Though Sardar Patel, an Indian statesman, was opposed to any kind of reservation in the government jobs and education as well as in the legislatures like Mahatma Gandhi, even today his name is being drawn in controversies in the present day agitations demanding reservations in India. Of course, Patel was very keen on giving due share to all the minorities in administration of free India. Patel as Constitution maker is hardly being discussed. While drafting the Constitution of Indian Republic, the contribution of Patel as the Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Minority Rights in extending political safeguards was quite significant. He was assisted by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Rajendra Prasad. K. M. Munshi and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar as Members on the Advisory Committee. The Indian Constitution provides safeguards such as reservations for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the government jobs and education as well as political reservations in the Parliament and other Legislatures. In late ’90s, the reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBC) on the basis of the Mandal Commission recommendations were also implemented.
Sometime the concept of Minorities and usage of the phrase Scheduled Castes does create confusion in the international treaties and law. Hence, Munshi had offered clarification in the Constituent Assembly : “The ‘minorities’ so far as international treaties and international law is concerned, is only restricted to racial, linguistic and religious minorities. The Harijans, generally known as Scheduled Castes, are neither a racial minority nor a linguistic minority, not certainly a religious minority…to clarify the position that so far as the Scheduled Castes are concerned, they are not minorities in the strict meaning of the term; that the Harijans are part and parcel of Hindu community, and safeguards are given to them to protect their rights only till they are completely absorbed in the Hindu Community.”
Since the Untouchables were deprived of equal status with the Caste Hindus for centuries, the provisions were proposed for the initial period so that they can be brought in the mainstream. Unfortunately, the reservation criteria has not only become permanent but even the Caste Hindus like Brahmins and Rajputs have been agitating for getting included in the backward reserved categories to get the job and educational benefits ! All the political parties without any exception favour not only continuation of reservations but demand extending them to various castes and classes with craving for the votes.
Not only Sardar Patel but even Pandit Nehru never dreamt of the present day scenario. Both, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, were not in favour of reservations for eternity. At one stage, the Sardar and Munshi tried to convince Dr. Ambedkar, the Law Minister who was given responsibility to Chair the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, to give up his insistence for reservations. Barrister Ambedka , who was born in the Mahar community of the Untouchables of that era, refused to budge. He even offered to resign not only his seat in the Constituent Assembly but also as the Law Minister of India. Of course, Patel could not afford a giant like Dr. Ambedkar to resign and never raised the issue again. Patel visualized the so-called untouchables difficult to distinguish in his own words during the Constituent Assembly debates: “There is no Scheduled Caste between us.” While referring to one SC member Mr. Khandekar, he added: “There is no Scheduled Caste between us. So those representatives of the Scheduled Castes must know that 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 have to forget that they are untouchables or else if they carry this inferiority complex, they will not be able to serve their community.”
“They will only be able to serve their community by feeling now that they are with us. They are no more Scheduled Castes and therefore they must change their manners and I appeal to them also to have no breach between them and the other group of Scheduled Castes. There are groups amongst themselves, but everyone tries according to his own light. We are now to begin again. So let us forget these sections and cross-sections and let us stand as one, and together.” Patel did not preach for the sake of preaching. He even followed what he believed. In Wadhwan, in the convention for the removal of untouchability Patel joined the Scheduled Castes delegates who were sitting separately in the Pandal.
Sardar Patel managed to convince the Muslims, Christians and Parsis to give up the claim for any kind of reservation for their community. When the Constituent Assembly was debating the Political Reservations, Dr. H. C. Mookherjee ( a Christian Member and the Vice President of the Assembly), Maulana Hasrat Mohani, Tajamul Husain (Muslim Members), R. K. Sidhva (a Parsi Member) and a thumping majority of the members wholeheartedly supported in favour of non-religious reservations even when some members were insisting for and even Congress leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad preferred to remain neutral. PM Nehru expressed his opinion in favour of the Sardar: “Frankly, I would like this proposal to go further and put an end to such reservations as there still remain. But again, speaking frankly, I realize that in the present state of affairs in India that would not be desirable thing to do, that is to say, in regard to the Scheduled Castes. I try to look upon the problem not in the sense of a religious minority, but rather in the sense of helping backward groups in the country. I do not look at it from the religious point of view or the caste point of view, but from the point of view that a backward group ought to be helped and I am glad that this reservation also will be limited to ten years.” He was referring to the political reservations on 26 May 1949 in the Constituent Assembly.
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, who was to be the President of India in later years, expressed solidarity with Sardar Patel’s proposal for political reservation for a limited period in a poetic language: “With a view to develop a homogeneous, secular, democratic state, the devices hitherto employed to keep minorities as separate entities within the state be dropped and loyalty to a single National State developed.” He too considered a period of a decade enough for the reservations. Unfortunately, even today no party except the party, RPI Bahujan Mahasabgh, headed by Advocate Prakash Ambedkar, the grandson of Dr. Ambedkar, favours scraping the political reservations in the Indian Legislatures.
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(The writer is a Socio-political Historian. E-mail: [email protected] )
