Forum Pakistan

Issued by the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937) on 16 August 1932, affer the Indian delegates to the second *Round Table Conference failed to produce an agreement on the modalities of communal representation in elected bodies. In May 1931 the sole Congress representative, M.K. Gandhi, had admitted his failure to secure a consensus on communal issues and, since he had suggested that the British Prime Minister would have to arbitrate, this course remained the only way out of the impasse.

For the Muslims separate electorates and weightages were both retained in the Communal Award. In Hindu majority provinces Hindus would have the majority of legislative council seats. In the two Muslim-majority Provinces of *Punjab and *Bengal, because of weightage given to minorities, the Muslim representation was reduced. In the Punjab the Muslim population majority was fifty seven per cent but in the Punjab Legislative Assembly it was reduced to forty-nine per cent. In Bengal the Muslim population was fifty-five per cent, which was reduced to forty-eight per cent in the Bengal legislature. Practically, however, Muslim representation in these provinces rose through the special seats reserved for landlord, labour and university constituencies.

Sikhs were also given a weightage beyond their population per centage, to which no serious objection was raised. The small award of separate electorates to low caste Hindus, known as depressed classes, was however deeply resented by M.K. Gandhi, who undertook a fast to death against it on 20 September 1932 and broke it five days later when the Poona Pact was signed by him and Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, leader of the depressed classes. The Poona Pact provided for enlarged representation for the depressed classes under joint electorates.

BI BLiOGRAPHY: 'East India (Constitutional Reforms) Communal Decision' Cmd. 4147, London, 1932; K.K. Aziz, 'Britain and Muslim India', London, 1963; K.B. Sayeed, 'Pakistan: The Formative Phase', 2nd. ed., (Karachi, 1969).