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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
A PPENDIX VII
MINORITIES AND WEIGHTAGE
Views of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report and of the Simom Commission on the inequitous distribution of weightage.
(1)
M ONTAGU -C HELMSFORD R EPORT .
Extract from the Montagu-Chelmsford Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms.
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- Important minorities, it is proposed, should be represented by election. This appears to point to Minority representation a system of which latter are specified only for Muhammadans, who are no longer to be allowed to vote in the general electorates as well as in their own special ones. We have elsewhere touched upon the difficulty of denying to certain other communities such as the Sikhs in the Punjab, a concession which is granted to Muhammadans. The authors of the scheme have also agreed upon, and set forth the proportions of the seats to be reserved for the special Muslim electorates in the various provinces. We are not aware on what basis, other than that of negotiation, the figured were arrived at. Separate electorates are proposed in all province even where Muhammadans are in a majority: and wherever they are numerically weak, the proportion suggested is in excess of their numerical strength or their present representation. At the same time, nearly all the Muslim associations which addressed us urged upon us that it should be still further increased. Now a privileged position of this kind is open to the objection, that if any other community hereafter makes good a claim to separate representation, it can be satisfied only by deduction from the non-Muslim seats, of else by a rateable deduction from both Muslim and non-Muslim; and Hindu Muslim opinions are not likely to agree which process should be adopted. While, therefore, for reasons that we explain subsequently, we assent to the maintenance of separate representation for Muhammadans, we are bound to reserve our approval of the particular proposals set before us until we have ascertained what the effect upon other interests will be, and have made fair provision for them. We agree with the authors of the scheme that Muhammadans should not have votes both in their own special, and in the general electorates—and we welcome the Muslim League’s assent to the revision in this respect of existing arrangements.”