SCHEDULED CASTES’.............BEFORE U.N.O. 359
and without detriment to that cause” the Federation supported the “just and necessary demands of all minorities irrespective of the communities to which they belong.”
The Working Committee also expressed the opinion that “ it was in the interest of India that she should be satisfied with Dominion Status and accept it for a term of years which was without prejudice to the right of Independence for India.”
MEMORANDUM TO MINORITIES’ COMMITTEE
The Working Committee also approved another memorandum prepared by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who is a member of the Constituent Assembly. This memorandum suggests safeguards for the Scheduled Castes in the future Constitution of India.
The Working Committee directed the representatives of the Federation in the Constituent Assembly to insist that “the ultimate sanction for the Constitutional Safeguards should be lodged in the Central Government” and emphasised that “Separate Electorates were the only way of guaranteeing real repesentation of the Scheduled Castes in the Legislatures without which all other safeguards were sure to be only paper safeguards.”
The Committee also passed a resolution condoling the death of Mr. B. J. Deorukhkar, Member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation and two other Scheduled Castes workers from Andhra, Messers Hari and Dr. Dharmanna.
Dr. Ambedkar, in an interview to the Press, explained the resolutions passed by the Working Committee of the Federation and asserted that the UNO had jurisdiction over the issue to be submitted by eight crores of Scheduled Castes in India, inasmuch as the UNO had jurisdiction over the case of Indians in South Africa. He said that he was in communication with the leader of Negroes in the United States, Paul Duabois, who, according to Dr. Ambedkar, was submitting the case of Negroes in U.S.A., before the U.N.O. Paul Duabois, Dr. Ambedkar stated, was the founder President of the Negroes Association in U. S. A. who was fighting for political, economic and social rights of Negroes in that country.*
*Some words in this sentence are illegible—Editors.