z:\ ambedkar\vol 08\vol8 03.indd MK SJ+YS 28 9 2013 103
CHAPTER VI
PAKISTAN AND COMMUNAL PEACE
Does Pakistan solve the Communal Question is a natural question which every Hindu is sure to ask. A correct answer to this question calls for a close analysis of what is involved in it. One must have a clear idea as to what is exactly meant, when the Hindus and Muslims speak of the Communal Question. Without it, it will not be possible to say whether Pakistan does or does not solve the Communal Question.
It is not generally known that the Communal Question like the “Forward Policy” for the Frontier has a “greater” and a “lesser intent,” and that in its lesser intent it means one thing, and in its greater intent it means quite a different thing.
I
To begin with the Communal Question in its “lesser intent”. In its lesser intent, the Communal Question relates to the representation of the Hindus and the Muslims in the Legislatures. Used in this sense, the question involves the settlement of two distinct problems :—
(1) The number of seats to be allotted to the Hindus and the Muslims in the different legislatures, and
(2) The nature of the electorates through which these seats are to be filled in.
The Muslims at the Round Table Conference claimed :—
(1) That their representatives in all the Provincial as well as in the Central Legislatures should be elected by separate electorates ;
(2) That they should be allowed to retain the weightage in representation given to Muslim minorities in those Provinces in which they were a minority in the population, and that in addition, they should be given in those Provinces where they were a majority such as the Punjab, Sind, North-West Frontier Province and Bengal, a guaranteed statutory majority of seats.