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Mapping the Scheduled Castes in Electoral Policy in Colonial Punjab

( Vinay Kumar )

The franchise is the base of democracy and it is successfully going on in India. Proper

administrative machinery became imperious to enable the voters to precise their wishes in a

general election. The election is a Latin word eligre which means ‘to choose’. It is figured as a

part of the machinery of government in the democratic countries.1

In the history of India, the

commencement of elections is considered with the Indian Councils Act of 1892 when the first

time the element of the election was introduced in Indian politics. In this Act, the indirect

endowment for the use of the election for filling some non-official seats in the provincial

councils and the central legislative council was made. The word nomination instead of the

election was used in this Act. The principle of election received its approval in the Minto- Morley Act of 1909. Under this Act, each legislative council was comprised of three classes of

members – the elected, the officials and the nominated non-official members. The Punjab

Legislative Council had 24 members including 8 elected members, 6 nominated non-official

members and 10 nominated official members as visible in the Punjab Legislative Council in

1912.2

Electoral setup in Colonial India:

The system of the election came in wider use with the passing of the Government of

India Act 1919, under which some altered, and higher, political goals were set out for India.

Under it, the elected element in the legislature, both central and provincial, was enlarged; the

franchise was broadened, and the election also became direct now. The communal and special

electorates were provided to certain communities to carry forward their interests. The

proportion of the directly elected members of all the provincial legislatures was increased up

to 70% which was previously in minority under the Minto-Morley Act of 1909 with an

exception of the state of Bengal. The capping of 20% of official members was fixed now. The

provision for the nomination of the non-official members was made only to give representation

** Dr. Vinay Kumar, Associate Professor & Head PG Department of History, JC DAV College, Dasuya

(Hoshiarpur) Punjab.

1 Shriram Maheshwari, The General Election in India, Allahabad: Chaitanya Publishing House, 1963, pp. 1.

2 Shriram Maheshwari, The General Election in India, Allahabad: Chaitanya Publishing House, 1963, pp. 9.

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to such classes of Indian society which usually remained unrepresented.3 Though Act of 1919

extended the franchise right but the franchise qualifications still differ from the province to

province and even in the urban and rural area of the constituency. As the qualification for a

voter in the landholder’s constituency was the possession of a landed estate assessed to land

revenue varying from Rs. 500/- in Punjab to Rs. 5000/- in United Province. Similarly, the

residential qualification for a candidate in the constituency was imposed in the three provinces

of Bombay, Punjab, and the Central Province.

Under the Minto-Morley Reform Act of 1909, the communal electorate was given to

the Muslim only, but in this Act of 1919, it was extended in the case of the Sikh, Indian

Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans which deepened the communal electorate into the

Indian political spheres. The Indian Statutory Commission, also known as Simon Commission,

recommended in 1928 to give the franchise right to at least 10% of the Indian population. On

this recommendation, the British Government appointed a Franchise Committee under the

headship of Lord Lothian in 1931. This committee further endorsed the adult suffrage as the

only method by which absolute equality of political rights could be secured to every adult of

India. The joint committee on Indian constitutional reforms, 1933-34, provided the basis of

the franchise for the new provincial legislatures. The Government of India Act 1935 did not

envisage any change of principle in the allocation of seats in the Legislative Assemblies and

Councils. The provincial autonomy was given under this Act. The communal electorates and

‘weightage’ was retained and the franchise was mainly based on the property, education and

income qualifications.

The institution of the election became more popular in the Indian political sphere.

Elections provided political training to the voters and kept them involved with the burning

problems confronting the state. The qualifications for a voter under Government of India Act

1935 were that the voter had to be at least twenty-one years old and a British subject or subject

or ruler of a federated or any other prescribed state, and belonged to the community to which

the seat was assigned. The qualifications were based mainly on income, property, and

education. The separate constituencies were formed for different communities but the

qualifications for the voters remained the same. The depressed classes were given a lower

3 Shriram Maheshwari, The General Election in India, Allahabad: Chaitanya Publishing House, 1963, pp. 12.

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franchise. The women, in all the communities, were given some additional qualifications,

mainly by virtue of their husbands’ qualifications.4

Electoral Policy in Punjab up to the Government of India Act 1909:

At the beginning of the 20th century, Punjab was a very big province including Punjab

now in Pakistan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and the settled districts of the North-West

Frontier Province.

5 All the administrative powers were concentrated to the Lieutenant

Governor who represented the political department of the Government of India. Punjab was a

non-Regulation province which means that the Regulations passed before 1883 were not

applicable in Punjab. A legislative council was set up in Punjab in 1898 which includes eight

members and out of them four were non-official, nominated by the Lieutenant Governor.6

Minto-Morley Reform Act of 1909 provision for Punjab had 1 out of 27 elected seats in the

newly formed 60 members Central Legislature. The similar discrimination towards the Punjab

Legislature could also be seen as it was restricted to 24 seats as compared to Assam which got

30 seats though much less populated and backward in comparison to Punjab. Out of these 24

seats in Punjab only 5 were to be elected whereas 19 were to be nominated. It indicates that the

Punjab Government made efforts to keep intact the tradition of autocracy.7

Electoral Policy in Punjab and Government of India Act 1919:

The Montagu-Chelmsford Reform Act of 1919 made substantial changes in the

structure and functioning of the central and provincial legislatures. In this Act, the previous so- called discriminative policy in comparison to other states came to an end. Diarchy was

established and community wise distribution of the seats was made in all the states. It is a

system which represented a rough blending of the democratic and bureaucratic elements. The

governor was given the right to appoint the Executive Councilors and was given the charge of

Reserve departments and he could also appoint ministers to hold the charge of Transferred

departments as all the subjects of provincial administration were grouped in two parts the

Reserved and Transferred. The Reserved subjects were as maintenance of law and order,

finance, police, jails, justice, water supply, irrigation and canals, land revenue, administration,

4

P.N. Masaldan, Evolution of Provincial Autonomy in India, Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1953, pp. 109.

5 Sri Ram Sharma, Punjab in Ferment, New Delhi: S. Chand & Company, 1971, pp. 1

6 Sri Ram Sharma, Punjab in Ferment, New Delhi: S. Chand & Company, 1971, pp. 4

7 K.C. Yadav, Elections in Panjab (1920-1947), Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1987, pp. 4