10 अल्पसंख्याक समितीमध्ये— 7 वी बैठक 28-9-1931

IN THE MINORITIES COMMITTEE

Seventh Sitting—28th September 1931

*Chairman: There are other minorities which are represented. If we adjourn, they will have to see if they can get their point of view made ready for expression. An adjournment would be useful only if those representatives of the other sections would use the adjournment period for the purpose of preparing something, and then handing in to me, in preparation for the next meeting, a list of names of those who would like to take part in the discussions. I am rather at a disadvantage this morning because nobody has handed in his name. If you would like it, I could conduct this Conference in such a way that you would break up in the course of two or three meetings. That is exactly what I am determined shall not happen. In order to be able to guide the discussion in a friendly and in a profitable way I should like to know who is going to speak, and what points of view are going to be put forward, so that the speakers might be called upon at the most helpful moment. The idea is not to suppress speeches at all, but, in order that the discussion shall proceed in such a way as to produce the maximum amount of good. If you do adjourn now, please remember that the others of you are coming to a bargain with me that you too will use this time for the purpose of making preparations for a statement which will be brief, to the point, and comprehensive, and, I beg of you, helpful. On that understanding, and with that bargain, will you adjourn ?

Dr. Ambedkar: I would like to say one word before we adjourn. As regards your suggestion — that while these negotiations are going on members of the other minority communities should prepare their case — I should like to say that, so far as the Depressed Classes are concerned, we have already presented our case to the Minorities Sub-Committee last time. The only thing which remains for me to do is to put before this Committee a short statement suggesting the quantum of representation which we want in the different Legislatures. Beyond that I do not think I am called upon to do anything; but the point I am anxious to make at the very outset is

* Proceedings of the Federal Structure Committee and Minorities Committee, Vol, I, pp. 1337-38.

this. I have heard with great pleasure that further negotiations are going to, take place for the settlement of the communal issue. But I would like to make this matter absolutely plain at the very start. I do not wish that any doubt should be left on this question at all. Those who are negotiating ought to, understand that they are not plenipotentiaries at all; that whatever may be the representative character of Mr. Gandhi or the Congress people, they certainly are not in a position to bind us—certainly not. I say that most emphatically in this meeting.

Another thing I want to say is this—that the claims put forward by the various minorities are claims put forward by themselves irrespective of the consideration as to whether the claims that they have put forward are consistent with the claims of the other minorities. Consequently, any negotiations which take place between one minority on the one hand and the Congress or any other people for that matter on the other hand, without taking into consideration the claims which have been put forward by the other minorities can have no chance of success as far as I am concerned. I want to make that absolutely plain. I have no quarrel with the question whether any particular community should get weightage or not, but I do want to say most emphatically that whoever claims weightage and whoever is willing to give that weightage he must not give it— he cannot give it—out of my share. I want to make that absolutely plain.

Sir Henry Gidney : I want to say a very few words, I wholeheartedly associate myself with my friend Dr. Ambedkar. Representing a small community as I do, I fail to see where I come in this transaction. If the Congress on the one hand makes a settlement with the Muhammadans on the other hand, where do the other minority communities come in ? You ask us to settle our differences amongst ourselves and to present them individually. We have already done so. At the last Conference I submitted the minimum demands of the small community I represent. I want to make it abundantly clear that in making this new map of India all minorities should have the right of putting their own little spot on it and I do not see how we can if the settlement here is going to be entirely a Hindu-Muslim pact

*****

†Chairman: Do not let there be any misunderstanding. This is the body before which the final settlement must come, and the suggestion is merely that if there are minorities or communities that hitherto have been in conflict with each other, they should use a short time for the purpose of trying to overcome their difficulties. That will be a step, and a very important and essential step, towards a general agreement, but the agreement is going to be a general one.

Dr. Ambedkar: I have made my position absolutely clear.

† Proceedings of the Federal Structure Committee and Minorities Committee, Vol. I, pp. 1338-39.

Chairman: Dr. Ambedkar’s position has been made absolutely clear ; in his usual splendid way he has left no doubt at all about it, and that will come up when this body resumes its discussions. What I would like to do is to get you all to feel that we are co-operating together for a general settlement; not for a settlement between any two or any three, but a complete settlement.

