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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
A PPENDIX II
POLITICAL SAFEGUARDS FOR DEPRESSED CLASSES
Supplementary Memorandum on the claims of the Depressed Classes for Special Representation, submitted to the R. T. C. by Dr. Bhimrao R. Ambedkar and Rao Bahadur R. Srinivasan.
I N the memorandum that was submitted by us last year dealing with the question of political safeguards for the protection of the Depressed Classes in the constitution for a self-governing India, and which forms Appendix III, to the printed volume of Proceedings of the Minorities Sub-Committee, we had demanded that special representation of the Depressed Classes must form one of such safeguards. But we did not then define the details of the special representation we claimed as being necessary for them. The reason was that the proceedings of the Minorities Sub-Committee came to an end before the question was reached. We now propose to make good the omission by this supplementary memorandum so that the Minorities Sub-Committee, if it comes to consider the question this year, should have the requisite details before it.
(1) E XTENT OF S PECIAL, R EPRESENTATION
A. Special Representation in Provincial Legislatures.
( i ) In Bengal, Central Provinces, Assam, Bihar and Orissa, Punjab and the United Provinces, the Depressed Classes shall have representation in proportion to their population as estimated by the Simon Commission and the Indian Central Committee.
( ii ) In Madras, the Depressed Classes shall have twenty-two per cent representation.
( iii ) In Bombay:
( a ) in the event of Sind continuing to be a part of the Bombay Presidency, the Depressed Classes shall have sixteen per cent, representation;
( b ) in the event of Sind being separated from the Bombay Presidency the Depressed Classes shall enjoy the same degree of representation as the Presidency Muslims, both being equal in population.
B. — Special Representation in the Federal Legislature.
In Both Houses of the Federal Legislature, the Depressed Classes shall have representation in proportion to their population in India.
R ESERVATIONS
We have fixed this proportion of representation in the Legislatures on the following assumptions :—