Gandhi,Ambedkar and British policy on the communal award

I

Much of the existing historical narratives as well as political analyses see Gandhi’s ‘fast unto death’ against the granting of separate electorates to the ‘Untouchables’ ¹ as having been antagonistic to their interests and political rights. It is alleged that Gandhi deliberately took such a coercive step to deny separate electorates being awarded to the ‘Untouchables’. ² It is also said that a majority of the ‘Untouchables’ were convinced that Gandhi’s attitude was wrong. ³ Further, that in opposing separate electorates, Gandhi was neither speaking from their perspective nor as a national leader: he was speaking simply as a Hindu. ⁴ Perry Anderson goes so far as to argue that Gandhi’s opposition to separate electorates was proof of his upper-caste, Hindu Bania prejudice. Gandhi feared, writes Anderson, that the ‘prospect of Untouchables gaining the right to their own electorates … would be confirmation that caste was indeed, … a vile system of discrimination, … and since Hinduism was founded on caste, it would stand condemned with caste’. Anderson further argues that ‘there were “mathematical” considerations’ that governed Gandhi’s mind. Gandhi feared, he asserts, that ‘if they [the “Untouchables”] were subtracted from the Hindu bloc in India, its predominance over the Muslim community would be weakened’. ⁵ He goes on to make the fantastic allegation that Gandhi confided to Vallabhbhai Patel that the untouchables might ‘gang up with Muslim hooligans and kill caste Hindus’. ⁶ The ‘caste Hindus had to be defended’, claims Jaffrelot. ⁷ Gandhi, therefore, ‘saw to it that leadership remained in the hands of the privileged [caste Hindus]’, argues Arundhati Ray, by ‘starving himself to death to deny Untouchables a separate electorate’. ⁸

Significantly, according to the note circulated to the Commissioners and Collectors by the British Government, the Communal Award of 1932 was an institutional arrangement to split the Indian electorate primarily on grounds of religion. The British Government circulated a White Paper at the closing of the Second Round Table Conference (1931), containing the statement of the British Prime Minister, Ramsay Macdonald, which laid down the views of His Majesty’s Government that

responsibility for the Government of India should be placed upon the Legislatures, Central and Provincial, with such provisions as may be necessary to guarantee, during a period of transition, the observance of certain obligations and to meet other special circumstances and also with such guarantees as are required by the minorities to protect their political liberties and rights.

The idea promoted was that the British Government must also retain the ‘responsibility for securing the observance of the constitutional rights of the minorities and for ultimately maintaining the tranquility of the [colonial] state’.

The White Paper claimed to advocate the rights of the minority communities. The plea of protecting the rights of the minorities was meant to block India’s progress towards freedom where its own people would democratically choose their Government. The White Paper said that there must first be ‘the settlement of the key question of how to safeguard the minorities under a responsible Central Government’, and to devise checks and balances that protect the minorities ‘from an unrestricted and tyrannical use of the democratic principle expressing itself solely through majority power’. The British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, warned that to secure the ‘natural rights’ of the minorities, it would not be enough to provide for their representation in the Legislatures. The constitution must contain provisions to ensure that the principle of majority Government was not employed to their moral and material disadvantage in the body politic. ⁹

Ramsay Macdonald argued that in view of the failure of the communities to frame a constitution acceptable to all ‘the Government would have to settle the question of representation for the Indians, as well as, the checks and balances the constitution should contain, to protect the minorities from an unrestricted and tyrannical use of the democratic principle expressing itself through majority power’. Macdonald defended the Government’s decision on the ground that ‘differences of race and of history, a different system of law, widely opposed social observances, and, absence of intermarriage, set up barriers which have no analogy in the distinctions that may exist between religious denominations in any other existing state’. Separate representation, in the official notification of the Award, Prime Minister Macdonald wrote, ‘is primarily designed to secure adequate protection for the minorities’. ¹⁰

The Communal Award of 1932, purportedly providing the basis for a responsible Government in India through a communal settlement, was in reality an official settlement that would break-up the Indian electorate. The Award of 1932 built on the arrangements that the Government had already put in place through the Morley-Minto Reforms (1909) and the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (1919). The Award completely splintered the electorate by giving statutory recognition to minorities not only on the basis of religion but also on the basis of community, class and caste divisions. The Award specifically recognised the Muslims, Sikhs and Christians as minorities in addition to the Anglo-Indians and the Europeans. It also created new minorities such as the commercial and industrial classes, landholders, labour, the universities and the Mahrattas. In addition, the Award introduced a special provision for the ‘Untouchables’ in that they were to be part of the general electorates, and also have a separate electorate of their own. In other words, they would have two votes each, that is, one vote in the general electorates to elect one of the candidates in the general constituencies, and the other to elect candidates from among the ‘Untouchables’ only. The award of this kind of dual right was designed to help that section of the leadership amongst the ‘Untouchables’ that based their politics on appeal limited to the interests of that section alone.

