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THE CABINET MISSION AND THE UNTOUCHABLES
How the Cabinet Mission have Ignored the Untouchables ?
“Karachi, October 14, 1946,
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Scheduled Castes Leader and Former Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, arrived in Karachi by air from Bombay on his way to London today.
Dr. Ambedkar said that he was proceeding on a political mission and would meet Mr. C. R. Atlee, Prime Minister, and Mr. Churchill and discuss Indian constitutional matters with them. He declined to be drawn into any further discussion or to clarify the details of his mission—A.P.I.” [1]
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar prepared and carried following Memorandum for circulation—Editors.
“The Cabinet Mission in their Statement of 10th May set out their Interim and Long-term proposals for the solution of the political deadlock in India. The most galling and astounding feature of their proposals is their refusal to recognise the Untouchables as a separate and distinct element in the national life of India. The Mission has so completely ignored the Untouchables that not even once have they mentioned them in their long statement. To what extent the Cabinet Mission has gone in ignoring the Untouchables will be apparent from the following:—
(i) The Untouchables have not been given the right to nominate their representatives in the Cenral Executive as have been done in the case of the Sikhs and the Muslims. In the present Interim Government they have got two representatives of the Scheduled Castes neither of them owe any allegiance or obligation to the Scheduled Castes. One is nominated by the Congress and the other is nominated by the Muslim League.
(ii) In the interim Government, the Untouchables have not been given a fixed quota of representation as was done in the case of the Muslims. At the Simla Conference of 1945 it was
1 : The Times of India, dated 15th October 1946.