THE CABINET MISSION AND THE UNTOUCHABLES 543
(iii) The issue over which the election was fought was Independence and Quit India. The nature of the future Constitution of India was never the issue. If it had been the issue the Congress would never have got the majority it did.
(iv) The Cabinet Mission did not take into account the open hostility shown by the Returning Officers and the Polling Officers—all of whom were Caste Hindus—against the Scheduled Caste candidates who were opposing the Congress. They went to the length of rejecting their nomination papers and refusing to issue ballot papers. The Cabinet Mission did not take into account the degree of terrorism and intimidation to which the Untouchable voters were subjected by the Caste Hindus on the ground that they were not prepared to vote for the Congress candidates. In the Agra City 40 houses of the Untouchables were burnt down. In Bombay one man from the Untouchable was murdered and in the moffusil Untouchable voters in hundreds of villages were not allowed to go to the Polling stations. In Nagpur a Police Officer became so much of a partisan of the Congress that he fired without the permission of the Magistrate on a crowd of Untouchable voters just to frightern them away. There were innumerable such cases all over India.
- If the Cabinet Mission had taken into account these circumstances they would have realized that the success of the Congress at the elections was due to purely advantageous circumstances. The results of the elections held under such circumstances should not have been taken as a justification for not giving separate representation to the Untouchables in the Constituent Assembly.
How the Mission adopted a false criterion for its decision
- The criterion adopted by the Mission to decide whether the Congress did or did not represent the Untouchables was how many seats reserved for Untouchables were won by the Congress in the Final Election. This criterion was a false criterion because the results of the final elections are beyond the control of the Untouchables. Under the Poona Pact the final elections are determined by the Hindu votes. The true criterion which the Mission should have adopted was to find out how the Untouchables voted, how many votes were cast in favour of