At the Second Round Table Conference, Ambedkar joined by leaders of some other communities—the Muslims, the Sikhs, the Anglo-Indians, the Indian Christians and the Europeans—had produced a document, popularly known as the ‘Minorities Pact’, and submitted it to Ramsay MacDonald. The Minorities Pact had a supplementary memorandum attached, submitted by Ambedkar and R. Srinivasan, the ‘Untouchable’ representatives at the Conference, which demanded separate ‘Untouchable’ electorates. ¹¹ The logic of the double vote was also meant to fend off the charge that the British Government was dismembering the Hindu community.

David Hardiman has argued that the ‘interests of the [“Untouchables”], who were in a minority everywhere, would be submerged in the politics of the majority’. ¹² Christophe Jaffrelot supports separate electorates, as it ‘was likely to endow the Untouchables with their own representatives, thereby constituting themselves into a real political force’. ¹³ Perry Anderson, therefore, applauds the British who ‘announced that Untouchables would be granted separate electorates’ and gave them ‘the right to their own electorates’, thereby ‘[ensuring] the community of political autonomy’. ¹⁴ Put differently, Anderson, Jaffrelot and Hardiman reiterate the Muslim League’s argument state that the Hindus being in majority in India, universal franchise would deliver power to the Hindus. The rationale of such arguments was to deny the simple elective principle to the Indians that the Congress was demanding. Anderson, Jaffrelot and Hardiman would have been well advised to heed to the warning of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, that ‘while choosing categories of analysis for India, … it is important to try them out on Western societies as well’. ¹⁵ It would appear that Jaffrelot is unlikely to recommend separate electorate for North Africans for France nor Anderson and Hardiman for West Indians in Britain. Different standards are used for India based on the interested colonial argument that the subject people could only be mobilised around primordial identities of religion, caste, or tribe, and not around ‘modern’ notions of nation and class.

The ‘pernicious concept’ of separate electorates introduced by the British, writes Aditya Mukherjee, ‘divided Indian society irreparably at the very initial stages of modern electoral politics. Inherent in it was the two-(or more) nation theory’. ¹⁶ Bipan Chandra argues that separate electorates were the cause of communal disputes during elections and in the Legislative Councils, as the voters and the candidates being members of a single community, the contestants in the elections did not have to get votes from other communities. The voters too then tended to ‘think and vote communally’ and had begun to ‘express their socio-economic grievances in communal terms’. ¹⁷

Gandhi was, therefore, convinced that separate electorates for the ‘Untouchables’ would further help the British to ‘divide and rule’, and balkanise India. David Hardiman does concede that he had a strong case, as ‘distinct electorates for Muslims had undoubtedly been divisive, creating as they did a class of politicians whose basis was that of separatist politics’. ¹⁸ It was for this reason that he opposed separate electorates for the ‘Untouchables’.

In 1932, Gandhi heard the news of the Communal Award and its terms in Yeravda Jail on the day it was announced. He warned the British Prime Minister, Ramsay Mac Donald, through a letter on 18 August 1932, that unless separate electorates for the ‘Untouchables’ were rescinded, he would commence a ‘fast unto death’. The Government was aware of the powerful role that Gandhi’s warnings and threats could play to stall the Award. The Secretary of State for India, William Wedgwood Benn (7 June 1929–24 August 1931) had noted in his ‘Private and Personal’ telegram to the Governor General of India, Lord Willingdon, of ‘Gandhi’s threat in the event of them deciding for separate electorates for the Depressed Classes’. Significantly, Benn was aware that their plan was ‘bad’ and therefore thought it was ‘possible’ that Gandhi would carry out his threat. He further suggested that ‘it would be well to make up our minds in advance what to do in this event’. The telegram to Lord Willingdon ended, advising him to ‘enlighten public opinion on the issue of separate electorates for the Depressed Classes sufficiently to prevent [Gandhi’s] action having embarrassing consequences outside India if he acts for this reason’. ¹⁹

