SPECIAL ARTICLE
Emergence of the Indian Constitution
Affirmative Action and Cultural Fault Lines
Vivek Prahladan
The Indian Constitution has, as part of the history of
nation making and the process of nation building,
become the site of contestations of power. This article
seeks to frame this discourse through a history of
negotiations between communities seeking to create
for themselves a “shared” constitution and resolve
cultural fault lines through a vision of a cultural
document that was to be the “Indian” Constitution. It
attempts to comprehend the specificity of the
constitutional design and the history of the idea of the
text that is the Indian Constitution as an ideological
contest between two visions, “constitution through
nation” and “nation through constitution”.
This paper is partly based on presentations made at the 25th Annual
Conference of the British Association for South Asian Studies held at
University of Southampton, UK, 11-13 April 2011 and the Fifth Annual
Conference of the South Asian Studies Association held at Virginia
Commonwealth University, 8-10 April 2011, Virginia, USA.
I am grateful to Bhagwan Josh for his generosity as well as passion for
independent thinking.
Vivek Prahladan (vivekprahladan@gmail.com) is a PhD scholar at the
Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
Economic & Political Weekly  EPW   february 18, 2012  vol xlvIi no 7
T
he landscape of postcolonial states in south Asia, Africa
and South America are dotted with “tinderbox demo­
cracies” that are contradictorily complemented by the
relatively stable Indian state. “There is little doubt that demo­
cracy in India has taken root”.1 Such has been the repetition of
the electoral process and the evolution of state building and
nation making enterprise that the Indian state has survived
and has continued to navigate through fault lines that were
and are cultural, regional, ethnic, linguistic, etc. The Indian
Constitution, it may be argued, has been at the heart of this
nation state building and has structured the relative stability
at the core wherein aspirations (of castes and communities)
emerging from within these fault lines merge successfully into
constitutional discourses of affirmative action. However, inter­
pretations of the text and form of the Indian Constitution have
remained, in large part, disengaged from the idea of the text of
this Constitution. A history of the idea of the Constitution is
yet to be established as a part of the narratives of “discourse of
Indian constitutionalism and politics”.2
First, narratives of modern Indian historiography appear to
be predicated on a “primary contradiction”3 between two his-
tories. On one hand, there are the histories of mass movements,
which may be histories of the left, national movement, peasant
or labour struggles, etc. The other side of this contradiction is
the unexplored historiographical vacuum, the history of the
Constitution. In the existing histories of national movements,
constitutional developments have been viewed as “breathing
spaces” from the point of view of upsurges of masses or periods
when the Indian National Congress (INC) was supposed to be
carrying on constructive work. The following statement sum-
marises the prevailing historiographical consensus on constitu-
tional politics as “simply filling the political vacuum between
two Gandhian struggles”.4 However, one may argue that from
a historical perspective, the end product of all mass movements
was the formation and crystallisation of India’s new Constitu-
tion and the way its emergence dealt with the issues of caste
and community. Periods of non-mass movements were equally
significant when discourses of caste and community and not
merely the INC were negotiating to create a constitutional con-
sensus. The emplotment within narratives of the histories of
politics in India, firstly, employ the idea of constitutional his-
tory being limited to a history of passive responses of the anti-
colonial discourse to British constitutional reforms. Secondly,
“constitutional agitation”, the preferred term for constitutional
politics, was carried on “within the four walls of law”5 which
45
SPECIAL ARTICLE
acted as breaks in the historical evolution of the Indian n­ational
movement and the triumph of the same. Thus, the history of
India’s evolution as a constitutional republic starts, in these
narratives, only with the 1946-47 constituent Assembly. Thus,
it was not only constitutional politics that was opposed to mass
movements but “communalism” too was contradictory to the
discourse of Indian nationalism.
The history of the constitutional discourse is a history of
n­egotiations over a shared constitution. This framework of
nego­tiations remains hidden behind the dominant tendency of
modern Indian historiography to focus on Hindu-Muslim riots
and mobilisations and “communal” propaganda. Revisiting the
foundational assumption in modern Indian historiography of
the dialectic of secularism and communalism is one of the core
implications of the framework of this thesis.6 Therefore, the
n­otions of caste, community and culture are not merely ideo-
logical superstructures but actual existential facts of living social
conditions of south Asian societies. The “communalism” of the
Muslim League and Congress Hindus, the Central Sikh League
and the Hindu Mahasabha were discourses that were generated
by the cultural fault lines between communities. This is the his-
tory of negotiations between bodies that were articulating dis-
courses of identity, power, representation, affirmative action,
reservation of seats, etc, and were seeking to embed the matrix
of castes and communities within a single and a shared constitu-
tional regime. The template of constitutional discourse invites
reflection on the articulations of caste and community dis-
courses by allowing these to be enmeshed into a single narrative
trope which frames the emergence of a “shared” constitution as
was being negotiated upon by Jinnah, the Muslim League,
Ambedkar, Sikhs, and the Hindu Mahasabha.7 In these negotia-
tions over constitution making, the INC was only one of the
voices that were contesting within this colonial constitutional
framework. The contemporary contest over the meaning of the
Constitution and “the uneasy relationship between Constitution
and democratic politics”8 in postcolonial discourses of power
must be located within this history of negotiations over a
“shared” Indian Constitution. Further, almost intuitively, pos­t­
colonial discourses of secularism anchor themselves to the
n­otion of a “secular” constitution which is considered to be “a
charter of Indian unity”.9 The historiographical trope of the con-
tradiction between communalism and secularism/nationalism
carries over to the postcolonial contest over the idea of the con-
stitution where “communalism remains a major threat to India’s
Constitution based on secular and democratic principles”.10
The Constitution was drafted in December 1949 against the
backdrop of the Partition. The latter was seen as the outcome
of all that went wrong in Indian politics, i e, “communalism”
which was “without any agitation or struggle”.11 On the other
hand, Indian Independence and the Constitution were seen as
the logical outcome of all that was right about Indian politics,
i e, the idea of swaraj, the Gandhi-led national movement and
its eminent “secular” values.
