GANDHI AND HIS FAST 341
Fast”. In the pages of this lours Boswelliana the curious will find all he wants to know about the happenings in India during these mad days and I need say nothing about it here. Suffice it to say that although Mr. Gandhi went on fast unto death he did not want to die. He very much wanted to live.
The fast therefore created a problem and that problem was how to save Mr. Gandhi’s life. The only way to save his life was to alter the Communal Award so as not to hurt Mr. Gandhi’s conscience. The Prime Minister had made it quite clear that the British Cabinet would not withdraw it or alter it of its own but that they were ready to substitute for it a formula that may be agreed upon by the Caste Hindus and the Untouchables. As I had the privilege of representing the Untouchables at the Round Table Conference it was assumed that the assent of the Untouchables would not be valid unless I was a party to it. At the moment my position as the representative of the Untouchables of India was not only not questioned but was accepted as a fact. All eyes naturally turned to me as the man or rather as the villain of the piece. Mr. Gandhi’s life as he himself said was in my hands.
It is no exaggeration to say that no man was placed in a greater and graver dilemma than I was then. It was a baffling situation. I had to make a choice between two different alternatives. There was before me the duty which I owed as a part of common humanity to save Gandhi from sure death. There was before me the problem of saving for the Untouchables the political rights which the Prime Minister had given them. I responded to the call of humanity and saved the life of Mr. Gandhi by agreeing to alter the Communal Award in a manner satisfactory to Mr. Gandhi. This agreement is known as the Poona Pact.
The terms of the Poona Pact were as under :
- There shall be seats reserved for the Depressed Classes out of general electorates. Seats in Provincial Legislatures shall be as follows : Madras .. 30 Bombay with Sind .. 15 Punjab .. 8 Bihar and Orissa .. 18 Central Provinces .. 20 Assam .. 7 Bengal .. 30 United Provinces .. 20 Total .. 148
1 This number of 148 seats was raised to 151 in making adjustments on seats for Bihar and Orissa.