Gandhi ji opposed the political representation of the Harijans.
Answers
It has now become a fashion among many to denounce Gandhi’s “fast-unto-death” against the Communal Award that granted separate electorates to ‘Dalits’ (then described as the ‘Depressed Classes’) and the Poona Pact of 1932 as the “greatest betrayal” of the ‘Dalits’.
Rather than seeing the talks between Gandhi and Ambedkar leading to the signing of the Pact as a dialogue of negotiation between the two, Ambedkar is seen as having been “blackmailed” by Gandhi’s fast into dropping the idea of separate electorates in exchange for reservation for the ‘Dalits’.
This view essentially overlooks the constant efforts of the British imperialists to divide Indian people into a number of special-interest groups at loggerheads with each other to weaken the national movement.
It is also forgotten that the Poona Pact greatly increased the representation of the ‘Dalits’ in the legislatures. Ambedkar not only highly praised Gandhi but called him “Mahatma”. Ambedkar referred to Gandhi as “Mahatma” for offering “a much better deal for the Dalits in terms of reserved seats than Ambedkar himself had asked or hoped for”.