This paper views the constitutional discourse as a contest
between two visions, “nation through constitution” and “consti­
tution through nation” with the word “through” interchangeable
46
with “after”. The former was articulated by the discourses of
caste and community interests and the latter by the nationalist
discourse of the INC. The colonial discourse of representation
re-emerged as the postcolonial debate of affirmative action
and was followed by the Gandhian and Nehruvian discourse
wherein swaraj or purna (total) swaraj came first and every-
thing else after. For instance, Ambedkar stated that “without
the removal of the taint of untouchability Swaraj is a meaning-
less term”.12 M A Jinnah, on his participation in the proceed-
ings of the second round table conference (RTC), stated that
“we have come here, notwithstanding the opposition of those
who stand for complete independence”.13 On the other hand,
Gandhi, at the same RTC stated that “the agreed solution of the
communal tangle can only be a crown of the Swaraj Constitu-
tion, not its foundation”.14 Swaraj, through mass movements,
was a consistent and pre-eminent ideological commitment of
the nationalist discourse.
The paper identifies four phases in this history of the consti-
tutional discourse. Each phase represents a turn in the history
of negotiations. (I) the phase of “comprehensive negotiations”
–1916-32; (II) the phase where constitutional discourse was first
challenged and then replaced by the discourse of cultural con-
frontation – 1935-46; (III) the Constituent Assembly and drafting
of the Constitution – 1946-50; and (IV) the postcolonial debate
over affirmative action. It will emphasise the contours of the
first phase and briefly run through the other three.
‘Comprehensive Negotiations’: 1916-32
In 1916, the Congress and Muslim League entered into an
agreement for the first and last time over the issue of separate
electorates. The Lucknow Pact was based on the constitutional
artefact of reservation of seats (for Muslims in the central legis-
lature). It is important as an event of agreement inasmuch as it
gives us an angle to explain the constitutional history of mod-
ern India. In 1916, the INC was still committed to the idea of
“constitutional agitation”. The term “constitutional agitation”
must be differentiated from that of the ideological paradigm of
“nation through constitution” that posed itself as an alternative
to the Congress’ “constitution through nation”. Congress was
yet to come out of its foundational notion of “nascent national-
ism” based on petitioning.15 The term “constitutional agitation”
is a reasonable term to understand the pre-swaraj INC. It is in-
tent and content was defined in terms of linear constitutional-
ism imagined within the construct of petition documents.
Thus, a pact was inked with the Muslim League as their fellow
constitutionalists. However, this political ecology of linear con-
stitutionalism lost the initiative to the idea of Gandhian swaraj.
It was with the advent of swaraj that one sees the fault line be-
tween the Congress’ vision of “constitution through nation”,
that nationalism was a non-negotiable “intent”, with the vision
of cultural politics of the Muslim League, Akalis (and later
Ambedkar) articulating the intent of “nation through constitu-
tion”, and their explicit “content” of “culturalism”.
Beginning with the Lucknow Pact of 1916 between the Con-
gress and the Muslim League and concluding with the unity
conference at Allahabad in 1932, the nature of negotiations,
february 18, 2012  vol xlvIi no 7  EPW   Economic & Political Weekly

ipso facto, define and distinguish this phase. All the negot­
iations in this phase involved large delegations (more than 100
in many cases) and were carried out on a “national” platform
surrounded by massive public interest and media involvement.
The various delegations, formal and informal, counted in its
ranks the most important leaders of modern Indian history.
Second, these “comprehensive negotiations” concluded with
drafts, whether of agreements or disagreements. The draft of
the 1932 unity conference was the last such involving constitu-
tional negotiations between caste and community representa-
tives. Third, the principle of reservation of seats was at the
core of the contest over a shared constitution. Fourth, there
were only two successful negotiations, one involved commu-
nity and the other caste. The Lucknow Pact was the only suc-
cessful agreement on the question of community and even this
fell apart. It conceded the idea of reservation of seats for a
community. The Poona Pact of 1932, involving Gandhi and
Ambedkar, was the only other successful agreement and the
basic principles of this agreement that of reservation of seats
for castes, found its way into the constitution of independent
India. This phase also saw the emergence of electoral politics
and the idea of cultivating electorates to secure seats in coun-
cils and assemblies. Thus, this period saw the emergence of
regional parties, caste organisations, and religious/cultural
bodies besides the advent of the Gandhian mass movement.
Emergence of Mass Politics
The Lucknow Pact conceded the principle of reservation of seats
in the central legislature with separate electorates for the Mus-
lim community. “Tilak was an enthusiastic backer”16 of this
agreement and negotiated with the Muslim League. Through
reservation of seats over and above their proportion it “brought
benefits to the Muslims in minority provinces”.17 It was also a
way to bridge over the Surat split of 1907 which had virtually
crippled the Congress and “for the first time since the Surat
split, the moderates, under Chimanlal Setalvad, and the extrem-
ists, led by Tilak, came together”.18 Why did the same Muslim
League with similar demands in 1928 come to be termed “com-
munal” in modern Indian historiography? The Montagu-
Chelmsford reforms confirmed the suspicion of nationalists (ex-
tremists) that “constitutional agitation” had failed. After the
first war years, in the words of C Vijayaraghavachariar, there
“entered a historic figure on the scene of Indian politics”.19 The
momentum generated by Gandhi proved irresistible. This led to
“the open cleavage between open politics and underground
politics”.20 With the advent of Gandhi and mass movements,
n­ational politics came to be inhabited by those who were
gripped by nationalism. Liberals left the Congress and so did
Jinnah. A realist and a constitutionalist, Jinnah was critical of
the emotional energies released by the Khilafat agitation and
non-cooperation and could never be reconciled with the Con-
gress through their pressure of mass politics.21
Re-emergence of the Constitutional Space
By the mid-1920s, the Punjab and Khilafat wrongs, which were
the immediate inspirations for mass mobilisations, were no
Economic & Political Weekly  EPW   february 18, 2012  vol xlvIi no 7
SPECIAL ARTICLE
longer motivational. The momentum of mass movements was
lost as Gandhi renounced non-cooperation following the Chauri
Chaura episode and was subsequently jailed till 1924. By this
time, as Anil Seal writes, “the Swaraj party was in the front seat,
and Gandhi was back-pedalling, from gaol”.22 By 1925, Birken-
head threw the constitutional option back into Indian politics by
“challenging Indians to produce a constitution”.23
First, this saw the return of the Swarajists, as C R Das and
