z:\ ambedkar\vol 08\vol8 05.indd MK SJ+YS 28 9 2013/YS 13 11 2013 396
396 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
claim a plebiscite of the whole province for ascertaining the will of the people. In the case of the plebiscite, a bare majority would be enough. Sir Stafford explained that for completing accession there would have to be a positive vote from the Provincial Assembly concerned. The non-acceding province could, if they wanted, combine into a separate union through a separate Constituent Assembly, but in order to make such a Union practicable they should be geographically contiguous.”
The main difference between my plan and that of Sir Stafford Cripps is quite obvious. For deciding the issue of accession or secession which is only another way of saying, will there be or will there not be Pakistan, Sir Stafford Cripps took the Province as a deciding unit. I have taken community as the deciding unit. I have no doubt that Sir Stafford adopted a wrong basis. The Province can be a proper unit if the points of dispute were inter-provincial. For instance, if the points of dispute related to questions such as distribution of taxation, of water, etc., one could understand the Province as a whole or a particular majority in that Province having the right to decide. But the dispute regarding Pakistan is an intercommunal problem which has involved two communities in the same Province. Further the issue in the dispute is not on what terms the two communities will agree to associate in a common political life. The dispute goes deeper and raises the question whether the communities are prepared at all to associate in a common political life. It is a communal difference in its essence and can only be decided by a community-wise plebiscite.
IV
I do not claim any originality for the solution I have proposed. The ideas which underlie it are drawn from three sources, from the Irish Unity Conference at which Horace Plunket presided, from the Home Rule Amending Bill of Mr. Asquith and from the Government of Ireland Act of 1920. It will be seen that my solution of the Pakistan problem is the result of pooled wisdom. Will it be accepted ? There are four ways of resolving the conflict which is raging round the question of Pakistan. First is that the British Government should act as the deciding authority. Second is that