POLITICAL GRIEVANCES 421
definition its de facto definition can never be in doubt. The matter is settled by the terms of Communal Award so that any community which is covered by the Communal Award of His Majesty’s Government must be held to be a minority. Indeed that is the basis on which the Government of India could declare that the Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, and Anglo-Indians are minorities. If these communities are minorities and they are minorities because they are covered by the Communal Award— then it is difficult to see how the claim of the Scheduled Castes to be declared a Minority be denied. For they too are covered by the same Award. Secondly, if Government is bound to declare them a minority then it follows as a natural consequence that Government is bound to define their share in the services and make it available by the same means and methods by which the share of other communities has been secured to them. Nor can anybody oppose the quantum of share to which they are entitled as the legitimate share of the Scheduled Castes. It has been shown that their population in British India is 13.6% and nothing more than a share of 13.6% in the services is claimed for them. This cannot injure the Hindus, for their population is 50% and they are geting 63% which is 13% more than is their due.
- The opposition to this claim of the Scheduled Castes comes from very strange and unexpected quarters. It should come from the Hindus. But it cannot. The mutual rights of the Scheduled Castes and the Hindus are defined by the Poona Pact which was made in 1932. It is an agreement by which the Hindus have accepted that the Scheduled Castes are a minority and that they are entitled to adequate share in the Public services of the Country. It is true that the term ‘adequate’ was not given a quantitative expression. That is because it was done in a hurry to save Mr. Gandhi from the hands of death. But there can be no doubt that ‘adequate’ was never intended to be anything less than the population ratio. The Hindus therefore cannot oppose the claim of the Scheduled Castes and, as a matter of fact, they do not. The party opposing the claim of the Scheduled Castes is the Government of India and nobody else. In the debate on the question that took place in the Central Legislative Assembly on March 1942 on a cut motion by Rao Bahadur N. Sivaraj, M.L.A. the claim of the Scheduled Castes for being declared a minority and for defining