Correspondence also ensued between the Viceroy of India, Lord Willingdon and the Governor of Bombay, Sir Frederick Sykes, highlighting the Government’s position on the issue. In a ‘Confidential Letter’ written to Sykes, the Viceroy put forward the idea of what he expected to be accomplished in the province. He wrote that the British aim was ‘of course to detach the people of the province from the Congress movement, to get them interested in reforms, and to restore normal conditions as soon as possible’. Sykes agreed that the British should come down on the minorities’ side for ‘there is some hope that the minorities will organise on the British side’. ²⁰ In order to achieve this, Sykes suggested that no reconciliation should be attempted with the Congress. By April 1932, three months before the announcement of the Communal Award, Sykes was telling Willingdon that ‘it is only by helping people to lose faith in the ultimate supremacy of the Congress that we can hope to encourage other parties to organise themselves in such a way as to form a strong effective opposition in the future’. Sykes emphasised in a letter written to Willingdon on 7 June 1932, that for political purposes the Depressed Classes should be considered as a community distinct from the Hindus and their representation should be treated as a subtraction from the Hindu vote. He also desired, as he wrote to the Viceroy, that there should be no attempt made now to win over the Congress, for ‘any such attempt will inevitably estrange the Muslims and other minorities’. ²¹

Gandhi had requested the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, to publish his letter addressed to him, indicating his intentions to go on ‘fast unto death’, arguing that he wanted ‘public opinion to be affected’ against separate electorates. ²² The Government, however, decided to refrain from publishing the letter, for it ‘is very important’, as the Government of India cautioned the Governors of the provinces ‘that Gandhi’s threat should be kept absolutely secret for the present’. The Government anticipated that publishing the letter might result in intensive propaganda in the form of a general attack against the Award. More importantly, the Government feared that it might be used as an appeal to the ‘Untouchables’ to show their support for Gandhi. ²³

Gandhi was aware of the British Government’s machinations: several years later in a letter written to Amrit Kaur he was to describe the Communal Award as a ‘wicked conspiracy against Indian nationalism’. He added that the Award sought to create ‘a division amongst Hindus themselves’. ²⁴ Gandhi insisted that the Depressed Classes be elected through joint, and if possible a wider electorate, through universal adult franchise. ²⁵ There were reasons for this belief, as separate electorates would ensure that the Untouchables remained ‘Untouchables in perpetuity’. ²⁶

II

There was the argument that the Communal Award had provided separate electorates for the Depressed Classes only for twenty years. Also, the Government had stated in the text of the Award itself that should the Indian parties come to an agreement about some other plan before the Award was made into law, the Government would adopt that scheme in preference to its own. Gandhi however differed. He told the Inspector General of Prisons, E.E. Doyle, that neither argument had any basis in it because of the very fact that by virtue of the Award, the Depressed Classes were cut off from the rest of the Hindu community. ‘Once the Legislatures come into being’, Gandhi asked with his customary perspicacity, ‘Who can possibly alter the schism caused?’ ²⁷

The ‘Confidential Reports’, which the Viceroy and his men were receiving from the Provinces, confirmed Gandhi’s apprehensions. The reports showed that one of the effects of the Award would be to make any future agreement among Indians much more difficult. The reason was manifest: no one would give up what he had got through the Award. In fact, there was the potential of demanding more. The Reforms Commissioner, Government of Bombay, reported that Congressmen were opposing the Award on the grounds that ‘the offer of substituting … the proposed scheme [by] a scheme agreed to by all [the] communities, is purely illusory. The communities which may have gained as a result of the Award are not likely to come to an agreement with … other communities’.

The reports from the Punjab and Bengal contained reassuring assessments for the British that positions of the minority communities were already hardening. In his ‘Confidential Letter’ of 14 September 1932, the Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, reported that ‘Muslim opinion in the main has crystallised into a determination to adhere to the Award and to resist any negotiations which might diminish the solid advantages which they consider the Award gives them …’. On 16 September 1932, the Reforms Commissioner, Government of Bengal, was reporting in a ‘Confidential Letter’ that

there are other signs, too, that the Muhammadans mean to safeguard the position they have won. There have been some rumours of Hindu and Muhammadan leaders coming to an agreement on a basis of communal equality, of a ‘fifty-fifty’ basis. These rumours, unsubstantial though they may be, led one Muhammadan paper to characterise [such] Muhammadan leaders … as traitors. It appears exceedingly unlikely that the Muhammadans will agree to concede [even] one seat from the quota allocated to them. There are indications that the Muhammadan leaders are to make every endeavour to secure seats in constituencies which they have hitherto regarded as more or less closed to them …. ²⁸

