UNDER-PRIVILIGED . . . . . . . . . OPPRESSORS 527
Mr. Alexander (intervening):—Does Mr. Butler realise that in the provincial elections there was a very large proportion of Independent Scheduled Castes elected apart from other two categories he mentions and secondly, that we had to act in the way we did to deal with an urgent situation ?
Mr. Alexander continued, “Franchise is not merely the Poona Pact, but what the Government of 1935 put in the
1935 Act.
“Thirdly, would he suggest that we should go into an entirely new basis of new franchise and India wide compilation of new register and put off for a long time a possible new settlement ? Shall we not face those facts now ?”
SCHEDULED CASTES’ REPRESENTATION
Mr. Butler: The first point about Independent members is certainly correct. From all opinions I have been able to gather in investigating this point, there is no doubt that the Scheduled Castes have been so terrorised by Congress discipline that many of them have decided to stand as Independents rather than take the label of the Congress.
Mr. Butler said that he did not think it right that the Scheduled Castes should be represented in the Assembly by representatives of the Congress. The Government were reposing most of their confidence for obtaining justice for the minorities on the Advisory Committee and he asked if the Committee’s decisions about minorities would be embodied in the Constitution.
If a spirit of compromise and give and take was absent in India, the Government would be faced with a very serious situation but he trusted that if there was a breakdown, the Government would give a further lead. If a new initiative proved necessary, it would have to be towards simplification of the scheme and a clearer acknowledgment of British responsibilities in the period before a successful issue of the negotiations, there was still a chance of orderly solution, but it depended upon how determined the Government was and would be and how clearly it saw the dangers of the situation. “We cannot, at the moment, shuffle off our obligations. They remain and upon their adequate discharge, depends the future happiness of the Indian people,” Mr. Butler concluded.