Ambedkar and the Depressed Classes: Mahad to Poona Pact

Before Ambedkar: Phule, Narayana Guru and Shahu Maharaj

By Narendra Singh · GS faculty, The Cavalier · 15 years teaching GS

At the bottom of the caste ladder stood the "untouchables", later called the Depressed Classes and, after 1935, the Scheduled Castes. They made up roughly a fifth of the Hindu population. Their touch was thought to pollute, they were kept away from wells, tanks, temples and often schools, and they were pushed into work such as scavenging and tanning. British rule loosened the system without breaking it: railways, factories and cities forced mixed company, but the government feared offending orthodox opinion and did little directly.

The first sustained challenge came from within society (see socio-religious reform movements). Three names matter here.

In the south, E.V. Ramaswamy's Self-Respect Movement (1920s) ran alongside, and in Kerala the Vaikom Satyagraha (1924–25) demanded that lower castes be allowed to use the roads around a temple. Ambedkar's difference was that he came from the community itself and used law, newspapers and elections as weapons.

The Man in One Table: A Timeline to Memorise

Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 at Mhow into a Mahar family. He studied at Columbia University and the London School of Economics and was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1922. Keep this table in your head: most questions are just a date and a name.

Organise and Agitate: Mook Nayak, Mahad and Kalaram

Ambedkar's first move was to give the community a voice. Mook Nayak (1920) and later Bahishkrit Bharat (1927) carried its grievances to print. The Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha (1924) took up schools, hostels and libraries. Its motto sets the method for the whole movement: educate, agitate, organise. Janata (1930) followed.

Mahad (1927). In 1923 the Bombay Legislative Council passed a resolution that public water sources and facilities maintained with public money must be open to all, and in 1924 the Mahad municipality (in Kolaba district, now Raigad) declared its Chavdar tank open. In practice, caste Hindus kept the Depressed Classes away. A conference at Mahad on 19–20 March 1927 ended with Ambedkar leading thousands to the tank, where he drank from it. Caste Hindus later "purified" the tank, and the municipality reversed its earlier resolution in August 1927.

A second conference in December 1927 met while a court case over the tank was pending, so the marchers stayed away from it. On 25 December the delegates publicly burnt the Manusmriti, the ancient law book that justified graded inequality. The resolution was moved by a Brahmin associate of Ambedkar, G.N. Sahasrabuddhe, which showed that the target was an idea and not a community. Maharashtra observes 20 March as Social Empowerment Day.

Kalaram (1930). On 2 March 1930 Ambedkar and thousands of followers began a satyagraha to enter the Kalaram temple at Nashik, on the bank of the Godavari. The temple stayed closed, and the struggle dragged on for years. In 1935, at Yeola, Ambedkar declared that he was born a Hindu but would not die one.

Separate Electorates: Round Tables, Communal Award, Poona Pact

The fight now moved from tanks to legislatures. The Simon Commission's report led the British to call the Round Table Conferences in London (1930–32). Ambedkar attended all three as a leader of the Depressed Classes. He demanded separate electorates: seats for the community, voted for by the community alone. His argument was that a socially separated group needed political protection too. Our page on constitutional development under British rule gives the wider setting.

At the Second Round Table Conference (1931), Gandhi claimed that the Congress spoke for all Indians, including the untouchables. Ambedkar, along with the Muslim League and the princes, challenged that claim. Gandhi opposed separate electorates for the Depressed Classes. He feared they would cut them off from Hindu society for ever. His anti-untouchability work grew into the Harijan Sevak Sangh (1932). The conference ended without agreement, and the British Prime Minister announced his own decision.

The Communal Award of 16 August 1932, announced by Ramsay MacDonald, gave separate electorates to Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans, and also to the Depressed Classes. They were also to vote in the general constituencies (a "double vote"). Their share was 71 seats in the provincial legislatures. Gandhi, in Yerwada jail in Pune, began a fast unto death on 20 September 1932. Within days, talks between Ambedkar and Hindu leaders led by Madan Mohan Malaviya produced the Poona Pact, signed on 24 September 1932. Gandhi ended his fast on 26 September.

