PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT 35
which otherwise would be too short for its protection. The length to be added must therefore depend upon the shortness of the arm. If the arm is short the length to be added must increase. If the arm is long, the length to be added will have to be curtailed. To put it differently this weightage cannot be uniform for all the minorities and that it must vary with their social standing; to be high, if the standing of the minority is low and to be low, if the standing of the minority is high. Unfortunately there is a tendency in certain minorities not only to place themselves on a padestal higher than the common level of the ordinary citizen, but also to monopolize a larger share of representation, not on the ground that their social standing is low; but because their social standing is high. As I have said the idea underlying weightage to a minority is the same as tampering the wind to the shorn lamb and we must therefore guard against such a perversion thereof as I have referred to which cannot but result in injuring the interests of the country and of the other minorities as well.
- So far I have only given an indication of the right line of approach for the proper application of the principle of weightage to minority representation. The question of determining the exact quantum of weightage still remains. That must vary with circumstances and I cannot do more than suggest a general principle for its computation. It is this. First of all, by a mutual agreement between the majority and minority communities a figure should be arrived at for a maximum increase in the population ratio of representation to be called the weightage factor. In its application to a particular minority for determining its quota of adequate representation the weightage-factor should be made to vary inversely with the social standing of the minority defined as it must be by (1) its social status, (2) its economic strength and (3) its educational position. If this is done, it seems to me, we will have a settlement between the minority communities themselves and between the majority on the one hand and the minorities on the other which will be just and equitable and will leave no cause for complaint to any of the parties concerned.