Motilal Nehru began re-engaging with the re-emerged consti-
tutional space. However, the nature of this space had changed
and ceased to be what is known as “constitutional agitation”
and saw active negotiations between community and caste
discourses to evolve an “Indian” constitution. Second, by this
time, the Muslim League, which had earlier been overshadowed
by the Khilafat agitation, retrieved its status as a Muslim coun-
terpart of the Congress. In Punjab, Fazl-i-Hussain revived the
Punjab Provincial Muslim League to work with the Muddiman
Committee on constitutional reforms.24 In its 1924 session, the
All India Muslim League, with Jinnah in attendance, resolved
that in any constitutional dialogue, the form of government
would be a federation with provincial autonomy and constitu-
tionally guarded Muslim majority in Punjab, Bengal and the
North-Western Frontier Province. Also, by 1925 Maulana
M­uhammad Ali had fallen out with Congress and publicly held
“a fallen Muslim to be better than Mr Gandhi”.25 By 1931,
Maulana Shaukat Ali too was seen opposing Gandhi at the
s­econd RTC. Third, parallel to this was the rise of the Hindu
Mahasabha as “the wave of riots which spread in the early
1920s resulted in the relaunching of the Hindu Maha­sabha”.26
However, the window for dialogue between the communities
remained open. Paradoxically, it seems, the riots made a
d­ialogue necessary between representatives of the communi-
ties as no one community was able to dominate in “street
strength” and both had the ability to retaliate. Pandit Malaviya
insisted on the need “to approach Muslim leaders to devise
means to settle disputes. In case riots occur we should settle
matters in consultation with leaders of both communities.”27
Malaviya, along with Jinnah, had opposed Gandhi’s non-­
cooperation resolution in 1920. Lala Lajpat Rai, speaking at a
rally in 1925 stated that “it is wrong to represent that H­indus
are altogether opposed to any revision or reconsideration of
the Lucknow Pact”.28
The process for the next instalment of constitutional reforms
was on the cards and this led, first, to the “Delhi Muslim propos-
als” where reservation of seats in joint electorates could be
e­xplored as the basis for a compromise over separate electorates.
The Muslim League decided to “frame a constitution for India
on lines acceptable to all communities and all parties”.29 The
INC accepted this principle of reservation of seats for Muslims in
the central and provincial assemblies at its 42nd session in
M­adras. The Mahasabha also accepted the Delhi proposals. This
momentum culminated with the All Parties National Conven-
tion (henceforward the convention) in 1928 and its outcome,
the Nehru Report. As a response to the Simon Commission, the
convention was called to explore a consensus through negotia-
tions on the constitution. The negotiations could not lead to an
47
SPECIAL ARTICLE
agreement and the Nehru Report of 1928 was a document of
disagreements. The idea of reservation of seats emerged as the
core of the constitutional dispute. Why was it that on the issue
of reservation of seats for Muslims in the central legislature,
Punjab and Bengal, the convention, in its own words, “could not
arrive at any agreement”?30 This can only be answered by re-­
interpreting the convention as a dialogue between communi-
ties. The key to the negotiations lay in the interventions of a
body called the Central Sikh League based in Lyallpur. The
a­rticulations of this body may be understood in the context of
the Singh Sabha movement and the evolution of the notion of
the Sikh panth. The Akalis were the first regional party in the
subcontinent. Jalal writes that “Punjabis of all religious denomi-
nations had conflicting opinions on the Nehru Report”.31 I would
like to assert that the Sikhs under the Central Sikh League pre-
sented a formidable unity, though not unanimity. This was
u­nlike the Muslim League which was divided in Punjab over the
Simon Commission and in Bengal where Fazlul Haq persisted
with pushing for separate electorates.
The Communal Question
The first impact of the community discourse of the Sikhs at the
national level was felt during the convention. Here, the Sikh
League put forth its demand for 30% reservation of seats with
the right to contest additional seats even though their propor-
tion in Punjab according to the Census of 1921 was 11%. This
demand was based on its understanding that in Punjab “the
existence of more than one minority favours the reduction of
majority in numbers into a minority in representation”.32 Motilal
did not anticipate the Sikh insistence on reservation of seats as
their minimum irreducible condition to any agreement. He
wrote to Jinnah, “The strangest development that has taken
place is that of all communities in India, the Sikhs are now
thinking of having reservation for themselves in Punjab”.33
Thus, in an attempt to close the window on the “Hindu-Muslim”
constitutional dispute over reservation of seats, yet another
door was opened, that of reservation of seats for Sikhs who
saw the Lucknow Pact as a mistake. Baba Kharak Singh
­“exhorted the Sikhs to throw the Nehru Report in the dustbin
(as it was) another Lucknow Pact in which the interests of the
Sikhs had been sacrificed”.34 The antagonism of the Sikh body
towards the Congress sharpened in the aftermath of the Ne-
hru Report and its secretary wrote to Motilal that “you and
your party have adopted the bureaucratic tactics of divide and
rule”.35 With the infusion of Sikh discourses of representation
and reservation of seats the Hindu-Muslim question in Punjab
“defied all attempts at a satisfactory adjustment”.36 The con-
vention found it difficult even to establish the meaning of the
word “minority” because in the negotiations, according to Mo-
tilal, “the word minority had sole reference to Muslim
m­inorities”.37 The convention then replaced the word minority
with “small minorities” with the intention that “the word
would be confined to Muslim minorities”.38
The Sikhs, however, remained unmoved by any of these
­attempts that would result in watering down their demand for
reservations. Eventually, the Nehru Report did away altogether
48
with the principle of reservation of seats (both for majorities and
minorities) which held the promise of a compromise on sepa-
rate electorates. Thus, community discourses were seeking
“constitutional equilibrium” through reservation of seats. At
the beginning of the convention, Motilal, optimistically wrote
to “dear Jinnah” that in regard to Punjab and Bengal “there are
already signs of a desire on the part of each community to re-
verse its position in regard to reservation”.39 Later in 1928,
Shaukat Ali wrote to Gandhi that “in your presence Motilalji
and myself differed so strongly over the reservation of Muslim
seats question”.40 Under no circumstance were Sikhs and Mus-
lims willing to accept the implications of the simple arithmetic
of adult franchise in the central legislature or that of popula-
tion proportion in minority provinces. Motilal Nehru also
wrote to Jinnah of his suspicions of “even some leading Hindus
of Bengal who are now pleading for reservation of seats to save
themselves from the Muslim avalanche at polls”.41 By the end
of 1928, the Nehru Report lapsed and the dialogue between
communities came to an end with Jinnah’s 14-point agenda.
