z:\ ambedkar\vol 08\vol8 03.indd MK SJ+YS 28 9 2013 106
106 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
It is no answer that the Hindus also have a statutory majority based on separate electorates* in those Provinces where the Musalmans are in a minority. A little scrutiny will show that there is no parity of position in these two cases. The separate electorates for the Hindu majorities in the Hindu Provinces are not a matter of their choice. It is a consequence resulting from the determination of the Muslim minorities who claimed to have saparate electorates for themselves. A minority in one set of circumstances may think that separate electorates would be a better method of self-protection and may have no fear of creating against itself and by its own action a statutory majority based on separate electorates for the opposing community. Another minority or, for the matter of that, the same minority in a different set of circumstances would not like to create by its own action and against itself a statutory majority based upon separate electorates and may, therefore, prefer joint electorates to separate electorates as a better method of self-protection. Obviously the guiding principle, which would influence a minority, would be : Is the majority likely to use its majority in a communal manner and purely for communal purposes ? If it felt certain that the majority community is likely to use its communal majority for communal ends, it may well choose joint electorates, because it would be the only method by which it would hope to take away the communal cement of the statutory majority by influencing the elections of the representatives of the majority community in the Legislatures. On the other hand, a majority community may not have the necessary communal cement, which alone would enable it to use its communal majority for communal ends, in which case a minority, having no fear from the resulting statutory majority and separate electorates for the majority community, may well choose separate electorates for itself. To put it concretely, the Muslim minorities in choosing separate electorates are not afraid of the separate electorates and the statutory majority of the Hindus, because they feel sure that by reason of their deep-seated differences of caste and race the Hindus will never be able to use their
*It is perhaps not quite correct to speak of a Hindu Electorate. The Electorate is a General Electorate consisting of all those who are not included in any separate electorate. But as the majority in the General Electorate consists of Hindus, it is called a Hindu Electorate.