There was another angle, which the British had been assiduously ignoring, although their officials had drawn attention to it. The confidential correspondence among the British officials shows that the mass of the ‘Untouchables’ did not display any widespread yearning for separate electorates, indeed, not even elementary awareness of it. ‘They scarcely knew that an Award had been announced ostensibly for their emancipation’. A.E. Nelson, the Governor of Central Provinces, in his ‘Confidential Letter’ to the Viceroy said that ‘the bulk’ of the ‘Untouchables’ in the province ‘were backward and illiterate and were incapable of giving an opinion on the question of joint versus separate electorates. They did not even understand what was meant by the disruption of Hinduism’. The opinion of ‘Untouchables’, he asserted, was nothing but the opinion of about half a dozen leaders, who were followers of either Ambedkar or M.C. Rajah. Even these had no settled convictions as they had transferred their allegiance from one to the other of these gentlemen. ‘It is therefore difficult’, Nelson said, ‘to ascertain the real feeling’ of the ‘Untouchables’ on the Communal Award.

The Governor of Bihar and Orissa, Sir James David Sifton, sent a ‘Very Secret’ assessment to the Viceroy. ‘In this Province’, the Depressed Classes ‘were entirely unorganised, except in a few thanas, where experiments are being made in the preparation of the electoral rolls on the Lothian Plan’, but ‘the majority of the Depressed Classes were not aware that they were to have any franchise at all’, and ‘certainly not that they were offered a separate electorate’. ‘The truth is’, wrote Sifton, ‘that they are not at present in Bihar and Orissa “class conscious,” as they are elsewhere in India’. E.E. Doyle, the Inspector General of Prisons, reported that Gandhi told him that

the Depressed Classes had been given separate electorates, when as a class they did not desire them. A very small minority, the Mahars, under the leadership of Doctor Ambedkar demanded separate electorates, but they were not entitled to speak for the Depressed Classes as a whole, who in the United Provinces, Bengal and elsewhere had definitely declared for joint electorates. ²⁹

The participation of the ‘Untouchables’ in the debate of the Legislative Council in the Central Provinces was reflective of what Gandhi was saying. According to A.E. Nelson, the Governor, one member from the Depressed Classes spoke in favour of the Award and another was against it. He added,

The majority of them are pleased with the Award by which they can put up their own nominees and appreciate the value of the double vote conferred upon them. Those who favour joint electorates were caught by the bait of more seats and not by the glamour of the joint nationalist ideal. ³⁰

On 16 September 1932, the Government of Madras informed the Home Secretary, M.G. Hallett, through their ‘Confidential Letter’, that it was difficult to say what the rank and file of the Depressed Classes thought about the matter—‘probably, the majority has not even heard of it as yet and few of them can understand the full implications’. The leaders in Madras were adopting a cautious, waiting, attitude and were inclined not to take any step ‘until they have heard what Ambedkar has in mind’. The assessment of Madras Government’s Chief Secretary, dated 23 September 1932, reiterated the same point. ‘It must be understood’, he wrote,

that the majority of the Depressed Classes in this Presidency, being mainly uneducated and unorganised, know little or nothing of the trend of political events, understand little or nothing of what they are told and are generally indifferent to what is going on outside their immediate sphere …. Altogether there is a great deal of talk in the air but very little action. The Depressed Classes opinion will probably follow the line taken by Ambedkar who commands a great deal of support. ³¹

On 16 September 1932, the Reforms Commissioner, Government of Bengal, also sent a confidential and detailed assessment. The Commissioner said that the Depressed Classes of Bengal were ‘in a somewhat similar position to the Muhammadans’. They complained in public meetings, at which their recognised leaders were present that ‘the seats allocated to them are disproportionate to their population …’. The Depressed Classes pressed for additional seats ‘mainly to make sure that the ten seats allocated to them in the Decision were guaranteed to them by separate electorates’. ³²

The Governor of Bombay in his ‘Confidential Telegram’ to the Viceroy, had prophesised that if Gandhi tried to mobilise ‘public opinion against separate electorates, at any rate for the Depressed Classes, … it may die a natural death from lack of support, if there is effective “counter propaganda” by Government especially among the Depressed Classes’. The Central Government circulated a ‘Secret Note’ to all the Provincial Governments ‘to be used solely for purposes of indirect publicity …’ but in fact expecting a vigorous counter-propaganda, to be launched in defence of the Communal Award.