Gandhi’s own assessment was that he “had no faith in the leg-
islative solution of the communal question”.42 An outcome of
the convention was that reservations became the necessary
condition for an agreement on the “content” required to
achieve any sort of critical mass for an agreement based on the
“intent” of “nationalism”. This leads to the assertion that the
contest bet­ween the two visions of “constitution through na-
tion” and “­nation through constitution” was also one between
the centrality of the assertion of a “content” based nation state
as was asserted by community (and later of caste) discourses
and of “intent” driven nationalism of the INC.
For his part, Gandhi was waiting for a civil disobedience
campaign and with Bardoli he got that chance once again after
1922. As Judith Brown states “Bardoli lifted Gandhi out of the
depression”.43 On the back of the failure of the first RTC Nehru
embarked upon the no-rent campaign. However, viceroy Irvin
succeeded in bringing Gandhi to the negotiating table for pro-
visional cooperation by securing Gandhi’s participation at the
second RTC at London. Here Gandhi rejected any special safe-
guards for any community especially the “Depressed Classes”
and put forth a strong claim of the Congress being the sole
representative of the interests of all Indians. Gandhi found
himself opposed by all minority representatives including
Ambedkar. Within this phase of “comprehensive negotiations”,
the second RTC marks a shift for three reasons. First, it inaugu-
rated the entry of caste discourse into the constitutional dia-
logue at the national level that had until now been restricted
only to communities and issues of caste ceased to remain the
preserve of social reform. Second, it brought to a head the con-
test between two visions that had begun with the Lucknow
Pact of 1916, that between the constitutional discourses of
communities and castes affirming the notion of “nation
through constitution” and the nationalist v­ision of “constitu-
tion through nation or Swaraj”. Third, the process of Gandhi
having to reckon with the inescapable implications of the
­constitutional discourse had begun. By the time of the com-
munal award Gandhi had proceeded to actively e­ngage in this
february 18, 2012  vol xlvIi no 7  EPW   Economic & Political Weekly

constitutional dialogue leading to the Poona Pact with Ambedkar
in September 1932.
B S Moonje, the Hindu Mahasabha leader was present at this
RTC along with Gandhi. The Mahasabha was, among other
things, also actively involved in the constitutional discourse in
terms of the constitutional implications for Hindus. During the
second RTC, the Mahasabha was holding meetings in Delhi “to
consider communal and constitutional issues”.44 Here the role
of consensus making played by Malaviya cannot be under-
stated. He represented the crucial link between the hard line
Mahasabhaites who spoke in terms of military regeneration,
the moderate Mahasabhaites and the Congress Hindus like
himself and C Vijayaraghavachariar and Gandhi. The Maha­
sabha was sensitive to the idea that, for now, constitutional
discourse came before that of swaraj. During the second RTC,
Moonje in a letter wrote that “we Hindus are idealists and
fools. We are so impatient for Swaraj that we do not bother to
comprehend its responsibility”.45 Faced with opposition over
the constitutional negotiations, Gandhi concluded that “the
sinful wrangles” would continue to evade any resolution so
long as there remained uncertainties in regard to “the funda-
mentals of the constitution”.46 T B Sapru, sympathetically
noted, on this occasion, that he “witnessed the funeral of s­o-
called Indian nationalism”.47 By the time of his return to India
and after the conclusion of the second RTC, Gandhi, if one goes
by the word of M S Aney who was acting president of Congress
in 1933, “no longer believed in communal settlement and
wanted the Congress to work purely on national basis in con-
sidering any new constitution of India”.48
On his return, Gandhi and all leading Congress leaders were
imprisoned and “many of the rank and file followed, by May
there were 36,000 prisoners”.49 The British government initi-
ated a series of “shock and awe” ordinances to overwhelm the
Congress organisation and the civil disobedience movement.
The idea that “the Gandhian campaign had come to an end”50
was gaining currency by early 1932. The setback for the
“­nationalist” discourse of swaraj was further compounded by
Ramsay MacDonald’s communal award that projected a frac-
tured vision of the Indian nation state by assuring separate
electorates for both communities and castes. Gandhi com-
mented that this award “seeks to create such divisions in the
country that it can never stand up on its own legs”.51 Gandhi
had stated at the second RTC that “the claims advanced on
b­ehalf of the untouchables are the unkindest cut of all. I will
resist it with my life.”52 He went on a fast unto death that was,
in his own words, “aimed at statutory separate electorates in
any shape or form for the Depressed Classes”.53
Ambedkar: The Central Figure
A conference was convened at Bombay under the presidentship
of Pandit Malaviya to come up with an agreement that could
convince Gandhi to withdraw his fast. The week from 19th to
25th September 1932 was an epic one in Indian history that saw
leading personalities of modern Indian history i­nvolved in
­negotiations. “It was a situation that taxed the n­ation’s nerves.”54
Some of the leaders who took part in these negotiations were
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SPECIAL ARTICLE
Ambedkar, R Srinivasan, Solanki, C Raja­gopalachari, Rajendra
Prasad, Pandit Malaviya, M R Jayakar, B S Moonje, T B Sapru,
H N Kunzru, M C Rajah, Chimanlal Setalvad, G D Birla, A V
Thakkar, M S Aney, Purshottamdas Thakurdas, Walchand
Hirachand and others. At Yerwda jail along with Gandhi there
were Devadas Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Vallabhbhai Patel, Ma-
hadev Desai, N C Kelkar and Pyarelal. On the first day of the
conference at Bombay, Ambedkar stated that “although I re-
gard the question of separate electorates as closed by the Com-
munal Award yet I am prepared to negotiate with Mr Gandhi as
he was the chief opponent in London”.55 Ambedkar further
added that “I will not discuss the question with anybody else
other than Mahatma Gandhi”.56 In turn, Gandhi, in an inter-
view to the press conceded the principle of reservation of seats
stating that although he held “strong views about reservation
of seats”, nevertheless he would “abide by any agreement on
the basis of joint electorates”.57 Further, in a private letter, Gan-
dhi wrote to P N Rajbhoj of his desire to meet Ambedkar, a tacit
acceptance of Ambedkar’s representative credentials which he
had questioned earlier in London.
