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PAKISTAN : PAKISTAN AND COMMUNAL PEACE
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community. For, fixing the seats of the minority involves the fixation of the seats of the majority. There is, therefore, no escape from the system of statutory majority, once it is conceded that the minority is not entitled to representation which would convert a majority into a minority. There is, therefore, no great force in the objections of the Hindus to a statutory majority of the Mulsims in the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Bengal. For, even in the Provinces where the Hindus are in a majority and the Muslims are in minority, the Hindus have got a statutory majority over the Muslims. At any rate, there is a parity of position and to that extent there can be said to be no ground for complaint.
This does not mean that because the objections set forth by the Hindus have no substance, there are no real grounds for opposing the Communal Award. There does exsit a substantial ground of objection to the Communal Award, although, it does not appear to have been made the basis of attack by the Hindus.
This objection may be formulated in order to bring out its point in the following manner. The Muslim minorities in the Hindu Provinces insisted on separate electorates. The Communal Award gives them the right to determine that issue. This is really what it comes to when one remembers the usual position taken, viz., that the Muslim minorities could not be deprived of their separate electorates without their consent, and the majority community of the Hindus has been made to abide by their determination. The Hindu minorities in Muslim Provinces insisted that there should be joint electorates. Instead of conceding their claim, the Communal Award forced upon them the system of separate electorates to which they objected. If in the Hindu Provinces, the Muslim minoroties are allowed the right of self-determination in the matter of electorates, the question arises : Why are not the Hindu minorities in the Muslim Provinces given the right of self-determination in the matter of their electorates? What is the answer to this question ? And, if there is no answer, there is undoubtedly a deep seated inequity in the Communal Award of His Majesty’s Government, which calls for redress.