that the Mahomedans should have kept mum. It was in their interest that the Untouchables should be recognized as a separate political community. This separation between the Touchables and the Untouchables was to their benefit. Why did they not help the Untouchables in this struggle for numbers? There were two reasons why the Mahomedans took this attitude. In the first place the Mahomedans were asking for more than their population ratio of representation. They were asking for what in Indian political parlance is known as weightage. They knew that their weightage must involve a loss to the Hindus and the only question was which section of the Hindus should bear the loss. The Touchable Hindus would not
1 The necessity for making such provision for the Backward Classes in U. P. from which this demand mainly came was amply demonstrated by what the Government of U. P. said in its Memorandum to the Simon Commission. Regarding the composition of the U. P. Legislature it said — “In the Province as a hole the four leading Hindu Castes, Brahman, Thakur, Vaishya and Kayastha form 21.5 per cent of the total Hindu population, but these four castes have supplied no less than 93 per cent of the Hindu Members of Council. The Jats, with 1.8 per cent of the population, have contributed another 5 per cent to the Hindu Membership; and all the millions included in the multitude of other Hindu Castes, including the real agricultural castes, though they amount to over 76 per cent of the Hindu population have only succeeded in supplying 2 per cent of the representation”, p. 560.