PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 483
Then, much criticism has been levelled against the list of the scheduled castes. Well, I do not know how one can satisfactorily deal with a matter of that sort, because anybody in the Government of India dealing with a matter of this sort as to what community is a scheduled caste community and what community is not a scheduled caste community, must necessarily depend upon the local information furnished to the Government of India by their officers and other agencies who are conversant with the matter. It is quite possible that the information supplied to the Government of India by their agency differs from the information which hon. Members have. Government, therefore, has to come to its choice necessarily relying on the information of its own officers. If any hon. Member can prove to my satisfaction that in the list that we have prepared, there has been any grave error or omission. I shall certainly consider the question. My friend Dr. Deshmukh of course, is very discontented, I think with the Government and thinks that the Government is always rushing through matters. I do not know how long he would like each Bill to take—probably a fortnight—and I do not know whether he would be satisfied even with that time. He expatiated a great deal upon the inadequacy and the errors of the list. My friend Dr. Deshmukh will permit me to say that as a member of the Round Table Conference, I had a great deal to do with the preparation of these tables. I had a great deal to do with it. We had before us a very grave problem. That problem was that in the census reports, right from 1910, if he will refer to them he will see, that certain classes were shown separately and they were called “depressed classes”. When the question came at the Round Table Conference for giving representation to these classes, the question arose what was meant by the “depressed classes”. There were a large number of people who were economically and educationally backward but who in the technical sense of the word were not untouchables. There were certain communities like the mangarudis for instance, who were criminal tribes put were not untouchables in the technical sense of the word; they were practically outside the pale of society and yet were not untouchables. The question was then considered at great length—Are we going to give