CRITIQUE OF THE PROPOSALS........ 527
There is no foundation for this statement. The Scheduled Castes Federation is functioning in other Provinces as well and it has won notable electoral success as great as in Bombay and the Central Provinces. In making this statement the Mission has failed to take account of the signal victory Dr. Ambedkar secured in the election to the Constituent Assembly. He stood as a candidate from the Bengal Provincial Legislature Assembly. He secured 7 first preference votes and topped the poll so far as the general seats were concerned beating even Mr. Sarat Chandra Bose, the Leader of the Congress party. If Dr. Ambedkar has no influence outside Bombay and Central Provinces how did he get elected from Bengal ? It must be further remembered that there are 30 seats for the Scheduled Castes in the Bengal Provincial Assembly. Out of the 30 as many as 28 were elected on the Congress ticket. Of the two who belonged to his party one fell ill on the day of election. This means that 6 Scheduled Caste members elected on the Congress ticket broke the Congress Mandate and voted for Dr. Ambedkar. This shows that even these Scheduled Caste members who belong to the Congress regard him as the leader of the Scheduled Castes. This is complete disproof of the statement made by the Mission.
The Congress has been so much encouraged by the surrender of the Mission that a letter addressed to the Mission the Congress has gone to the length of denying that the Scheduled Castes are a minority. This means that the Congress is not prepared to give the Scheduled Castes the same safeguards as they would to other minorities. The Mission has not repudiated this suggestion of the Congress. Herein lurks a great danger and it is necessary to pin down the Mission in the course of the debate and compel them to say if they do or do not regard the Scheduled Castes as a minority.
The Cabinet Mission have said in their proposals that before sovereignty is transferred Parliament will have to satisfy itself that the safeguards for Minorities are adequate. The Mission has nowhere defined the machinery for examining the safeguards. Whether there would be a Joint Committee of the two Houses of Parliament to