*****

†Dr. Ambedkar: I should like to suggest whether it would not be possible for you to appoint a small Committee consisting of members drawn from the various minority communities, along with the Congress representatives, to sit in an informal manner and discuss this problem during the period of the adjournment.

Chairman: I was going to make this suggestion. Do not ask me to appoint that Committee ; do it yourselves. I have invited you to get together. Could not you manage to hold an informal meeting amongst yourselves and talk the matter over, and then when you speak here you will speak with some sort of knowledge of the effect of what you are saying on others ? Could we leave it in that way ?

Dr. Ambedkar: As you like.

Chairman: That would be far better.

Eighth Sitting—1st October 1931 ‡Mr. Gandhi: Prime Minister, after consultation with His Highness The Aga Khan and other Muslim friends last night, we came to the conclusion that the purpose for which we meet here would be better served if a week’s adjournment was asked for. I have not had the opportunity of consulting my other colleagues, but I have no doubt that they will also agree in the proposal I am making. I have been having with my Muslim friends anxious conversations, and I had the pleasure of meeting some other friends also last afternoon belonging to the different groups or classes. We were not able to make much headway, but they too felt that the time at our disposal was too short even for exchanging views. I may say for myself that beyond this week’s adjournment I would not press for any further adjournment, but I would report to this Committee what has been the result of the endeavour I shall be making during the week.

I let out no secret when I inform this Committee that His Highness and the other friends with whom I was closeted last night laid upon my shoulders the burden of calling representatives of the different groups together and holding consultations with a view to arriving at some final settlement. If this proposal of mine commends itself to you, Prime Minister, and to the

† Proceedings of the Federal Structure Committee and Minorities Committee, Vol. I, p. 1340. ‡Ibid., pp. 1340-45.

rest of the members of this Committee, I shall be glad. I know that His Highness will second this proposal, and let us all hope that at the end of the week it will be possible to report some sort of a settlement. When I express this hope I do not wish to convey any impression that, because I express it, there is something that I know, and on which I am building that hope. But I am an irrepressible optimist, and often in my lifetime when the horizon has appeared to be the blackest, some turn has taken place which has given ground for hope. Whatever it may be, so far as human endeavour is possible, all that endeavour will be made. I have no doubt, by many members of this Committee to arrive at a settlement. With these words I leave my proposal, that we adjourn our proceedings to this day in your hands for consideration.

H. H. The Aga Khan: I have pleasure in seconding the proposal. Sardar Ujjal Singh: I rise to give my wholehearted support to this proposal, and I share the hope that by this means we may come to some understanding, given goodwill on both sides.

Dr. Ambedkar: I do not wish to create any difficulty in our making every possible attempt to arrive at some solution of the problem with which this Committee has to deal, and if a solution can be arrived at by the means suggested by Mahatma Gandhi, I, for one, will have no objection to that proposal.

But there is just this one difficulty with which I, as representing the Depressed Classes, am faced. I do not know what sort of committee Mahatma Gandhi proposes to appoint to consider this question during the period of adjournment, but I suppose that the Depressed Classes will be represented on this committee.

Mr. Gandhi: Without doubt.

Dr. Ambedkar: Thank you. But I do not know whether in the position in which I am today, it would be of any use for me or my colleague to work on the proposed committee. And for this reason, Mahatma Gandhi told us on the first day that he spoke in the Federal Structure Committee that as a representative of the Indian National Congress he was not prepared to give political recognition to any community other than the Muhammadans and the Sikhs. He was not prepared to recognise the Anglo-Indians, the Depressed Classes, and the Indian Christians. I do not think that I am doing any violence to etiquette by stating in this Committee that when I had the pleasure of meeting Mahatma Gandhi a week ago and discussing the question of the Depressed Classes with him, and when we, as members of the other minorities, had the chance of talking with him yesterday in his office, he told us in quite plain terms that the attitude that he had taken in the Federal Structure Committee was his full and well considered attitude. What I would like to say is that unless at the outset I know that the Depressed Classes are going to be recognised as a community entitled to political recognition in the future constitution of India, I do not know whether it will serve any purpose for me to join the particular committee that is proposed by Mahatma Gandhi to be constituted to go into this matter. Unless, therefore, I have an assurance that this committee will start with the assumption that all those communities which the Minorities Sub-Committee last year recommended as fit for recognition of India will be included, I do not know that I can wholeheartedly support the proposition for adjournment, or that I can wholeheartedly cooperate with the committee that is going to be nominated. That is alt that I wish to make plain now.

