WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A FALSE CLAIM 163
which there is no agent of the Congress to operate this machine. The Untouchables who stood on the Congress ticket had their electioneering done for them by this party machine of the Congress. Those Untouchables who stood against the Congress had no such party machine to help them. The scheme of separate representation was first introduced in Indian politics in the year 1909. The benefit of it was however given only to one community, namely, the Muslims. In 1920 the constitution was revised. In this revised constitution it was extended to the Non-Brahmins. The Untouchables were again left out. They were consoled with representation with one or two seats in the various Provincial Legislatures filled by nomination. It is for the first time in 1935 that they got the franchise and the right to representation through election. It is obvious that not having had any franchise the Untouchables had felt no need to set up a party machine of their own as there were no elections to be fought. They hardly had any time to organize themselves and to set up a party machine when suddenly in 1937 they were called upon to fight the elections. The fight between the Congress and the Untouchables was a fight between an army and a crowd.
The electoral difficulties in the way of the Untouchables were equally great. The first electoral difficulty arose from the unequal voting strength between the Hindus and the Untouchables in those General Electorates in which seats are reserved for the Untouchables. The following table contains figures showing the relative voting strength of the two.
This table shows how in the General Electorates the Scheduled Castes voters are outnumbered by the Hindu voters. Special attention should be paid to the proportion in which they are outnumbered by the Hindus. As the figures in the table show, in 20 constituencies the proportion of Scheduled Castes voters to Hindu voters is 10 to 100, in 27 constituencies between 11 and 15 to 100, in 18 constituencies between 15 and
20 to 100, in 27 constituencies between 21 and 25 to 100 and in 11 constituencies between 20 and 30 to 100. These instances will show how overwhelming is the majority of Hindu voters and by what a substantial margin the Hindus can overpower the Scheduled Castes voters. In this connection it must also be remembered that every Scheduled Caste Constituency is a Joint Electorate in which both classes of voters—those belonging to the Scheduled Castes and those belonging to the