292 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the Hindus will have joint electorates if they ask for them. The whole point of the proposal is to leave the question of the electorates to the decision of the minority. Separate or joint electorates are devised for the protection of the minority and the minority is the best judge as to which of these two will protect it best.
If the proposal is faulty in principle, it would, of course, deserve no consideration at the hands of either Mr. Jinnah or Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. But if the proposal is just and fair, as I believe it is, I hope Mr. Jinnah will have the courage to pass it upon his Co-religionists and Pandit Malaviya the wisdom to accept.
A Middle Stage
The proposal does not, of course, help in one sweep to realise the goal of the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha to have joint electorates instituted in all the Provinces of India between Hindus and Muslims. But the proposal has the merit of establishing a middle stage between the extreme Congress and Hindu Mahasabha stand on joint electorates throughout and the extreme Muslim demand of separate electorates throughout. From this middle stage, at which there will prevail a mixed system of joint electorates in some Provinces and separate electorates in the rest, the journey to the final stage of joint electorates throughout will be rendered very easy. It is only the impatient idealists among the protagonists of joint electorates who will disapprove of the proposal.” [1]
However, there were additional dimensions in the statement of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, on the subject which were reported by the ‘Janata’. The dimensions were ;
“The structure of the electorate is not an exclusive concern of the minority. It is a problem in constitution-making in which the whole nation has a stake. A national problem cannot be converted into a special preserve for the exclusive judgment of this or that part of it, by the mere assertion of some claim for protection supposed to be connected with it. Since uniformity on any question is impossible, the judgment of the majority has come to do duty as the nearest possible substitute to the will of the people, in a world of inevitable divergence in political tenets.
1 : The Times of India, dated 9th April 1934.