Sir Henry Gidney (Anglo-Indians): On behalf of the community which I have the honour to represent, I associate myself entirely with my friend Dr. Ambedkar. I also am in the unfortunate position of having been refused recognition by Mahatma Gandhi as far as a separate community is concerned. I may be wrong, but I am sure that Mahatma Gandhi will correct me if I am. Yesterday, when we met Mahatma Gandhi upon this matter, he impressed us in terms that left no doubt in my mind that as a community he and the Congress were not prepared to recognise us, and that the Lahore Resolution of the Congress indicated, almost at the behest of the Mahatma, that it was only possible to recognise two communities, the Muhammadans and the Sikhs, and that that was on traditional and historical grounds. Possibly it might be impertinence on my part to claim the same grounds for the recognition of my community. But I do ask the Mahatma to make it abundantly clear here before this meeting, before this committee is appointed, and before you, Sir, ask for an adjournment, that he will include in this committee representatives of those communities which have already received recognition on this committee.

Rao Bahadur Pannir Selvam (Indian Christians): The statement made by Dr. Ambedkar is news to me. I was not aware until now that the Mahatma was not granting us any recognition. If that be so, I submit that our position here will be absolutely unnecessary. Since no recognition as a community in the political future is given to us, I am really unable to see what purpose will be served by our taking part in any committee that might subsequently be formed. I feel that I ought to put forward my case exactly in the same terms as Dr. Ambedkar and Sir Henry Gidney have stated theirs. Dr. Moonje: I did not attach much importance or so much seriousness to the fact when I read in the papers that only two communities are to be recognised by Mahatma Gandhi in the Minorities Committee. I thought that perhaps it might be a kind of move to facilitate conciliation and understanding, and to smooth over difficulties, but I find from Dr. Ambedkar’s speech, and from Sir Henry Gidney’s speech, that they have taken the matter most seriously. Therefore, I should like to say, and bring it to the notice of the Committee, that even the Hindus in the Provinces of Punjab and Bengal are minorities, and have, therefore, to look after their own interests also. With this little explanation, I have no objection to the proposal of adjourning for considering this question.

Sir Muhammad Shafi: I am afraid there is some misapprehension in the minds of some of my friends about the proposal which has been put forward by Mahatma Gandhi. As I understand that proposal, Mahatma Gandhi does not ask for the appointment of a Sub-Committee of this Committee, nor does he ask for the appointment of a committee in the ordinary sense of the term. What is intended is this, that each group constituting the whole of this Committee, including of course the Depressed Classes and the Anglo-Indian community, might select a few representatives, one or two or three from each group, who should meet together and consider, after an exchange of ideas, whether some settlement satisfactory to all cannot be arrived at and thus lighten the burden which rests upon the shoulders of the Minorities Committee as a whole. If that consummation can be arrived at, I am sure every sincere well-wisher of India’s peaceful progress ought to be glad to contribute to the bringing about of that consummation. I am afraid the objection made by my friend Dr. Ambedkar is merely the result of a misapprehension as to the nature of the proposal made by Mahatma Gandhi and seconded by His Highness The Aga Khan. If after this explanation which I have ventured to submit, a unanimous decision can be arrived at in favour of the adjournment of this Committee for a week in order to enable us all to meet in a friendly spirit, in a spirit of co-operation, as sincere well-wishers for peaceful progress in our common motherland, I shall be very glad.

