40 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
quite innocent of English. Seldom have they asked a question or made a speech. I dare say that our friends who are representing the Depressed Classes on the various Legislative Councils will be able to recall similar instances in their Provinces. If certification is not necessary in their case I fail to understand why it is necessary in the case of the Depressed Classes only. We must therefore reject the scheme of representation outlined by the Simon Commission and demand the right to elect our own representatives of our own choice untrammelled by any conditions or limitations whatsoever. We are certainly the best judges of our own interests, and we must not allow even the Governor to assume the authority to determine what is good for us.
- I do not know how you feel about the scheme framed by the Simon Commission for the composition of the Central Legislature. In the present state the form of election to the Council of State as well as to the Legislative Assembly is direct. The Simon Commission recommends that the Council of State should retain its present constitution, but that the Legislative Assembly should be constituted upon the basis of indirect elections by members of the Provincial Legislatures regulated by the system of proportional representation. I am not a supporter of the system of indirect elections and in my minute of dissent which I wrote as a member of the Bombay Provincial Simon Committee, I have condemned it. But the system in the form in which it is clothed by the Simon Commission has its advantages as well as disadvantages. First of all it avoids the problem of joint or separate electorates in the representation of minorities. Secondly, it eliminates the evils of a double franchise, one for the Provincial Councils and another for the Assembly. Thirdly, it makes the Assembly a more manageable body. On the side of the disadvantages it must be mentioned that the system is bound to weaken the tie between the people and their Government and is sure to retard the growth of national unity by concealing the vision of the country as a whole from the gaze of the people. But whether the balance lies on the side of advantages or whether it lies on the side of disadvantages, the scheme of the Simon Commission must find a place