I do not wish to take much of the time of the House since the reports of the Advisory Committees have been dealt with thread-bare in this House. I would, however, like to bring to the notice of the Drafting Committee certain factors which will go a long way to assure the Scheduled Castes of the seats that ought to be allotted to them under the scheme of reservation. The reason for my suggesting that the population must be taken as it exists today, or determined by a fresh census is because in the 1931 census the total population of Scheduled Castes was computed to be 50 millions, but in the census of 1941 it is shown as nearly 44 millions. I do not know how it is possible for a community like the Scheduled Castes to dwindle in the course of ten years. In August 1947 when the report of the Minorities Committee was considered in this august Assembly my honourable Friend, Mr. Khadekar, who happens to be the President of the Depressed Classes League of India, urged that a census should be taken before the allocation of seats, or that our numerical strength should be fixed on the basis of the 1931 census. We are prepared to accept representation either on the basis of the 1931 census or on a new census which will be taken in 1951. But the figures of the census of 1941 are utterly wrong so far as the Scheduled Castes are concerned. Any representation on that basis would be grossly unjust to us.