In order to give a ‘fair’ picture of its intentions, the British Government denied in a Note that the ‘Untouchables’ were being separated from the Hindu community; since they would be voting in general constituencies also, and, in any case, the separate electorates had been provided for them for only twenty years. The ‘Note’ further said,

Supposing the Depressed Classes, out of sympathy for Mr Gandhi, or for some other reason, were to decide in agreement with the caste Hindus to forgo the system of special constituencies in certain areas which His Majesty’s Government are prepared to grant them, the latter would be quite willing to recommend to Parliament the abolition of this particular feature of the Award, provided this did not prejudice the position of other communities under the new constitution.

The ‘Secret Note’ continued,

If, however, the Depressed Classes should decide that the disabilities, to which they have been subjected in the past, necessitate their … temporary protection … by the means afforded by His Majesty’s Government, and if, Mr Gandhi should persist in starving himself as a protest against this, the responsibility for the consequences will be his alone.

The ‘Secret Note’ professed some ‘astonishment that a man like Mr Gandhi, who unquestionably has the welfare of the down-trodden and oppressed much at heart, should make the introduction of measures designed for their protection the occasion for so drastic and extraordinary a protest’. ³³

The ‘Secret Note’ laid emphasis on two more points: First, a large section of the Depressed Classes did not accept Gandhi’s view that they would be treated fairly by the higher-caste Hindus, and second, that Gandhi’s plan was to sedulously foster popular compassion for himself in his suffering. The note emphasised that ‘Mr Gandhi himself is not one of the Depressed Classes but a caste Hindu, and it is the Depressed Classes alone who are best entitled to determine where their own interests in this matter lie’. ³⁴ The ‘Secret Note’ concentrated on prompt and vigorous counter-propaganda by adding that ‘should all the Indian parties concerned come to an agreement, the Government would readily substitute the Award by the terms of that agreement’. Even then, ‘if … Mr Gandhi … decides to make the … Award … the occasion for a “hunger-strike,” His Majesty’s Government will bear no share, whatever, of the responsibility for the probable outcome of this course of action’. ³⁵

Trilok Nath argues that Gandhi had never shown slightest sympathy for ‘the methods [that is, separate electorates], which the Depressed Classes themselves … considered essential for their political and material uplift’. He further asserts that ‘majority of them were … strongly convinced that Gandhi’s attitude towards their political demand … was … wrong’. ³⁶ S. Anand adds that ‘it was to oppose the political rights granted to the Untouchables by the Communal Award that Gandhi took a dramatic and coercive step—a fast unto death’. ³⁷ Gail Omvedt gives a religious colour to Gandhi’s role in the 1930s: ‘Gandhi was not speaking from their perspective; he was not even speaking as a national leader; he was speaking as a Hindu.’ ³⁸ This, even when, it is widely known that Gandhi had been forthright in stating that the proposal for separate electorates for the ‘Untouchables’ had been a Government initiative.

Gandhi had challenged the Communal Award, as it divided the Indian people/and weakened the Indian National Movement, but the British Government and Gandhi’s critics translate this as unwillingness to empower the ‘Untouchables’. Further, Gandhi in reply to some of the critics on this issue argued:

To say that the Harijans will not be able to use their franchise properly and will not be able to understand the interests of the country is to lay the axe at the very root of the principles of democracy. It is like the Imperialists telling us that we are not fit for democracy and will never learn the proper use of the franchise. Mistakes will always be made. We shall progress only through mistakes. But does it mean that we should not have the right to vote? Exercise of the right of voting will in itself be an education for the Harijans. Nor would it be proper to say that they would not understand national interests. ³⁹

III

Some scholars have indicted Gandhi for being obstinate, and intransigent to give ‘political empowerment’ to the ‘Untouchables’. Eleanor Zelliot argues that ‘Gandhi … not only refused to consider separate electorates for the Depressed Classes but also opposed any form of special representation involving reserved seats’. ⁴⁰ Dhananjay Keer fully supports this view. ⁴¹ Nath asserts that though ‘there were strong arguments against power being given to [the ‘Untouchables’] through separate electorates, … Gandhi felt unable to throw in his lot with those who held’ that the ‘Untouchables’ should be given ‘reservation of seats in general electorates…’. ⁴² According to Gail Omvedt, Gandhi thus denied ‘empowerment and political protection’ to the ‘Untouchables’ ⁴³ and it has been claimed that ‘as per Gandhi, the Untouchables should seek transformation of their condition neither by legal redress nor by political autonomy’. ⁴⁴