This was a quantum leap from the encounter of confronta-
tion bet­ween the two at the second RTC where, in the words of
C Raja­gopalachari, “Mahatmaji received many wounds in Lon-
don. But Dr Ambedkar’s darts were the worst”.58 Ambedkar
was dictating the terms of these negotiations. The secretary of
state noted that Ambedkar “has put forward some very sweep-
ing d­emands as an alternative to separate electorates”.59 Sapru
prepared a scheme based on primary and secondary elections
wherein the primaries would be through a panel system (a soft
form of separate electorates) and the secondary and final elec-
tions through joint electorates with reservation of seats. In his
meeting with Ambedkar Gandhi stated that “primary election
would not offend against my vow”.60 The negotiators had to
concede even reservation of seats at the central legislature
even though it did not form part of the communal award. The
Congress Hindus and representatives of the Mahasabha and
Congressmen in general were under tremendous pressure to
come to an agreement.61 Ambedkar was exerting his own pres-
sure on them by approaching them with the principle of maxi-
mum extraction insisting that “nothing be left unresolved” and
that he was “keen on deciding matters once and for all”.62
C­himanlal Setalvad remarked after the conclusion of the pact
that “If Gandhiji had to be saved, everything that Dr Ambedkar
asked for had to be conceded. Dr Ambedkar was the central
figure in the conversations with Gandhi.”63
These various agreements were bundled into what is known
as the Poona Pact. The implications of this historic agreement
were that first, Ambedkar became established as a prominent
Depressed Class leader on a national platform. Second, reser­
vation of seats for castes became statutorily entrenched
through a consensus based on negotiations between represent-
atives of castes and this eventually made its way into independ-
ent India’s Constitution. Third, the successful completion of the
Gandhi-Ambedkar dialogue of 1932 raised hopes that a wider
settlement may now be possible. On the day of the announce-
ment of Gandhi’s fast, Sapru wrote to G D Birla on the need for
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a pact with the Depressed Classes, stating that “this Pact may
lead to other important constitutional solutions”.64 Ambedkar
entered into an agreement with caste Hindus through a dia-
logue with Gandhi for three reasons. One, Gandhi acknowledged
Ambedkar as a Depressed Class representative. Second, Gandhi
conceded the principle of reservation of seats, which he had
o­pposed in London. Third, Ambedkar was disappointed with
the communal award. He wrote to the secretary of state that
parts of the award “have come as a shock to me” and “the De-
pressed Classes are furious”.65 This leads to an assertion that is
contrary to the popular as well as academic consensus on this
historic encounter of 1932 that “Ambedkar was unable to with-
stand public pressure to defer to the force of Gandhi’s fast”.66
Separate Electorates
The aspirations for a wider settlement led to the convening of
a Unity Conference at Allahabad at the tail end of 1932. The
groundwork for these negotiations was carried out by Pandit
Malaviya and Maulana Shaukat Ali. On 16 October 1932, the
All Parties Conference of Muslim Leaders hammered out a
resolution wherein they agreed to put the issue of separate
electorates on the negotiating table “subject to the definite ac-
ceptance of the Muslim demands”.67 Gandhi’s intent to medi-
ate on these negotiations may be understood by M S Aney’s
letter that said, “Everything will be done as desired by you.
You will shortly proceed to Allahabad to attend the open ses-
sion, I believe.”68 Maulana Shaukat Ali made an attempt to
have Gandhi released and approached the viceroy who, how-
ever, refused. As for Malaviya’s efforts, B S Moonje remarked
that “he (Malaviya) is obsessed with one idea, i e, forcing the
Prime Minister to now change his award in respect of Mos-
lems”.69 The Mahasabha was still open for a dialogue between
communities. It, however, had its own reasons for doing so. It
concluded that Hindus “cannot fight the Muslims particularly
if they start civil war. We must concede all 14 points of Jinnah
and, at any cost, resolve our quarrel with the Muslims.”70 This
statement is indicative of the fact that the word “unity” had
many meanings. Shaukat Ali called this conference the
“Swadeshi Round Table Conference”.71 It was presided over by
veteran Congress and Mahasabha leader and eminent consti-
tutionalist, C Vijayaraghavachariar who, in his opening ad-
dress stated that they had “met to consider the situation cre-
ated by the Premier’s Award and the Poona Pact. If we wish to
be a nation, an integration of communities must take place.”72
On 1 November 1932, an informal gathering had taken place
of Sikh and Hindu delegates from Punjab, Bengal, Sind, the
United Provinces, Central Provinces and Madras at K N Katju’s
residence at Allahabad. Pandit Malaviya, C Vijayaraghavach-
ariar, G D Birla, Raja Narendranath, Sir Sundersingh Majithia,
Ujjal Singh, Ramanand Chatterjee, Radhakumud Mukherji,
C B Chintamani, H N Kunzru, M S Aney and B S Moonje were
present. The next day saw the arrival of C Rajagopalachariar
and the Depressed Classes leader from Madras M C Rajah,
Rajendra Prasad, K T Shah, M Shaukat Ali, Abul Kalam Azad,
G B Pant, Giani Kartar Singh (of Akali Dal and SGPC), Sardar
Kartar Singh, Giani Sher Singh (SGPC), Ziauddin Ahmad and
50
others. The agenda for discussion was (1) Settling of Funda-
mental Rights – inclusion of Personal Law of Muslim Sharia in
the Declaration of Fundamental Rights demanded by the Jamiatul-
ulama. This was agreed to in principle, (2) Equal rights to the
Frontier and Baluchistan, (3) Representation by Convention
on Minorities in cabinets and services, (4) Agreement over the
Punjab question, (5) Tentative Settlement of Bengal, and
(6) Separation of Sind. Ambedkar wrote a letter to the conference
that was read out by G K Malaviya which read “there was no
greater stumbling block than disunity. Hindus must drop their
doctrinaire attitude and Muslims must cease saying that their
first word on the 14 points was also their last word.”73 Never
before, in the history of negotiations between communities
and castes, was so much put forward on the negotiating table
and so much lost. K M Ashraf suggests that “Hindu leaders at
Allahabad approached the problem of Indian minorities even
more generously than their predecessors at Lucknow at 1916”.74
The entire first week was spent discussing the question of
“Sind Separation which was giving the greatest trouble”.75 A
draft document of agreement was prepared for ratification by
the regional community bodies. The “Text of the Agreement
arrived at by the Unity Conference”76 protected personal laws,
and gave Muslims 51% of the seats in the legislative councils of
both Bengal and Punjab. Hindus were r­estricted to 44.7% in
Bengal and to 27% in Punjab. Sikhs were allotted reservations
of 20% (as opposed to the 30% demanded by them from the
time of the Nehru Report). The text agreement makes it clear
that the conference did not consider itself to be a definitive body
and realised that the participants were on a strict mandate.
