Communal Award

Background

The Communal Award emerged from the impasse of the Round Table Conferences of 1930-32, at which Indian political and communal representatives failed to agree on a scheme of electoral representation for a future constitution. In the absence of consensus, the British government under Ramsay MacDonald issued its own award, extending the principle of separate electorates, already in place for Muslims since 1909, to a wider set of minority communities, including Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, Europeans and, most controversially, the Depressed Classes (the term then used for those subject to untouchability).

Gandhi's opposition and the Poona Pact

Gandhi, then imprisoned at Yerwada Central Jail near Poona, objected specifically to the provision for the Depressed Classes, arguing that a separate electorate would permanently divide Hindu society rather than address untouchability through reform from within, and announced a fast unto death against that provision beginning 20 September 1932. B. R. Ambedkar, who had pressed for separate electorates as a guarantee of political representation for the Depressed Classes independent of caste-Hindu control, negotiated with Gandhi's representatives under the pressure of the fast. The resulting Poona Pact, signed on 24 September 1932, replaced separate electorates for the Depressed Classes with a system of reserved seats within joint (general) electorates, with candidates elected by the general electorate from a panel chosen by the Depressed Classes themselves. The number of reserved seats was substantially increased over what the Communal Award had originally allotted. The other provisions of the Communal Award, for Muslims, Sikhs and other minorities, remained in place and were carried into the Government of India Act, 1935.