AMITY UNIVERSITY RAJASTHAN
AMITY LAW SCHOOL
CO
NSTITUTIONAL LAW ASSIGNMENT
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATE
RESERVATION
Submitted to Submitted by
Dr.Mukti Jaiswal Amit Somani
Dhruv Bansal
Ashima agarwal
Greeva Garg
Sunidhi Jangir
B.com LLB 3 rd sem.
Introduction
The Constituent Assembly in India, for the first time, met
on 9 December 1946 and took two years eleven months
eighteen days to frame the world’s largest constitution-
the Indian constitution. The members of the Assembly
were indirectly elected by the members of the provincial
assemblies that existed during the British Raj. The
drafting of the constitution was not an easy task, it took
months and years of debates and discussions to arrive at
the final draft of the constitution and then the
constitution was enacted on January 26, 1950.
Among all the debates that took place in the assembly,
the debate on reservation was among the most
prominent ones. When Britishers left India, the country
was shattered into pieces and it was the need of the time
to bring all the pieces together in order to run the
country. When the assembly met for the framing of the
Constitution, all classes of the society were addressed ,
be it be the upper-class Hindus or the lower caste. And
since, the fact that class and caste discrimination are
deeply rooted in India cannot be denied, policies such as
reservation had to be included to achieve the principles of
democracy.
Need for reservation
India is a vast country with different cultural and religious
backgrounds. With a population of almost 134 crores, it
becomes important to ensure the interests of all. And to
safeguard the rights of the socially and educationally
backward classes, to assimilate all the sections of the
society into the national mainstream, the issue of
reservation was raised by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in the
assembly.
There are certain classes who have not been given
adequate opportunities in the past due to the rigid
hierarchies and monopolistic governments of that time.
But if a constitution is being framed for a democratic
country then all the sections of the society should get
represented and special provisions should be made for
the upliftment of those at the bottom. They should be
given their chance to overcome the difficulties that exist
in their lives. And for this the government has to work on
the principle of equity which means providing
proportional equality. The protection of the minorities
against the interest of the majority was one of the
fundamental concerns behind the reservation policy. This
led to a serious discussion in the assembly, followed by
the conflicting interests of people.
Parameters of reservation
Soon after the motion for reservation of backward classes
was passed, the discussion started, as to how and on
what parameters will reservation be provided. Basically,
the question was who would be the beneficiaries of the
reservation and who all should be counted in the
backward classes. Many members of the assembly put
forward their views and opinions regarding the same.
The discussion started with giving reservation
proportional to the population of a particular backward
class. For example, if X state has 35% of depressed class
population and Y state has 20% then, the reserved seats
in the state of X would be more in number than the
reserved seats in the state of Y. This policy helps in
effective and equal representation of the depressed
classes with regard to the population of the particular
state. The major arguers of this policy were S Nagappa
and Jaipal Singh, who were members of the depressed
classes. They demanded representation in the cabinet as
well.
Secondly, the constitution originally provided reservation
for 10 years, but the members from the schedule caste
put forward that the policy shall either renew after 10
years or the 10 year period clause shall abolish. In case,
if
1. There is no substantial progress.
2. There is a need for more progress.
3. There is no change in the situation of the
depressed classes even after the 10 years of
reservation.
Jaipal Singh also argued for the rights and dignity of the
Adivasis. He said that Adivasis are the original
inhabitants of the country, they have their own laws and
they manage their areas better than the mainstream
democracy. But he argued that they should be given their
due recognition and for that they don’t require any
special treatment but they want to be treated like every
other Indian. He argued that Adivasis don’t need the
safeguards that the objective resolution is talking about
rather they need protection from the ministers.
Controversial issues in the debate
When people with different interests come together to
discuss a common objective, conflicts can arise and there
are chances that various issues would raise. Some of
them might get resolved and some might not. But there
would always be some issues which would create a lot of
fuss and controversy, which would get the highest
limelight and hence marked in history. Similarly, when
the constituent assembly was dealing with the
reservation policy, many controversial issues arose at
that time.
One issue was raised when the members referred to
the Poona Pact during the debate. H.J. Kandenkar
reminded the assembly about the pact by stating its
failure to achieve the goal by reservation. The Poona Pact
provided for separate electorate for the depressed
classes for their benefit but the result that came out was
not the desired one. The classes were to have 28 seats
(depressed class population was 25%) in the central
province but got only 20 according to the pact.
Kandenkar argued that this would count as injustice and
hence reservation should be given proportional to the
population.
Another major issue was raised when people that were
against reservation made the point that the presence of
Dr. Ambedkar in the assembly as the chairman of the
drafting committee and the law minister, clearly points
out that the nation has made progress already and
reservation is not required. Ambedkar not only possessed
symbolic but real authority. The contrasting opinion was
that the appointment of Ambedkar on such high post and
giving him the right to access his powers was just a
political move by the Indian National Congress. In fact,
Congress was using Ambedkar’s skills as a lawyer, for
their benefit.