The critics, however, forget that Gandhi had never objected to the representation of the Depressed Classes in the Legislatures or even to their over-representation. On the contrary, he was anxious to secure their adequate representation. He even expressed his readiness, under certain conditions, to guarantee by statute, a specified number of seats to be filled by them. ⁴⁵ Quoting from the Congress Working Committee’s resolution, Gandhi emphasised that the Congress was committed to adult franchise and could not support any alternative franchise. It stood for joint electorates as the basis for any future constitution, with seats reserved for the minority communities in Sind, Assam, Punjab, North West Frontier Province and wherever else there were minorities forming less than 25 per cent of the population. ⁴⁶ The Indian National Congress’s stand on this issue, asserted Gandhi, ‘was one of the greatest possible accommodation’. Gandhi even said that if the Congress position was unacceptable, the Congress would be prepared to endorse any other practicable alternative plan that might be agreeable to other groups. He clearly put his position in the following words: ‘What I have said, and what I must repeat, is that I am opposed to their special representation.’ ⁴⁷ On 20 September 1932, he again told the press representatives that his fast was ‘only against separate [“Untouchable”] electorates, and not against statutory reservation of seats’. ⁴⁸ At the Second Round Table Conference, Gandhi had also told a questioner that though he presumed to represent the ‘Untouchables’ at the London Conference, they should have ‘their own representatives, drawn from their own class’ ⁴⁹ in the Legislatures. This ‘was a hint that [Gandhi] might agree to reserved seats’. ⁵⁰ Gandhi discussed several alternative proposals with the representatives of the Depressed Classes in the place of the scheme of separate electorates. But there never was put before him a specific scheme for statutory reservation of seats for his acceptance or rejection. ⁵¹

Ravinder Kumar argues that principally ‘[Gandhi] was opposed to reservations since they would absolve the caste Hindus of the moral responsibility of striving for the uplift of the Untouchables’. ⁵² Gandhi would not oppose reservation of seats for the ‘Untouchables’ if they so desired. He was ready to comply with an arrangement reached between the Hindu leaders and the representatives of the ‘Untouchables’, but it should be based on joint electorates. ⁵³ Gandhi had written to P.N. Rajbhoj, a Depressed Classes leader from Maharashtra, that he was

aiming at a heart understanding between the caste Hindus and the Untouchables and the greatest opportunity of repentance and reparation on the part of the caste Hindus. If however, the representatives of the Depressed Classes will not look at my idea, they are at liberty to have statutory reservation of seats. ⁵⁴

A day before 20 September 1932, Gandhi reiterated his stand before the Hindu leaders who had called upon him. ⁵⁵ There was not the slightest doubt about the immediate issue to be discussed: the alternative formula—joint electorates with reserved seats for the ‘Untouchables’.

IV

The Government released the correspondence that had passed between Gandhi, the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald and the Secretary of State for India, Sir Samuel Hoare, on 13 September 1932, a week before Gandhi was to start his fast. It sent shock waves all over the country. The country was stunned on learning that Gandhi had decided to ‘fast unto death on the issue of awarding separate electorates to the Depressed Class’. The fast immediately pricked caste Hindu conscience and on the initiative of Madan Mohan Malaviya attempts were made to initiate a dialogue between the representative Hindu leaders, including Tej Bahadur Sapru, G.D. Birla and C. Rajagopalachari among others, on the one hand and Ambedkar and other Depressed Class leaders on the other. A meeting was convened on 19 September 1932 in Bombay at the Indian Merchants’ Assembly Hall with Malaviya in the chair.

Pyarelal’s The Epic Fast gives a day-to-day account of the discussions and the formulae tossed about to achieve a settlement. The leaders would come up with some alternative formula to that proposed in the Communal Award, and would then travel to meet Gandhi to get his reaction. Some hitch would develop. Ambedkar would insist on some point, which the others could not accept. They would again travel to meet Gandhi so that he may cut through the knot. ⁵⁶

The Government itself was actively involved in manipulating the ‘Untouchable’ leaders. M.C. Rajah wrote in his letter to Gandhi,

Perhaps not all of them know how much pressure was brought to bear upon me by high Government authorities including the Viceroy, the Home Member, and the Indian Law Member at the time of the fast to prevent me from advocating and inducing my people to accept joint electorates upon which your heart was set and without which life was not worth living for you. ⁵⁷

