ORGANISE.........................PROGRAMME 393
Secondly, the Congress itself is getting divided. The Socialists have gone out of it. How big they will grow one cannot say now. There are possibilities of their getting quite big. Hereafter, there will be two parties: (1) Congress and
(2) Socialists—and the question is not whether we should join the Congress. The question is whether we should join the Congress or the Socialists.
I said that my advice is that you should form a third party so that the Scheduled Castes may be able to hold the balance and thereby obtain bargaining power. There is no use joining any political party as its mere camp-followers. If it gives anything, it merely gives office. It cannot give power.
Your conference has just now passed a resolution condemning the Pant Government for giving you only ten per cent reservation in the services when on a purely population basis you are entitled to something like 22%. The reason why Mr. Pant does not give you your full quota, is because for his majority in the United Provinces Assembly he is not depended upon you—and that can be only when you are united into a separate organisation worthy of negotiation—you can demand
22%, and he will have to give it to you.
I then turned to the question of unity between the Scheduled Castes and the so-called Backward Classes. This I did at the request of the leaders of the Backward Classes who were present at the Conference. I said it was a pity that the two classes whose needs were commn did not join together. The reason was that the Backward Classes did not like to associate themselves with the Scheduled Castes because they were afraid that such an association will bring themselves down to the level of the Scheduled Castes.
I said that I was not anxious to establish interdining and intermarriage between the Scheduled Castes and the Backward Classes. They may well remain separate social entities. There is no reason why they should not join hands to form a political party to remove their backward condition. I pointed out how the Scheduled Castes have improved their condition by playing their part in the politics of the country and there is no reason why the Backward Classes should not do the same.