mahavir tyagi ji opposed reservation and said ambedkar wife is brahman and affluent person like ambedkar will eat all reservation and said that reservaion was only for 20 twenty year

 Mahaveer tyagi on 26 may 1949

Another point that I want to emphasise is about the Scheduled Castes. Sir, originally when the scheduled castes were given separate representation, Mahatma Gandhi had started his fast in protest. Now we have it seems, accepted the idea; but when it was first introduced, everybody was shocked. Nobody liked it and when Mahatma Gandhi gave his ultimatum of fast unto death the Prime Minister of England addressed a letter to Gandhiji dated September 8, 1933 in which he said:-

"Under the Government scheme the depressed classed will remain part of the Hindu community and will vote with the Hindu electorate on an equal footing but for the first twenty years, while still remaining electorally part of the Hindu community, they will receive through a limited number of special constituencies the means of safeguarding their rights and interests that, we are convinced, is necessary under present conditions."

You will see, Sir, that when the idea of giving separate reservation to the scheduled castes was first introduced, the intention was that it should last only for twenty years. After that period they were expected to become absolutely one with the Hindus. It was in the year 1933 and now it is 1949. So it is only a few years less than twenty. According to the old scheme of the British Government reservation for the Scheduled Castes should go in 1952, why are we now giving it a further lease of ten years? Again, Sir, if we look at the list of Scheduled Castes, there are so many included in it. We have had the experience of separate reservation for Scheduled Castes. Fasts must be faced as they are. The term "Scheduled Castes" is a fiction. Factually there is no such thing as `Scheduled Castes'. There are some castes who are depressed, some castes who are poor, some who are untouchables,some who are down-trodden. All their names were collected from the various provinces and put into one category "Scheduled Castes". In spite of the category being a fiction it has been there for so many years. Let us look at the way these castes are represented. There are hundreds of castes included in the List, but if you look at their representation in every province you will find that only one or two castes are represented. Those who have got predominance are mostly Chamars, I would say. In the U.P. it is the case. It is the case in the Punjab also. I want to know how the Koris or the Pernas or the Korwas or the Dumnas have benefited by reservation. It is all a fiction, Sir. How is Dr. Ambedkar a member of the Scheduled Castes? Is he illiterate? Is he ill-educated? Is he an untouchable? Is he lacking in anything? He is the finest of the fine intellectuals in India and still he is in the list of scheduled castes. Because he is in the list and because he is a genius, he will perpetually be member and also a Minister, he will always be their representative. Moreover, Sir, he has lately married a Brahmin wife. He is a Brahmin by profession and also because his in-laws are Brahmins. They are others like my Friend, Professor Yashwant Rai. What does he lack? There are thousands of Brahmins and Kshatriyas who are worse off than these friends belonging to the scheduled castes. So by the name of Scheduled Caste, persons who are living a cheerful life, and a selected few of these castes get benefit. This is no real representation. No caste ever gets benefit out of this reservation. It is the individual or the family which gets benefited. So, Sir, while we are doing away with representations and reservations, while we are doing away for good with this caste system, why should we allow it even for ten years? Does not our past experience show that out of the hundred and one scheduled castes only a few get any representation? Then why are so many castes linked with the chariot wheel of the Scheduled Castes? They are simply voters; they do not get any benefit, and even if any member of a caste in India comes up and gets elected how does the Community benefit, I do not understand. I could understand if instead of castes, classes were given reservations. To say that it should be a casteless society, I can understand. Society can be casteless, but society cannot be class-less. So long as the country does not decide to make the society class-less, classes must exist and therefore, classes must have their representation. Sir, to make the whole nation one party, I am afraid, will not be a practical idea. Minorities must exist and must be provided for. There will be no peace so long as minorities are not provided for. I do not believe in the minorities on community basis, but minorities must exist on economic basis, on political basis and on an ideological basis and those minorities must have protection. In this sort of a wholesale decision, the minorities will get little representation. I would suggest that in the place of the Scheduled Caste, the landless labourers, the cobblers or those persons who do similar jobs and who do not get enough to live, should be given special reservations. By allowing caste representations, let us not re-inject the poisonous virus which the Britisher has introduced into our body politic. I would suggest Sir, that instead of the so called Scheduled Caste, minorities be protected, if you like, on class basis. Let cobblers, washermen and similar other classes send their representatives through reservations because they are the one who do not really get any representation. As a matter of fact even after passing the motion which Sardar Patel has put before us, I am afraid the tiller of the soil will not as the conditions are get any representation. The villager is nowhere in the picture. It is the urban citizen alone who gets the protection. It is not the toilers of the soil but the soilers of toil who are benefited. Persons who irrigate paper with black ink get the representation and not those who irrigate the land. These literate mediocres create fear and do nothing productive, but these tillers of the soil and producers of wealth are mostly those who are illiterate and therefore they are deprived of their due share of representation. Thus the nation is perpetually mis-represented by men of law, literature and letters. The `Pen' rules over the `Plough'. The creators of wealth are those who are without education and those persons will remain as such. They were slaves before and will remain slaves today and even after your passing this Constitution. If you want to help those down-trodden classes, then, Sir, the best thing would be to keep some safeguards for them. We should forge a law which would bring those illiterates into this House. As a matter of fact there is hardly a single Kisan member of the Constituent Assembly of the type of which 80 per cent of Kisans live in India. Unless those very Kisans come here as they are, India will not be properly represented. I therefore, submit, Sir, that the Scheduled Castes should now go and in place of Scheduled Caste, the words "Scheduled classes" be substituted so that we may not inadvertently perpetuate the communal slur on our Parliaments. In fact the Untouchables had only some social disabilities. Now all the Governments have passed enactments removing those social disabilities and among those persons who come here as the representatives, I fear, there is not one who has any social disability about him. The Scheduled Caste man can marry a Brahmin girl and there is no disability. I say, Sir, in the name of Scheduled Castes a few individuals are getting the benefit. Let the House dispassionately consider the situation as it is, take advantage of the experience that we have gained for the last so many years of what the `Scheduled Castes' have actually meant. And then make up our mind as to whether or not we could substitute this communal representation by giving reservations to classes who would mostly be the same voters but with a better title and a healthier outlook.

An H

 

 

 

 

The amendment was negatived.