The British Government continued its ‘indirect’ publicity to thwart any attempt towards an agreement between the ‘Untouchable’ and Hindu representatives. In its publicity through the print media, the Government contemplated that any agreement reached in Bombay, if it was to receive official endorsement, ‘must fulfill two important tests’. First, the agreement must be real in the sense that it must have the full backing of the parties concerned and must be acceptable to the Depressed Classes as a whole. Second, it must fall within the four corners of the Premier’s Award. Conditioned on these two factors, the Government stated that should the Hindu and the ‘Untouchable’ leaders arrive at some settlement, it would ‘receive the immediate and most careful consideration of the Viceroy and his Executive Council’. Anticipating that the agreement may be a possibility, the Government even declared that M.C. Rajah and Ambedkar were ‘not the only spokesmen of the Depressed Classes’ and the Government may require evidence that any arrangement that the Depressed Classes may come to ‘has the support of their communities as a whole’. ⁵⁸

However, at long last, the leaders reached an arrangement called the Poona Pact and the terms were reported to Gandhi. He gave his approval. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, M.R. Jayakar, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Chunilal Mehta, B.R. Ambedkar, M.C. Rajah, Dr Solanki, a lieutenant of Ambedkar, C. Rajagopalachari, G.D. Birla and twenty others signed the Pact on 24 September 1932. The text was communicated to the Government of India at once and the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald and his ministers now accepted it as an amendment to the Communal Award. On 26 September 1932, after the news of the changes reached Yeravda Jail, Gandhi broke his fast.

By virtue of the Poona Pact the ‘Untouchables’ were given 148 seats in the Legislatures as against the 71, which they had received under the Government’s Award. The more significant change was in the way the ‘Untouchable’ legislators were to be elected. The election was to be in two stages. In the first round, the Depressed Classes in the reserved constituency were to elect a panel of four candidates. In the second round, all voters of the constituency, irrespective of caste, were to elect the person they wanted to be their representative. This arrangement for electing a panel of four in the primary election was to ‘come to an end after ten years unless terminated sooner by mutual agreement’. The reservation of seats in ‘the Provincial and Central Legislatures were to continue until determined by mutual agreement between the communities [the caste Hindus and the Depressed Classes] concerned in this settlement’. ⁵⁹ The agreement followed what Gandhi had maintained all along, namely, that he would give any concession whatsoever to thwart the manoeuvre of the British to divide the Hindu community permanently. However, the most significant gain was that the Poona Pact was arrived at by and among Indians themselves without any participation of the official British side.

V

Christophe Jaffrelot has argued that ‘the pressure exerted at that moment on Ambedkar’ not to be intransigent, as it may lead to Gandhi’s death and result in violent backlash against the Depressed Classes, ‘brought Ambedkar round’. Jaffrelot does not consider Gandhi’s success in persuading Ambedkar to be a ‘true Satyagrahi’. ⁶⁰ The contemporary accounts of the fast show that strong bargaining did take place leading to the resultant compromise: ‘The redoubtable Doctor [Ambedkar] strongly supported by his colleagues, fought every inch of the ground’. ⁶¹ Ambedkar said that he was ‘willing to consider everything’, though ‘I am not willing to allow the rights of the Untouchables to be curtailed in any way’. ⁶² Moreover, in working out a solution to secure an alternate formula, Ambedkar said, ‘To save Gandhi’s life, I would not be party to any proposals that would be against the interests of my people.’ ⁶³ Rajmohan Gandhi asks, ‘Why in 1949 [Ambedkar] had helped incorporate the pact into the Constitution … if in fact he had been “coerced” into accepting it in 1932’, and why ‘even after his 1951 resignation and clash with [Jawaharlal] Nehru and the Congress, Ambedkar did not “try to have the Poona Pact annulled”’. ⁶⁴

On the critical question of separate versus joint electorates, on which Gandhi’s life depended, the Depressed Classes were divided into two groups. This scenario also became clearly visible in no time not only to the leaders of the national movement but also to the British Government. Ravinder Kumar tells us that

while the leaders of the Depressed Classes’ community in Poona and Madras regarded the prospect of negotiations under intense moral pressure—because of a ‘fast unto death’—as distasteful in the extreme, other Depressed Classes’ spokesmen voiced their confidence in the leadership of Gandhi at public meetings of the Untouchables held in Nagpur, or Karachi, or Lucknow, or Lahore. ⁶⁵