Major arguments of the debate
The constitutional assembly came up with a number of
arguments while debating on the issue of reservation.
The basic argument upon which the whole debate was
based was that there are classes in the society which
have not been given their share in the society. They are
underprivileged because of the lack of opportunities.
They have not been given their rights and due
recognition in the society and therefore if the assembly is
formed to create a constitution for the future, then, the
depressed classes should be given adequate safeguards.
The Constitution provides equality for all and by equality
we mean equity. If people have not started from the
same point then they should not be given equal facilities
to reach the destination. Obviously to achieve equality
some special rights have to be given to those people who
lag behind and hence the point of reservation was put
forward.There are unfortunate countrymen who have not
given ample opportunities to jobs, education, luxury life
etc. and therefore special attempts should be made for
them so that they can come at par with the rest of the
nation.
Making policies is easy but one has to ensure whether the
formulated policies are effective or would achieve the
desired goal. A similar thing happened when the
effectiveness of separate electorate was raised in the
assembly. It was raised by a member from the assembly
that the depressed classes or the Harijans are economic
slaves. Even if you give them separate electorate
powerful people with money can exploit them by buying
them and then a Harijan leader would only be there for
the sake of name and the people with power and money
would run the government. Hence separate electorate
was considered useless to safeguard the rights of
Harijans and rather the point that economic help should
be provided was raised.
Subsequent to the debate a report on minority rights was
presented in the assembly by Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel.
The report held that the minorities would get
representation in legislature and reservation of seats
according to their population. And, also they would also
be eligible to contest for the general seats. The report
was passed but some feared for the majority. P. S.
Deshmukh feared that the majority would be left
marginalised since the majority is quite unclear about
their rights and in providing special safeguard to the
minority, the majority is being overlooked.
The Result of the Debate
The rambunctious debate upon reservation, though has
not concluded even yet in 2019, but the Constituent
Assembly that time arrived at interim solutions and the
motion was adopted. Dr. Ambedkar in his endnote
discussed upon the following four major amendments
that have been put forward by the various assembly
members.
The first amendment was suggested by Pandit Thakur
Das Bhargava, the amendment talked about the
representation of Anglo-Indians in the legislative
assembly. Bhargava submitted that Anglo-Indians though
small in number are advanced people and in place of
reservation they were given the power of nomination.
Therefore, it was proposed that this nomination clause
should also have an end term of 10 years like other
reservations given to Scheduled Castes and scheduled
tribes. The situation in India after 10 years would be way
more different than the current situation and providing
reservation for unlimited period will end the very essence
of reservation. This amendment was accepted by Dr.
Ambedkar since a similar amendment was moved by
Bhargava during the time of the debate on the minority
rights reports as well and it was accepted at that time,
therefore it was accepted this time as well on similar
lines of reasoning.
The second amendment in the discussion was the one
that was put forward by Mr Naziruddin Ahmed regarding
the ambiguity in the time period of ten years. He raised,
if the government is in power but the ten years period is
expired, whether the people on the reserved posts would
have to leave their post or not. He raised that this article
is ambiguous in nature since it is not clear that whether
the time period starts after the draft of the constitution
would be ready or after the first election. Dr. Ambedkar
said that the same ambiguities have been cleared by
another amendment that was moved by Mr
Krishnamacharya and regarding the commencement of
the ten years period Ambedkar said, it is yet to be
decided.
The third amendment in the discussion was the one that
was put forward by Mr Monomohan Das and Mr
Muniswami together, and it demanded that there shall be
no expiration period of the reservation as per now. This
amendment was rejected by Dr. Ambedkar since the
expiration period has been unanimously decided by the
assembly and since the clause has already been added in
the constitution, a constitutional amendment would be
required to make any changes in it now.
Fourthly, Dr. Ambedkar concluded by making several
remarks for the scheduled castes. He said that other
minorities have got privileges in the past for a longer
time, for example, the Muslims were receiving privileges
since 1892, Christians from the Constitution of 1920 but
the scheduled caste received it from the 1935
constitution and practically from 1937 which were also
ceased by 1939. Therefore the Scheduled caste has
received benefits only for 2 years by then and hence he
believed that they should get a reservation for a longer
term. But since the resolution of expiration on ten years
has been passed he would not go against it, but yes the
option of extension of this period if required, would
always be there.
Conclusion
The issue of reservation has not solved even today in
India, the parliament and the whole nation is still working
on it. Some are actually receiving its benefits while some
are suffering. Though the suffering is because of the lack
of checks and balances. The parameters that were
decided back then cannot work in the present era. The
policy needs to be amended with time and by keeping in
mind the current needs. Caste-based reservation might
not be a solution now, the economy based reservation
has to find wider dimensions and then only, India would
be able to achieve the constitutional principles of equality
and non-discrimination.
