Gandhi, Ambedkar and British policy on the communal award Sujay Biswas It has now become a fashion among many historians, notably from the West, to denounce Gandhi’s fast and the Poona Pact of 1932 as a great betrayal of the ‘Untouchables’. This view essentially overlooks the constant effort of British imperialism to divide the Indian people into a number of special-interest groups at loggerheads with each other and so weaken the National Movement. This paper weighs the critics’ assertions in the light of the British Government’s own statements and those of the leaders of the Depressed Castes. It is also forgotten that the Poona Pact greatly increased Depressed Castes’ representation; and that no separate electorates have been ever established in Western democracies to avoid majoritarian rule. Keywords: Gandhi, Ambedkar, Communal Award, Poona Pact, separate electorates, Dalits I Much of the existing historical narratives as well as political analyses see Gandhi’s ‘fast unto death’ against the granting of separate electorates to the ‘Untouchables’ 1 as having been antagonistic to their interests and political rights. It is alleged that Gandhi deliberately took such a coercive step to deny separate electorates being awarded to the ‘Untouchables’. 2 It is also said that a majority of the ‘Untouchables’ were convinced that Gandhi’s attitude was wrong. 3 Further, that in opposing separate electorates, Gandhi was neither speaking from their perspective nor as a national leader: he was speaking simply as a Hindu. 4 Perry Anderson goes so far as to argue that Gandhi’s opposition to separate electorates was proof of his upper-caste, Hindu Bania prejudice. Gandhi feared, writes Anderson, that the ‘prospect of Untouchables gaining the right to their own electorates ... would be confrmation that caste was indeed, ... a vile system of discrimination, ... and since Hinduism was founded on caste, it would stand condemned with caste’. Anderson further 1 ‘Dalits’, ‘Harijans’, ‘Scheduled Classes’, ‘Untouchables’ and ‘Depressed Classes’ are several names for the same people. They are a group of several castes; themselves divided from one another, the common factor being their very low economic and social condition. I have used the term ‘Untouchable’ as well as the other designations. I hope that the employment of ‘Untouchable’ will not be mistaken as implying any derogation of these persons. 2 B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, ed. S. Anand New Delhi, 2014, p. 359. 3 T. Nath, Politics of the Depressed Classes, Delhi, 1987, p. 160. 4 G. Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India, New Delhi, 1994, p. 172. Studies in People’s History, 5, 1 (2018): 48–64 SAGE Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC/Melbourne DOI: 10.1177/2348448918759867