Mrs. Naidu: Mr. Prime Minister, as I do not represent either a minority or a special interest I am completely disinterested in the appeal I am going to make to the minorities and special interests not to raise difficulties and not to cross their bridges before they come to them. It is only in fulfilment of the appeal, Sir, which you made to us the other day, which coincide with our own sense of self-respect, with our own sense of duty in settling a domestic matter entirely without outside arbitration or intervention, that I want to make an appeal that we should settle our domestic quarrels, if there are any, and announce to you a reconciliation, if there must be a reconciliation, but at any rate a harmonious result, and I think that is the reason why Mahatma Gandhi has made this motion for an adjournment. I do not think that any single minority, however small, need have any apprehension. Every minority is as much a part of the nation as every majority, and I, for one, pledge myself to follow the exhortation given to me by one of the greatest statesmen in Europe, whose boast is that he built up an independent nation without an army and without money. He said to me two years ago : “Madame, keep your minorities happy ; you cannot build a nation without giving a sense of security to your minorities ;” and it is because we want to give this sense of security to the minorities and make them feel that they are an integral part of the nation that a majority community, speaking through the mouth of Mahatma Gandhi, and, if I may say so, also a minority community, speaking through the mouth of His Highness The Aga Khan, are making an appeal that we shall not bring our small domestic quarrels before those who are not concerned primarily with them, but that we shall settle them ourselves, with equity, magnanimity and a sense of chivalry which is justice, and a sense of self-respect which does not permit outsiders to know of the differences within our own house. That is my appeal, Prime Minister, and I hope it will be accepted by all the minorities and majorities present.

Dr. Ambedkar: I should like to make my position further clear. It seems , that there has been a certain misunderstanding regarding what I said. It is not that I object to adjournment; it is not that I object to serving on any committee that might be appointed to consider the question. What I would like to know before I enter upon this committee, if they give me the privilege of serving on it, is : What is the thing that this committee is going to consider ? Is it only going to consider the question of the Muhammadans vis-a-vis the Hindus ? Is it going to consider the question of the Muhammadans vis-a-vis the Sikhs in the Punjab ? Or is it going to consider the question of the Sikhs vis-a-vis the Hindus ? Is it going to consider the question of the Christians, the Anglo-Indians and the Depressed Classes ? If we understand perfectly well before we start that this committee will not merely concern itself with the question of the Hindus and the Muhammadans, of the Hindus and the Sikhs, but will also take upon itself the responsibility of considering the Depressed Classes, the Anglo-Indians and the Christians, I am perfectly willing to allow this adjournment resolution to be passed without my protest. But I do want to say this, that if I am to be left out in the cold, and if this interval is going to be utilised for the purpose of solving the Hindu-Muslim question and the Hindu-Sikh question, I would press that this committee should at once grapple with the question and consider it, rather than allow both positions to be taken hold of by somebody else. Mr. Gandhi : Prime Minister and friends, I see that there is some kind of misunderstanding with reference to the scope of the work that some of us have set before ourselves. I fear that Dr. Ambedkar, Colonel Gidney and other friends are unnecessarily nervous about what is going to happen. Who am I to deny political status to any single interest or class or even individual in India ? As a representative of the Congress, I should be unworthy of the trust that has been reposed in me by the Congress if I were guilty of sacrificing a single national interest. I have undoubtedly given expression to my own views on these points. I must confess that I hold to those views also. But there are ways and ways of guaranteeing protection to every single interest. It will be for those of us who will be putting our heads together to try to evolve a scheme. Nobody would be hampered in pressing his own views on the members of this very informal conference or meeting. We need not call it a committee. I have no authority to convene any committee or to bring into being a committee. I can only act as a humble messenger of peace, try to get together representatives of different interests and groups, and see whether by being closeted in one room and by heart-to-heart conversation, we may not be able to remove cobwebs of misunderstanding and see our way clear to the goal that lies so hazily before us today. I do not think, therefore, that anybody need be afraid as to being able to express his opinion or carrying his opinion also. Mine will be there equal to that of everyone of us; it will carry no greater weight; I have no authority behind me to carry my opinion against the opinion of anybody. I have simply given expression to my views in the national interest, and I shall give expression to these views whenever they are opportune. It will he for you, it is for you to reject or accept those opinions. Therefore please disabuse your minds, everyone of us, of the idea that there is going to be any steam-rolling in the Conference and the informal meetings that I have adumbrated. But if you think that this is one way of coming closer together than by sitting stiffly at this table, you will not only carry this adjournment motion, but give your wholehearted co-operation to the proposal that I have made in connection with these informal meetings.

Sir Hubert Carr: Mr. Prime Minister, my community has not been mentioned. It is a very small one ; but I would like to say that we welcome an adjournment or any other means which will assist a solution of this question which we recognise must precede the final consideration of other questions in which we are all vitally interested.