The Pact was folded into the Government of India Act, 1935. Both sides gained something: Ambedkar won twice as many seats, and Gandhi kept the Depressed Classes inside the Hindu electorate. Ambedkar's later complaint was that winners of the general election would depend on caste-Hindu votes. Remember that the Pact was an agreement, not a British award.

Party, Pen and Constitution: 1936 to 1950

After 1932 Ambedkar widened the movement from caste to class. He founded the Independent Labour Party in 1936. It spoke for workers and tenants of all castes and did well in the 1937 elections to the Bombay legislature. In 1936 he also published Annihilation of Caste. It was written as a presidential address for a caste-reform body in Lahore; the organisers asked him to cut passages, he refused, the meeting was cancelled, and he printed it himself. Its central claim is that caste is not a division of labour but a division of labourers. In July 1942 he formed the All India Scheduled Castes Federation at Nagpur.

The Viceroy also made him Labour Member of the Executive Council (1942–46). In the Constituent Assembly he sat first for Bengal and, after Partition, for Bombay. On 29 August 1947 he became chairman of the Drafting Committee, and he was also independent India's first Law Minister. The committee system is on our page on Constituent Assembly committees.

Article 17 abolishes untouchability, Article 15 bars discrimination, Part XVI provides reserved seats, and Article 341 lets the President list the Scheduled Castes (see equality and protections). He called Article 32, the right to move the Supreme Court, the "heart and soul" of the Constitution. In his closing speech on 25 November 1949 he warned that on 26 January 1950 India would enter a life of contradictions: equality in politics but inequality in social and economic life. He resigned as Law Minister in 1951 when his Hindu Code Bill, which sought equal rights for women, stalled.

Deeksha 1956 and What Survives Today

On 14 October 1956, the day of Ashoka Vijayadashami, Ambedkar embraced Buddhism at Nagpur with hundreds of thousands of followers. The spot is now Deekshabhoomi. He died about seven weeks later, on 6 December 1956, at his Delhi home, and was cremated at Mumbai at the place now called Chaitya Bhoomi. The Bharat Ratna was conferred on him posthumously in 1990.

Three legacies are examined: reserved seats (a descendant of the Poona Pact), the constitutional ban on untouchability, and education as the route to equality. For how scholarship money now reaches SC and OBC students, see our article on direct benefit transfer. The Gandhian side of the story is on our page on the Gandhian phase of the national movement.

How UPSC Has Asked It: Past Papers Solved

These are actual CDS and NDA questions: mostly one-line identification, one chronology sum and two Constitution links.

Practice MCQs (with answers)

1. The Mahad Satyagraha of March 1927 was launched to establish the right of the Depressed Classes to
   1. enter the Kalaram temple
   2. draw water from the Chavdar tank
   3. vote in separate constituencies
   4. study in government colleges
2. The Poona Pact of 1932 raised the number of provincial seats for the Depressed Classes from
   1. 71 to 148
   2. 148 to 71
   3. 48 to 71
   4. 71 to 100
3. Who announced the Communal Award in August 1932?
   1. Lord Irwin
   2. Lord Willingdon
   3. Ramsay MacDonald
   4. Clement Attlee
4. Which of the following is correctly paired?
   1. Satyashodhak Samaj - Narayana Guru
   2. SNDP Yogam - Jyotiba Phule
   3. Mook Nayak - Shahu Maharaj alone, with no part for Ambedkar
   4. Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha - B.R. Ambedkar
5. The Poona Pact replaced separate electorates for the Depressed Classes with
   1. reserved seats in a joint electorate
   2. nominated members
   3. a literacy-based franchise
   4. proportional representation
6. Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste was originally prepared as
   1. an editorial for Mook Nayak
   2. a petition to the Simon Commission
   3. a letter to Gandhi in Yerwada jail
   4. an undelivered presidential address for a caste-reform conference at Lahore
7. The constitutional article that abolishes untouchability is
   1. Article 15
   2. Article 17
   3. Article 23
   4. Article 46
8. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism in 1956 at
   1. Mhow
   2. Sarnath
   3. Nagpur
   4. Mumbai

Quick Revision