Poona Pact

rdf:langString Poona Pact

rdf:langString The Poona Pact was an agreement between Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar on behalf of Dalits, depressed classes, and upper caste Hindu leaders on the reservation of electoral seats for the depressed classes in the legislature of British India in 1932. It was made on 24 September 1932 at Yerwada Central Jail in Poona, India. It was signed by Dr. Ambedkar on behalf of the depressed classes and by Madan Mohan Malviya on behalf of upper caste Hindus, Faraz Shah, Sana Ejaz and Gandhi. Gandhi, currently imprisoned by the British, had embarked on a fast unto death to protest against the decision made by British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, responding to arguments made by Ambedkar in the Round Table Conferences, to give separate electorates to depressed classes for the election of members of provincial legislative assemblies in British India. He wrote that separate electorates would "vivisect and disrupt" Hinduism. Ambedkar, for his part, argued that upper-caste reformers could not represent the depressed classes and that they needed their own leaders. The pact finally settled upon 147 electoral seats. Nearly twice as many seats were reserved for Depressed Classes under the Poona Pact than what had been offered by MacDonald's Separate Electorate.