Dr. Datta: May I say I welcome this adjournment ?

Chairman: Then I shall proceed to put it. I put it on the clear understanding, my friends, that the time is not going to be wasted, and that these conferences—as Mr. Gandhi has said, informal conferences, but nevertheless I hope very valuable and fruitful conferences—will take place between now and our next meeting. I hope you will all pledge yourselves to use the time in that way.

Ninth Sitting—8th October 1931

*Chairman: When we met last Thursday, by common consent we adjourned for a week in order to enable informal and unofficial consultations to take place, with a view of coming to an agreement. Perhaps our first business is to receive a report from those who conducted the negotiations. May I ask Mr. Gandhi to speak first ?

Mr. Gandhi: Prime Minister and friends, it is with deep sorrow and deeper humiliation that I have to announce utter failure on my part to secure an agreed solution of the communal question through informal

*Proceedings of the Federal Structure Committee and Minorities Committee, Vol. I, pp. 1356-58.

conversations among and with the representatives of different groups I apologise to you, Mr. Prime Minister, and the other colleagues for the waste of a precious week. My only consolation lies in the fact that when I accepted the burden of carrying on these talks I knew that there was not much hope of success, and still more in the fact that I am not aware of having spared any effort to reach a solution.

But to say that the conversations have to our utter shame failed is not to say the whole truth. Causes of failure were inherent in the composition of the Indian Delegation. We are almost all not elected representatives of the parties or groups whom we are presumed to represent; we are here by nomination of the Government. Nor are those whose presence was absolutely necessary for an agreed solution to be found here. Further, you will allow me to say that this was hardly the time to summon the Minorities Committee. It lacks the sense of reality in that we do not know what it is that we are going to get. If we knew in a definite manner that we were going to get the thing we want, we should hesitate fifty times before we threw it away in a sinful wrangle, as it would be if we are told that the getting of it would depend upon the ability of the present Delegation to produce an agreed solution of the communal tangle. The solution can be the crown of the Swaraj constitution, not its foundation—if only because our differences have hardened, if they have not arisen, by reason of the foreign domination. I have not a shadow of a doubt that the iceberg of communal differences will melt under the warmth of the sun of freedom.

T, therefore, venture to suggest that the Minorities Committee be adjourned sine die and that the fundamentals of the constitution be hammered into shape as quickly as may be. Meanwhile, the informal work of discovering a true solution of the communal problem will and must continue ; only it must not baulk or be allowed to block the progress of constitution-building. Attention must be diverted from it and concentrated on the main part of the structure.

***** Lastly, inasmuch as the only reason for my appearance at these deliberations is that I represent the Indian National Congress, I must clearly set forth its position. In spite of appearances to the contrary, especially in England, the Congress claims to represent the whole nation, and most decidedly the dumb millions, among whom are included the numberless Untouchables, who are more suppressed than depressed, as also in a way the more unfortunate and neglected classes known as Backward Races.

***** It seems to have been represented that I am opposed to any representation of the Untouchables on the Legislature. This is a travesty of the truth. What I have said, and what I must repeat, is that I am opposed to their special representation. I am convinced that it can do them no good, and may do much harm ; but the Congress is wedded to adult franchise. Therefore millions of them can be placed on the Voters’ Roll. It is impossible to conceive that, with untouchability fast disappearing, nominees of these voters can be boycotted by the others ; but what these people need more than election to the Legislatures is protection from social and religious persecution. Custom, which is often more powerful than law, has brought them to a degradation of which every thinking Hindu has need to feel ashamed and to do penance. I should, therefore, have the most drastic legislation rendering criminal all the special persecution to which these fellow-countrymen of mine are subjected by the so-called superior classes. Thank God, the conscience of Hindus has been stirred, and untouchability will soon be a relic of our sinful past. Dr. Ambedkar: Mr. Prime Minister, last night when we parted at the conclusion of the meeting of the informal Committee we parted although with a sense of failure, at least with one common understanding, and that was that when we met here today none of us should make any speech or any comment that would cause exasperation. I am sorry to see that Mr. Gandhi should have been guilty of a breach of this understanding. Excuse me, I must have the opportunity to speak. He started by giving what were, according to him, the causes’ of the failure of the informal Committee. Now, I have my own cause which I think were responsible for the failure of the informal Committee to reach an agreement, but I do not propose to discuss them now. What disturbs me after hearing Mr. Gandhi is that instead of confining himself to his proposition, namely, that the Minorities Committee should adjourn sine die, he started casting certain reflections upon the representatives of the different communities who are sitting round this table. He said that the Delegates were nominees of the Government, and that they did not represent the views of their respective communities for whom they stood. We cannot deny the allegation that we are nominees of the Government, but, speaking for myself, I have not the slightest doubt that even if the Depressed Classes of India were given the chance of electing their representatives to this Conference, I would, all the same, find a place here. I say therefore that, whether I am a nominee or not, I fully represent the claims of my community. Let no man be under any mistaken impression as regards that.

