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* Dr. Ambedkar to Field Marshal Viscount Wavell
Wavell Papers, Political Series, April 1944-July 1945 Pt. I, pp. 207-9
N EW D ELHI, 7 June 1945
Dear Lord Wavell,
I am grateful to you for asking me in my capacity as the leader of the Scheduled Castes to be a member of the Conference which you propose to call in furtherance of your proposal for the Indianisation of the Executive Council. I told you, for reasons which I need not repeat here, that I am unable to accept your offer. Thereupon you desired me to name a substitute. Though I have expressed my disapproval with your proposals, I do not wish to deny you such help as you may derive from the presence of a Scheduled Caste representative in your Conference. I am, therefore, prepared to suggest a substitute. Judging on the suitability of various names that occur to me, I cannot think of any other name than that of Rao Bahadur N. Siva Raj., B . A ., B . L . He is the President of the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation and is also a member of the Central Legislative Assembly and of the National Defence Council. If you like you may invite him to the conference as a representative of the Scheduled Castes.
- There is one other matter to which I feel I must draw your attention right now. It relates to the extreme inadequacy of the representation given to the Scheduled Castes in His Majesty’s Government’s proposals for the reconstitution of the Executive Council. Five scats to 90 millions of Muslims, one scat to 50 millions of Untouchables and 1 scat to 6 millions of Sikhs is a strange and sinister kind of political arithmetic which is revolting to my ideas of
*The Transfer of Power, Vol. V, No. 483, p. 1094-97.