(The following is the presidential address of the late B. Shamsunder, founder of the Bhartiya Bhim Sena, at the convention of the All-India Minorities and Backward Classes held on Oct 12 and 13. 1968 at Lucknow. The text was sent to us by G. M. Pimple Guruji, a noted dalit leader of Nanded, Maharashtra)
When the British Cabinet Plan was proposed Hindus preferred to rule over India but refused to share power with other minorities over the whole of India. After the partition the Constituent Assembly elected on a restricted communal franchise, forged a progressive looking Constitution ensuring Hindus the sole monopoly of power in India to the total exclusion of all other inhabitants. This was achieved by Article 325 of the Constitution which is a sure guarantee that none but the Hindus or their neo-Hindu stooges can get elected to Parliament and other elective bodies. To make this assurance doubly sure, they added Article 329, which lays down :- notwithstanding anything in this Constitution :- (a) the validity of any law relating to the delimitation of constituencies or the allotment of the seats to such constituencies made or purpoting to be made article 327 or Article 328, shall not be called in question in any court. By this subterfuge 250 million non-Hindus have been. virtually de-enfranchised at one stroke and thus debarred from their legitimate share of power and profit in the land of their birth. Take another example of this totalitarian technique : Article 29 of the Consititution, “Protection of the interests of minorities, para (1) reads : Any sections of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same”. How can the minorities exercise this right effectively in the face of Article 343 and 351 of the same Constitution which impose Hindi language and script on non-Hindi areas ? If the majority community had no evil designs against the language and culture of the minoritles, they could have explicitly guaranteed to them complete freedom of their language and culture as embodied in the Consititution of USSR. Mere recognition on paper of the fundamental rights of the minorities, to conserve, what the majority is out to violate and suppress is sheer hypocrisy. During the last 20 years, the minorities have been denied protection of law’ whenever the majority community, backed by the govt ., has choosen to deprive them their lives, honour and properties. They have been discriminated against in matters of service, education and opportunities of gainful employment. Their efforts to organise themselves for the purpose of obtaining redressal of their language, script and culture are facing planned suppression.