Thus, it provided that the agreement had to be ratified by
the “regional bodies” of the communities. This ratification ran
into a series of suggested amendments that the conference
could not resolve and the draft eventually collapsed. This
marked the end of the phase of “comprehensive negotiations”.
The unity conference was the last such voluntary public gath-
ering of leaders on such a grand scale on the constitutional is-
sue of reconciling the contest between communities. The
breakdown of dialogue enabled the introduction of the Gov-
ernment of India Act 1935 along with the provisions of the
communal award as amended according to the Poona Pact.
The following is a brief summary of the main trends in the
remaining three phases. In the second phase (1935-46), the
dominant theme was the withdrawal of the Hindu Mahasabha
from the constitutional dialogue. In the first phase, they were
part of the negotiations from 1925 to 1932. Critical of the com-
munal award, the Mahasabha, under Savarkar, embarked
upon a discourse of cultural confrontation. Further, the
M­ahasabha was suspicious of any negotiations by Congress
leaders with the Muslim League, especially due to the Con-
gress’ ambivalence on the communal award. The Congress
N­ationalist Party (CNP) represented the link between the
M­ahasabha and the Congress but the merger of CNP with Con-
gress for the 1937 elections broke this link. In 1939, the
M­ahasabha passed a resolution stating that “the Congress
does not and cannot represent the Hindus, no constitutional
settlement arrived at behind the back of the Mahasabha will
february 18, 2012  vol xlvIi no 7  EPW   Economic & Political Weekly
 SPECIAL ARTICLE

be binding on Hindus until it is sanctioned by the Mahasa-
bha”.77 On the other side, Fazl-i-Hussain went about consoli-
dating the All India Muslim Conference as “the most powerful
o­rgan of Muslim opinion of India till the GOI Act 1935 assured
safeguards for Muslims in the new constitution”.78 The 1942
All India Muslim League resolution stated that “the only solu-
tion of India’s constitutional problems is the partition of India
into independent zones”.79 The constitutional dispute between
communities threatened to be replaced by cultural confronta-
tion. Fazlul Huq, according to the Mahasabha, “has threatened
actual revolt and civil war if the Indian constitution is not
drafted to their entire satisfaction”.80 The contest between the
two visions of “nation through constitution” and “constitution
through nation” remained irreconcilable. The making of a na-
tion (independence) and the unmaking (partition) are not par-
allel narratives of secularism and communalism but “lateral
interactions” through constitutional discourse between castes
and communities. The third phase saw the Indian constituent
assembly preside over the birth of the undefined constitutional
principle of “Indian secularism” by scrapping reservation of
seats, except for the scheduled castes (Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists
but not Christians or Muslims) and tribes and resolved that rep-
resentation would be on purely national lines. Nehru stated in
the assembly that this was “the right thing to do”.81 This was not
merely a “moment of containment”,82 as Rojana Bajpai says
rather it was one of the most prolific a­ttempts at a realignment
and reshaping of the cultural fault lines between castes and
communities, as undertaken by the constituent assembly of In-
dia, simultaneously with the structuring of the postcolonial wel-
fare state. The Constitution a­ttempted to reinterpret the notion
of community as an “empirical fact” of the universalised com-
munity of welfare scheme subscribers of the Indian nation state.
The last and fourth phase consists of the contemporary
d­ebate over affirmative action demanded by castes and com-
munities. The rivets of the consensus on the making of the
n­ation state through affirmative action for castes within the
Indian constitutional regime while leaving that of community
(particularly Muslims and Christians) to the goodwill of
I­ndian secularism wherein “the state controls the way in which
religious and ethnic identities were conceived and empow-
ered”83 are falling apart. They are threatening to collapse
u­nder the pressure of emerging demands of affirmative action
from both castes and communities. The recent momentum in
favour of integrating Muslims within the Other Backward
Classes (OBCs) and dalit Muslims through affirmative action
has brought to the landscape of postcolonial discourses of
power the fragility of the constitutional consensus on the
d­evelopmental nation state. It remains to be seen how the
c­ontest between these two strands manifest constitutionally and
politically. The first strand – that of reservation for Muslims as a
community is being spearheaded by the dominant cultural
groups like the Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind, Jamaat-e-Islami, the All
India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and the Majlis-e-
Ittehadul Muslimeen. The second reservations for Muslim dal-
its has remained localised, unable to match the influence of
and opposed by the first strand. A curious group working for a
larger Muslim cultural consensus on political issues is the Pop-
ular Front of India which is influential in south India and have
expanded their cultural alliance to include Muslim cultural
groups from Rajasthan and the Lilong Social Forum of Manipur
(Lilong is a Muslim majority nagar panchayat in Manipur).
