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444 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
impossible for me to follow you through any detailed consideration of the conditions and the share that the community has a right to claim in the administration of public affairs. I can at present only deal with generalities. The points which you have raised are before the Committee, which, as you know, I have lately appointed to consider the question of presentation (? representation), and I will take care that your address is submitted to them, but at the same time I hope I may be able to reply to the general tenor of your remarks without in any way forestalling the Committee’s report.
The Question of Representation
The pith of your address, as I understand it, is a claim that in any system of representation whether it affects a Municipality, a District Board or a Legislative Council, in which it is proposed to introduce or increase an electoral organisation, the Mahomedan community should be represented as a community. You point out that in many cases electoral bodies, as now constituted, cannot be expected to return a Mahomedan candidate, and that if by chance they did so it could only be at the sacrifice of such a candidate’s view to those of a majority opposed to his own community whom he would in no way represent, and you justly claim that your numerical strength both in respect to the political importance of your community and the service it has rendered to the Empire entitle you to consideration. I am entirely in accord with you ; please do not misunderstand me. I make no attempt to indicate by what means the representation of communities can be obtained, but I am as firmly convinced as I believe you to be that any electoral representation in India would be doomed to mischievous failure which aimed at granting a personal enfranchisement regardless of the beliefs and traditions of the communities composing the population of this continent. The great mass of the people of India have no knowledge of representative institutions. I agree with you, gentlemen, that the initial rungs in the ladder of self-government are to be found in the Municipal and District Boards and that it is in that direction that we must look for the gradual political education of the people.