Abstract
Focusing on the India’s experience which introduced political safeguards for minorities prior to the development of international debates on the minority rights issue, this paper elaborates the reason why the founding fathers of India included political safeguards such as the reservation of seats in the new Constitution. While preceding studies have mostly focused on the Muslim community, that have remained as the largest religious minority group even in post-partition India, studies on why the Scheduled Castes reserved seats was introduced in the Constitution has not been discussed systematically. Especially, there has been scarcity on the analysis of agency of Scheduled Castes leaders during Constitution-making process. Therefore, this paper, placing the role and effort of B. R. Ambedkar, who was one of the most influential Scheduled Casts leaders, at the center of study, examines how he got involved in the politics of Constitution-making. The paper takes notice of the development of cooperative relationship between Ambedkar and the Congress leaders after independence and Ambedkar’s adaptation to the changed political circumstances surrounding the Constituent Assembly. Taking these things into consideration, an attempt is made to show the political process led to the introduction of the Scheduled Castes reserved seats by the Constituent Assembly of India.
