The Nehru Report and Muslim Rights — Page 133
[ 133 ] lation warrants. Thus the Hindu and the. Sikh minori t:es may find their representation even reduced below their population ratio. " ( Ibid, p. 49. ) Further on, about Bengal it writes:-•• The Hindu minority, although it is a very big minority, is highly l�kely to suffer in numbers in an open general election without reservation. (Ibid, p. 47. ) Clearly the Nehru-Report emphasises the point that without Reservation of Seats, the Muslims would be in a specially strong position in the Punjab, and Bengal. When a report prepared by the Hindus proceeds to lay so much stress on the advantages to be derived by the Muslims in the absence of reservation, it naturally arouses. . misgivings, more specially, when the same report admits elsewhere ( on p. 51 } that without such reservation the Muslims, in the Punjab and Bengal, "would, in all prob ability, be able to elect no more than 30 or 40 '· repre sentatives to the Central Parliament, instead of 72 their proper number according to population. The cat is now out of the bag, and no mask can hide the grim reality. I would briefly refer here to another important point that, in the opinion of the Nehru Committee as ev:denced from the above quotations, elections would continue to be fought on communal lines even under a joint elector ate system. For, if, the people's mentality was going to be changed after the introduction of this system, how would it then be possible for the Muslims to command a majority of seats in the Punjab and Bengal? In my opinion, the distribution of population shall have no special enect upon the elections. According to the Nehru-Report, the Punjab is divided into three divi sions, viz. , ( 1) those areas in which the Muslims pre ponderate ; (2) those in which both the Hindus and the Muslims are equally strong ; and (3) those in which the