WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A FALSE CLAIM 149
Only about ten per cent of the population was given the right to vote. The high franchise made the electorate a hive of the middle and the intellectual classes, both of which were intensely pro-Congress. Coming to the relative position of the Congress and the Non-Congress Parties, the following points call for special notice. On the Congress side there were massed all the sinews of war, money and organization. The Non-Congress candidates were without a party chest and had no organization. The Congress candidates were the blue boys of the public. They were enemies of British Imperialism, out to achieve freedom and independence of the country. Gaol life had invested the Congress candidates with the halo of martyrdom. As a rule no one was selected as a Congress candidate who had not gone to gaol. The Non-Congress candidates were represented by the congress Press—and as I have said there is no other press in India—as the showboys of the British, with no record of service to or sacrifice for the country, agents of British Imperialism, enemies of the country, job-hunters, fellows out to sell the interests of the country for a mess of pottage and so on. There was another factor which told in favour of the Congress candidates and against the Non-Congress candidates. The Congress had boycotted the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms of 1920 and the Congress candidates had not to answer for any act of commission or omission in regard to the administration of the country. The Non-Congress candidates on the other hand were drawn from those who had worked the Reforms and had to answer for many acts of omission and commission, which is the lot of all those who have the courage to take upon their shoulders the responsibilities of administration. The Non-Congress candidates were accused of having made the places dirty and the Congress candidates were proclaimed as angels going to clean the augean stables. In a situation like this, any one, knowing how the dice was loaded in favour of the Congress, cannot but feel surprised at the sorry figure the Congress cut in the election. With all its resources, prestige and public sympathy the Congress should have swept the polls. But it did not even get fifty per cent of the seats or the votes.
Is there any doubt that the Congress claim to represent all classes and communities is a hollow claim with no foundation in fact ?