15
* Note of Meeting between Cabinet delegation, Field Marshal Viscount Wavell and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar on Friday,
5th April 1946 at 12 noon
[L/P&J/5/337 : PP. 83-5]
Secret
Dr. Ambedkar said that he had little to add to the memorandum,† of which copies had been supplied to the Delegation, giving the text of the resolution passed by the Working Committee of the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation at its meeting on April 2nd. Paragraph 5 of this memorandum contained a list of safeguards which were largely designed to secure to the Scheduled Castes adequate representation in Government and the Pubic Services. The Federation would never accept any constitution in which these were not included.
On the question of Pakistan Dr. Ambedkar doubted whether Muslims as a whole would really be benefited by the new State. So many of them would have to remain in Hindustan and would be unwilling or unable to migrate.
He wondered whether Pakistan was a permanent or a passing mood on the part of the Muslims. Quite probably it would pass. But it was impossible to wait and see and the Muslim demand had grown so strong that it had become necessary to meet it somehow. In his book on the subject‡ he had proposed that this dilemma should be resolved by an adaptation of the solution which Mr. Asquith had propounded in 1920 for the Irish problem. Mr. Asquith had suggested that Ulster should be separated from the rest of Ireland for six years ; but that a council consisting of representatives of both parts of the country should be established to deal with matters of common concern during this period. At the end of the six years Ulster would have had to choose whether to remain separate or to re-unite with Southern Ireland. Similarly,
- The Transfer of Power, Vol. VII, No. 58, pp. 144-47.
† L/P&J/10/50.
‡B. R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India (Thacker & Co., Bombay, 1946).