Conclusions
The engagement of these discourses of castes, communities
and castes within communities with the processes of demo­
cracy is indicative of the logic of the Indian Constitution being
implicated with that of affirmative action. The history of the
idea of democracy cannot be delinked from that of constitu-
tional affirmative action in India. The contest across cultural
fault lines between castes, communities and castes within
communities manifests itself through many signs, affirmative
action being one such marker. The anti-colonial nationalist
discourse of the mass movements resolved upon swaraj first
and constitution thereafter. On the other hand, caste and com-
munities were, in parallel, seeking an agreement over an
“­Indian Constitution” first and thereafter on “India”. The ma-
trix of castes and communities is, in postcolonial India, under
constant re-evaluation as “new” minorities (for instance OBCs,
Jats in Haryana, Gujjars in Rajasthan, emerging Sikh sects or
deras) emerge from within traditional ones and leverage for a
constitutional minority status. This trend of Indian politics has
and will, besides realigning the cultural fault lines between
castes and communities, come into confrontation with the
c­onstitutional principle of a ceiling of 50% on reservations
e­stablished by the Supreme Court. This contemporary debate
on affirmative action invites a more complicated interpretation
than merely “the gradual ascendance of primordial politics”84
if it is seen in the mirror of the unbroken history of embedding
castes and communities within a “shared” constitution that
b­egan with “comprehensive negotiations” early in the 20th cen-
tury. Thus, re-situating constitutional studies, at least in part,
within “the dialectic of source and discourse” that is, history.

Notes and References
1 A Kohli, ed. (2001): The Success of India’s De-
mocracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), 3.
2 Zoya Hasan and E Sreedharan and R Sudar-
shan, ed. (2005): India’s Living Constitution:
Ideas, Practices, Controversies (London: An-
them Press), 9.
3 Bhagwan Josh (1992): Struggle for Hegemony in
India 1934-41, Vol II (Delhi: Sage), 54.
4 B R Nanda (1995): Jawaharlal Nehru: Rebel and
Statesman, (New Delhi: OUP), 22.
5 Bipan Chandra (1971): Modern India (Delhi,
NCERT), 212.
6 For the thematic of Culture, Community and
Power see Shashi Joshi (1997): Struggle for He-
gemony in India, 1920-34, Vol 1 (Delhi: Sage).
7 For a perspective on constitutional politics and
caste discourse in Bengal see “Constitutional
Politics and a Fissured Community” in Sekhar
Bandopadhyaya (1997): Caste, Protest and
­Identity in Colonial India: The Namasudras of
Bengal, (Surrey: Curzon Press), 136-172.
8 Sunil Khilnani, “The Indian Constitution and
Democracy” in Zoya Hasan, op cit, 68.
9 Ashok Acharya (2010): “Constitutionalising
Difference: The Indian Experiment” in Achin
Vanaik and Rajeev Bhargava (ed.), Understand-
ing Contemporary India: Critical Perspectives
(Delhi: Orient BlackSwan), 75.
10 Mridula Mukherjee Presidential address,
“Communal Threat and Secular Resistance:
From Noakhali to Gujarat” presented in the I­ndian
History Congress 71st Session, Malda 2011.
11 Bipan Chandra (1987): Communalism in Mod-
ern India (Delhi: Vikas Publishing), 206.

Economic & Political Weekly  EPW   february 18, 2012  vol xlvIi no 7 51
SPECIAL ARTICLE
12 Dr B R Ambedkar (2009): What Congress and
Gandhi have Done to the Untouchables? (Delhi:
Gautam Books, reprint), 34.
13 Proceedings of the Sub Commitees, Volume VI
(Franchise), Indian Round Table Conference,
London, 1930, Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library, Delhi, p 531.
14 Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, Volume 13,
I­ssue 2, Volume 14, Issue 2, 327.
15 Wolpert Stanley (2008): A New History of India
(US: OUP), 259.
16 Richard Cashman, I (1975): The Myth of the Lok-
manya: Tilak and Mass Politics in Maharashtra
(California: University of California Press), 214.
17 Syed Nesar Ahmad (1991): Origins of Muslim
Consciousness in India: A World-System Perspec-
tive (US: Greenwood Press), 121.
18 K M Munshi (1967): Indian Constitutional Docu­
ments, Vol 1 (Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan), 7.
19 C Vijayaraghavachariar, incomplete Papers,
S No 5, Manuscript Section, Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library (NMML), Delhi, 2.
20 Richard Sisson and S A Wolpert, ed. (1988):
Congress and Indian Nationalism: The Pre-inde-
pendence Phase (California: UCLA Press), 86.
21 Ayesha Jalal writes that “The Khilafat Move-
ment Overwhelmed the League and Broke the
Fragile Constitutional Understanding between
Congress and League Which Jinnah Had Pains-
takingly Helped to Construct” in A Jalal, ed.
(1994): The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, Muslim
League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press), 9.
22 John Gallagher and Gordon Johnson and Anil
Seal (1973): Locality, Province, and Nation:
E­ssays on Indian Politics 1870-1940 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press), 22.
23 Annie Besant (2003): Theosophist Magazine,
July 25-September 1925 (US: Kessinger re-
print), 686.
24 Ikram Ali Malik (1970): A Book of Readings on
the History of Punjab (Lahore: University of
Punjab), 446.
25 Peter Hardy (1972): The Muslims of British
I­ndia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Archive), 211.
26 Christophe Jaffrelot (2007): Hindu National-
ism: A Reader (Delhi: Permanent Black), 13.
27 Ibid, p 67.
28 Ibid, p 71.
29 Uma Kaura (1977): Muslims and Indian Nation-
alism (Delhi: Manohar Books), 31.
30 Motilal Nehru Papers, Subject File No 23, Part
(i), NMML, Delhi, 76.
31 Ayesha Jalal (2000): Self and Sovereignty: Indi-
vidual and Community in South Asian Islam
since 1850 (London: Routledge), 307.
32 Motilal Nehru Papers, Subject File 24, NMML,
Delhi, 8.
33 Motilal Papers, op cit, Ref 32, p 59.
34 K L Tuteja (1984): Sikh Politics 1920-40 (Kuruk-
shetra: Vishal), 145.
35 Motilal Papers, op cit, Ref 34, 2.
36 Nehru Report quoted in K Singh, ed. (1991):
S­elect Documents on the Partition of Punjab,
(Delhi: Natural bookshop), xi.
