Sir, in this big august House of the Constituent Assembly we belonging to the Depressed Classes, are very few in number, but in the country as a whole our population is 60 millions. We are no doubt a part and parcel of the great Hindu community. But our social status in the country is so very low that we do feel that we require adequate safeguards to be provided for us. Firstly, we should be considered as a minority–a minority, not in the sense in which a community is a minority on religious or racial grounds, but a minority which is a separate political entity. It is needless however to, point out that we are a separate political entity. I think those who have got themselves interested in the uplift of the Depressed Classes will admit, as Mahatma Gandhi himself has admitted by his words and deeds, that adequate safeguards are necessary for these classes for their political salvation. The Poona Pact is Mahatma Gandhi’s creation, and his writings in the ‘Harijan’ amply prove that the interests of the Depressed Classes must be carefully looked after.
