SECURE ADEQUATE.............UNTOUCHABLES 363
will elect to stay where they are even when partition comes. I have of course told the Hindus that in case there is partition they shall have to agree to reserve some land in Western Bengal for the Scheduled Castes of Eastern Bengal when the Damodar Valley Project matures and more land is made available for cultivation and in case the Scheduled Castes of Eastern Bengal express a desire to migrate to Western Bengal. This is however a somewhat remote possibility. In the meantime I agree that you should work in allianee with the League and secure adequate safeguards for them, I am not quite so hopeless as you are with regard to the attitude of the Hindus in Evelock to give political safeguards to the Scheduled Castes. There isn’t a chastened mind. In so far as I am able to judge I think they will agree to almost all the safeguards that we want. The only thing they will insist on is some modified form of Separate Electorates. The Muslim League however, will be ready to give to the Scheduled Castes Separate Electorates more probably because they themselves want Separate Electorates for their own community. So far as the Eastern Bengal Scheduled Castes are concerned that no doubt is an advantage.
You have asked me to let you have what demands you should put up before the Muslim League. I have formulated a set of demands in my Memorandum which has been printed and circulated to the Members of the Minorities Committee. I am sending a copy of it to you for your information. In my view that Memorandum contains all that we need for our protection, not only in Eastern Bengal but in every Province in India. I think you should make this Memorandum the best use in your negotiations with the Muslim League. Of course, you are free to add to it any new safeguard for our people in Eastern Bengal which you think there are some special circumstances which call for such safeguards.
I have been already apprised of the plight of the Satyagrahis in Lucknow Jail. I am sending two of my representatives to Lucknow in order to inspect and state the condition of the Satyagrahis in Jail. I have also referred to the Prime Minister. U. P. Of course, our own people having thrown a challenge to