37 Motilal Papers, File No 23, Part (i), NMML, Delhi.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid, p 59.
40 M K Gandhi (1970): The Collected Works of
M­ahatma Gandhi, Vol xxxviii (Delhi: Government
of I­ndia), 436. This entire letter is quite revealing
in terms of the issue of reservation of seats.
41 Motilal Nehru Papers, Subject File 23 (Part II),
NMML, Delhi, p 59.
42 Gandhi’s letter to Motilal in Motilal Papers, File
23 (II), NMML, Delhi, 17-23.
43 Judith Brown quoted in Sekhar Bandopad-
hyaya (2004): From Plassey to Partition (Delhi:
Orient Blackswan), 315.
52
44 Bombay Chronicle, 6 November 1931, NMML,
Delhi, p 8.
45 Letter, 6 November 1931, C Vijayaraghavachariar
Papers, Correspondence B S Moonje, NMML,
Delhi, 1.
46 N Gangulee (1936): The Making of Federal India
(London: James Nibset), 126.
47 Ibid, 126.
48 C Vijayaraghavachariar Papers, Correspond-
ence, M S Aney, dated 5 January 1932, NMML,
Delhi, p 1.
49 Philip Williamson (2003): National Crisis and
National Government: British Politics, the Eco­
nomy and Empire 1926-1932 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press), 491.
50 Andrew Muldoon (2009) Empire, Politics and
the Creation of the 1935 India Act: The Last Act
of the Raj (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing), 107.
51 Mahadev Desai (1953): The Dairy of Mahadev
Desai, Vol I, Trans Valji Govindji Desai
(Ahmedabad: Navjivan Publications), 291.
52 B R Ambedkar, op cit, Ref 15, 67.
53 Gandhi’s interview to press, Madras Mail,
22 September 1932, NMML, Delhi, 5.
54 B D Shukla (1960): A History of the Indian
L­iberal Party (Allahabad: Indian Press), 327.
55 Madras Mail, 20 September 1932, NMML,
D­elhi, p 7.
56 Moonje Papers, Diaries, NMML, Delhi.
57 “Mr Gandhi on Purpose of Fast”, Madras Mail,
22 September 1932, 5.
58 C Rajagopalachari Papers, Instalment IV, Sub-
ject File, S No 23, NMML, Delhi, p 5.
59 United Kingdom, National Archives, Cabinet
Papers, “Communal Decision”, CAB/24/233;
SECRET.CP.322(32); Printed for the Cabinet on
24th September 1932 by the India Office of Sec-
retary of State for India, 5.
60 Mahadev Desai Papers, Instalment VI, Diary,
September 1932, NMML, Delhi, pp 67-72.
61 In the aftermath of the Pact many, especially in
Bengal and Punjab, believed that “by his threat
of fast unto death Gandhi coerced the Hindus
to ratify the Poona Pact and separate elector-
ates was changed into reservation of seats at a
premium” M S Aney Papers, Subject File 6,
NMML, Delhi, p 138.
62 Pyarelal (1932): The Epic Fast (Ahmedabad:
MM Bhatt), 64-65.
63 Chimanlal Setalvad, “Poona Agreement as Lib-
erals View It”, Bombay Chronicle, 15 October
1932, 11.
Who watches the media?
WE DO.
www.thehoot.org
february 18, 2012  vol xlvIi no 7  EPW   Economic & Political Weekly
64 Ghanshyam Das Birla (1953): In the Shadow of
the Mahatma: A Personal Memoir (Bombay:
Orient Longman), 67.
65 Viscount Templewood (Samuel Hoare) Papers,
NMML, Delhi.
66 Nicholas B Dirks (2003): Castes of Mind: Colo-
nialism and the Making of Modern India (Hy-
derabad: Orient Blackswan), p 269. Upendra
Baxi (2005) wrote that “In 1932 Gandhi Gam-
bled on Ambedkar’s Self-restraint and Won”,
C Jaffrelot, Analysing and Fighting Caste: Dr
Ambedkar and Untouchability (Delhi: Perma-
nent Black), 65. Christopher Jaffrelot writes,
Gandhi’s fast “forced Ambedkar to relinquish
his demand for Separate electorates and to sign
the Poona Pact”, ibid, 4.
67 K M Ashraf in J Ashraf, ed. (2008): Historical
Back­ground to Muslim Question in India 1764-
1945, Volume 2 (Delhi: Mainframe Publishers), 58.
68 Letter from M S Aney to M K Gandhi dated 24
November 1932 in M S Aney Papers, Subject
File No 6. 1932, NMML, Delhi, p 6.
69 Moonje Papers, Diaries, NMML, Delhi.
70 Ibid.
71 Bombay Chronicle, “Shaukat Ali Blames Viceroy’s
Advisors”, 1 November 1932, NMML, D­elhi, p 1.
72 Ibid, “For United India”, 4 November 1932, p 1.
73 Dr Ambedkar quoted in Bombay Chronicle,
“Unity Now or Never”, 5 November 1932, p 16.
74 Ashraf, op cit, Ref 67, 63.
75 Bombay Chronicle, 7 November 1932, p 1.
76 M S Aney Papers, Draft Report and the Final
Agreement in Subject File No 3, 1932, Manu-
script Section, NMML, Delhi, pp 34-54.
77 M S Aney Papers, Subject File 7, NMML , Delhi, 90.
78 Malik, op cit, Ref 26, 449.
79 A C Bannerjee, Indian Constitutional Docu-
ments, Vol IV (Calcutta: A Mukherjee, 1945),
pp 171-72.
80 M S Aney Papers, op cit, Ref 72, 68.
81 Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD), Book 3,
Vol VIII, 4th edition (Delhi: Loksabha Secre-
tariat, 2003), p 330.
82 Rochana Bajpai (2011): Debating Difference:
Group Rights and Liberal Democracy in India
(Delhi: Oxford University Press), 30.
83 William Gould, “Contesting Secularism in Co-
lonial and Postcolonial North India between
the 1930 and 1950s”, Contemporary South Asia,
14(4), December 2005, 491-92.
84 D Gupta, “Limits of Reservation”, Seminar
No 549, May 2005.