Debating Difference: Group Rights and Liberal Democracy in India by Rochana Bajpai

Author:Rochana Bajpai [Bajpai, Rochana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OUP India
Published: 2011-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

1 Representatives from minority groups were the main, but not the sole, advocates of special rights for minorities. For instance, K.M. Munshi and Hriday Nath Kunzru spoke in favour of strong cultural rights for minorities in key debates.

2 Different combinations of these mechanisms were proposed during the Constituent Assembly’s deliberations. For instance, proportional representation was advocated in conjunction with reserved seats, as well as an alterative to legislative quotas.

3 Separate electorates were eventually outlawed under the Indian Constitution.

4 See also Pandit G.B. Pant, CAD V: 223–4.

5 The notion that only a person belonging to the group could adequately represent it was often incomprehensible from a nationalist standpoint. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar queried: ‘…Mr Pocker says “I want a good, honest representative”. What is the definition of goodness? Goodness does not come by being a Muslim or a Hindu…’ (CAD V: 216).

6 Arguing that separate electorates would be ‘suicidal’ for minorities, Pandit G.B. Pant held: ‘The minorities if they are returned by separate electorates can never have any effective voice…will you be satisfied with the pitiable position of being no more than advocates—if advocates alone you wish to be—when your advocacy will be treated…with utter disregard and unconcern, which is bound to be the case when those who are the judges are not in any way answerable to your electorate?’ (CAD V: 223)

7 Several minority representatives opposed parliamentary democracy as unsuitable in India on account of the presence of permanent majorities and minorities. For instance, in 1947, Dr Ambedkar had argued that a British-style parliamentary executive ‘rests on the premise that the majority is a political majority’ and in India ‘would result in permanently vesting executive power in a communal majority.’ (Shiva Rao 1967 II: 102–3).

8 Consociational institutions are not necessarily democratic and have exacerbated ethnic conflict in several contexts.

9 Dr Ambedkar among others had put forward sophisticated arguments challenging the Indian nationalist view that separate electorates were necessarily antithetical to national unity (see Shiva Rao 1967 II: 110).

10 Dr Ambedkar’s opposition to proportional representation may have stemmed from the fact that PR did not offer minorities ‘a definite quota’ of representation (Sridharan 2002: 359).

11 Supporters of a strong central government in the Constituent Assembly were ideologically diverse and included secular modernists such as Nehru and Ambedkar, as well as Hindu nationalists (see Singh 2006: 912–13).

12 See also Vallabhbhai Patel’s speech in the House, introducing the first minority report, CAD V: 199–200.

13 For instance, Vallabhbhai Patel stated: ‘…the Scheduled Caste has to be effaced altogether from our society, and if it is to be effaced, those who have ceased to be untouchables and sit amongst us must forget that they are untouchables…We are now to begin again. So let us forget these sections and cross-sections and let us stand as one, and together’ (CAD V: 272).

14 Opposing Jaipal Singh’s proposals for greater autonomy for tribal areas, K.M. Munshi said that the aim of the Drafting Committee’s proposals was that isolated tribes ‘should be absorbed in the national life of the country’. But he

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