Turning Back the Clock

The SIR threatens a century of progress in advancing voting rights

- / SAGAR

BR Ambedkar rose to speak during the second sitting of the First Round Table Conference's franchise subcommittee, at St James's Palace in London on 22 December 1930. Comprising 36 members, including Indian politicians, colonial officers and British legislators, the subcommittee was meant to determine who would be allowed to vote under a new constitution for India. Over a decade had passed since the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919, which had introduced direct elections in the colony but restricted voting rights, through property, income, educational and service qualifications, to just three percent of the population. The Depressed Classes, as Dalits were officially known at the time, had almost entirely been denied the vote, as had most women. Ambedkar had hoped this would change soon—until he faced the subcommittee.

“It seems to me that there are only two important questions which this Round Table Conference is going to consider,” he said. “One question is whether India should have responsible government, and the second question is to what people the government should be responsible.” Ambedkar added that he had been “under the impression that the Indian people who came to represent their country at this Round Table Conference were not only united in making a demand for responsible government for India but were also united in the view as to whom that government should be responsible. I am sorry to say, sir, that I have been deluded.”