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414 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
India can make any political advance without a solution of the question which one may refuse to discuss. It does not belong to that class of questions about which people can agree to differ. It is a question for which solution will have to be found. How ? It must be by agreement or by arbitration. If it is to be by agreement, it must be the result of negotiations— of give and take and not of surrender by one side to the other. That is not agreement. It is dictation. Good sense may in the end prevail and parties may come to an agreement. But agreement may turn out to be a very dilatory way. It may take long before good sense prevails. How long one cannot say. The political freedom of India is a most urgent necessity. It cannot be postponed and yet without a solution of the communal problem it cannot be hastened. To make it dependent on agreement is to postpone its solution indefinitely. Another expeditious method must be found. It seems to me that arbitration by an International Board is the best way out. The disputed points in the minorities problem including that of Pakistan should be remitted to such a Board. The Board should be constituted of persons drawn from countries outside the British Empire. Each statutory minority in India— Muslims, Scheduled Castes, Sikhs, Indian Christians—should be asked to select its nominee to this Board of Arbitration. These minorities as also the Hindus should appear before the Board in support of their demands and should agree to abide by the decision given by the Board. The British should give the following undertakings:—
(1) That they will have nothing to do with the communal settlement. It will be left to agreement or to a Board of Arbitration.
(2) They will implement the decision of the Board of Arbitration on the communal question by embodying it in the Government of India Act.
(3) That the award of the International Board of Arbitration would be regarded by them as a sufficient discharge of their obligations to the minorities in India and would agree to give India Dominion Status.
The procedure has many advantages. It eliminates the fear of British interference in the communal settlement which has been