Questions and doubts began to be raised about the community’s leadership also. For example, M.C. Rajah and P.N. Rajbhoj, an ‘Untouchable’ leader from Maharashtra, asserted in a letter to the Viceroy’s Private Secretary that the Depressed Classes in general, and the Chambhar and the Mang communities in particular, did not recognise Ambedkar and R. Srinivasan, a popular ‘Untouchable’ leader and a rival of Rajah in South India, as their spokesmen insofar as they advocated separate electorates. Rajbhoj added that the ‘Untouchable’ communities other than the Mahars had never expressed allegiance to Ambedkar and ‘are more ill at ease when in the company of his community than in that of the higher classes’. Ambedkar, he alleged, did ‘not even deign to look to the proposals sought to be placed before him by the representatives of smaller depressed communities’. They feared for their interests under him. ⁶⁶ The Times of India reported that when Ambedkar ‘claimed the right of negotiating with Mr Gandhi alone and no one else’, P. Baloo, the leader of the Depressed Classes from Bombay, but ‘from the opposite camp’, reminded him that ‘he had no mandate from the community to speak on their behalf’. ⁶⁷ Ravinder Kumar argues that such ‘differences’ within the community obliged Ambedkar to soften his stand. ⁶⁸ The charge of being only a Mahar leader against Ambedkar would be levelled again later in a Chambhar conference held in 1939. ⁶⁹ Two years later, D.N. Kamble, the first educated Mang in the Nizam’s state of Hyderabad, repeated the accusation. By then the conversion movement to Buddhism among the Mahars had further alienated other Depressed Classes groups. ⁷⁰ The Chambhars in Bombay, in particular, would view it as a tactic to enhance the political fortunes of the Mahars. ⁷¹ Moreover, S.K. Gupta argues that a majority of the Depressed Classes, who had demanded separate electorates earlier, had definitely thinned and a sizeable number of them led by Rajah were more and more veering towards the view that the more numerous reserved seats in joint electorates were better than the limited number of seats in the separate electorates. ⁷²

Critics of Gandhi have argued that the objective of the Poona Pact ‘was to force the “Untouchables”, under Ambedkar, to accept their position of being subordinated to the politically dominant sections of the Hindu community’ ⁷³ The ‘Untouchables [thus] elected, not by their own kind, but by Hindus at large’, writes Perry Anderson, ‘[deprived] the community of political autonomy by ensuring that Congress could pick its Uncle Toms for these places’. ⁷⁴ Strangely, he makes no such suggestions for Afro-American in the United States, or Muslims in England. Eleanor Zelliot argues that one of the ‘outcomes of the Poona Pact was to bring Ambedkar to the limelight again, adding to his fame and giving his leadership more of an all-India stature’. ⁷⁵ The British were also making their projections. Sir Frederick Sykes, the Governor of Bombay, for example, noted that the effect of the settlement in the Bombay Presidency would be that Ambedkar’s influence would prevail among the Depressed Classes. It would ‘upset the balance of Legislature to the detriment of the Hindus’, as by means of secondary election, Ambedkar ‘may be able to ensure that only candidates favourable to him stand for the Depressed Classes seats’. ⁷⁶

Moreover, Ambedkar saw the Poona Pact as a victory for himself. He wrote, ‘The fast failed and Mr Gandhi was obliged to sign a pact—called the Poona Pact—which conceded the political demands of the Untouchables.’ ⁷⁷ Dhananjay Keer informs us that en route to England for the Third Round Table Conference on 7 November 1932, while discussing the political problem with the other delegates on board the ship, ‘Ambedkar was shocked to know how the British officials and statesmen had planned to deprive the Depressed Classes of representation in the Central Assembly’. They had hatched this plan on the plea that the Depressed Classes’ issue was the concern of the Provincial Governments, and so their quota of representation in the Central Assembly was to be lavished on the Muslims and the Europeans. ‘Ambedkar felt a thrill of joy when he saw the designs of the British officials and statesmen flouted by the Poona Pact, which gave them eighteen percent of the Hindu seats in the Central Assembly.’ ⁷⁸

In sum, Gandhi’s ‘fast unto death’ against the Communal Award that granted separate electorates to the ‘Untouchables’ was not ‘antagonistic’ to their ‘interests’ and ‘political rights’. The demand for separate electorates for the ‘Untouchables’ was ‘manufactured’ by the British Government. The British put on the pretence of ‘supporting’ the ‘Untouchables’ while their clearly stated objective was to use them through the mechanism of separate electorates to create yet another fissure among the Indian people. It was for this reason that Gandhi opposed separate electorates for the ‘Untouchables’. Also, he believed that separate electorates would ensure that the ‘Untouchables’ remained ‘Untouchables in perpetuity’, while what was needed was the ‘root and branch eradication of untouchability’.