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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
The Hindus of the Congress describe their own pet scheme as a National Scheme and call the scheme put forth by the Untouchables as the Communal Scheme. As I will show, there is no substance in this distinction. It is a case of damning what you do not like by the easy method of giving it a bad and a repelling name. Such tactics can’t give strength to a case which is inherently weak. To expose its weakness let me examine the merits of the socalled National Scheme. Before proceeding it might be desirable to note the points of agreement and the points of difference between the two. Both have the same object, inasmuch as both stand for a representative Legislature. The point of difference lies in the method of devising a scheme which will make the Legislature a truly representative Legislature. The so-called national scheme insists upon the territorial constituency as being both proper and sufficient for producing a representative Legislature in India. What is called the Communal Scheme denies that a territorial constitution can produce a truly representative legislature in India in view of the peculiar social structure of the Indian Society as it exists today. The issue can a purely territorial constituency produce a really representative legislature in India ? It is round this issue that the controversy has centered.
The so-called National Scheme of the Hindus generally appeals to the Westerner and he prefers it to the so-called Communal Scheme. This is largely because the Westerner knows and is accustomed only to the system of territorial constituency. But there can be no doubt that this so-called National Scheme is on merits quite unsound and on motives worse than communal.
That it is unsound will be quite obvious to any one who will stop to examine the assumptions which are involved in the alleged efficacy and sufficiency of the territorial constituency. What are these assumptions ? To mention only those which are most important,
(1) It assumes that the majority of voters in a constituency represents the will of the constituency as a whole.
(2) That it is enough to take stock of the general will of the constituency as expressed by the majority and mat the will of any particular section however much it may be in conflict with the will of the majority may be ignored without remorse and without being guilty of any inequity.