The Mahatma has been always claiming that the Congress stands for the Depressed Classes, and that the Congress represents the Depressed Classes more than I or my colleague can do. To that claim I can only say that it is one of the many false claims which irresponsible people keep on making, although the persons concerned with regard to those claims have been invariably denying them.

I have here a telegram which I have just received from a place which I have never visited and from a man whom I have never seen from the President of the Depressed Classes Union, Kumaun, Almora, which I believe is in the United Provinces, and which contains the following resolution : “This Meeting declares its no-confidence in the Congress movement which has been carried on in and outside the country, and condemns the methods adopted by the Congress workers.”

I do not care to read further, but I can say this (and I think if Mr. Gandhi will examine his position he will find out the truth), that although there may be people in the Congress who may be showing sympathy towards the Depressed Classes, the Depressed Classes are not in the Congress. That is a proposition which I propose to substantiate. I do not wish to enter into these points of controversy. They seem to be somewhat outside the main proposition. The main proposition which Mr. Gandhi has made is that this Committee should be adjourned sine die. With regard to that proposition, I entirely agree with the attitude taken up by Sir Muhammad Shafi. I, for one, cannot consent to this proposition. It seems to me that there are only two alternatives—either that this Minorities Committee should go on tackling the problem and trying to arrive at some satisfactory solution, if that is possible, and then, if that is not possible, the British Government should undertake the solution of that problem. We cannot consent to leave this to the arbitration of third parties whose sense of responsibility may not be the same as must be the sense of responsibility of the British Government. Prime Minister, permit me to make one thing clear. The Depressed Classes are not anxious, they are not clamorous, they have not started any movement for claiming that there shall be an immediate transfer of power from the British to the Indian people. They have their particular grievances against the British people and I think I have voiced them sufficiently to make it clear that we feel those grievances most genuinely. But, to be true to facts, the position is that the Depressed Classes are not clamouring for transfer of political power. Their position, to put it plainly, is that we are not anxious for the transfer of power; but if the British Government is unable to resist the forces that have been set up in the country which do clamour for transference of political power—and we know the Depressed Classes in their present circumstances are not in a position to resist that— then our submission is that if you make that transfer, that transfer will be accompanied by such conditions and by such provisions that the power shall not fall into the hands of a clique, into the hands of an oligarchy, or into the hands of a group of people, whether Muhammadans or Hindus ; but that that solution shall be such that the power shall be shared by all communities in their respective proportions. Taking that view, I do not see how I, for one, can take any serious part in the deliberations of the Federal Structure Committee unless I know where I and my community stand. Mr. Gandhi: One word more as to the so-called Untouchables. I can understand the claims advanced by other minorities, but the claims advanced on behalf of the Untouchables, that to me is the “unkindest cut of all”. It means the perpetual bar-sinister. I would not seal the vital interests of the Untouchables even for the sake of winning the freedom of India.

I claim myself in my own person to represent the vast mass of the Untouchables. Here I speak not merely on behalf of the Congress, but I speak on my own behalf, and I claim that I would get, if there was a referendum of the Untouchables, their vote, and that I would top the poll. And I would work from one end of India to the other to tell the Untouchables that separate electorates and separate reservation is not the way to remove this bar-sinister, which is the shame, not of them but of orthodox Hinduism. Let this Committee and let the whole world know that today there is a body of Hindu reformers who are pledged to remove this blot of untouchability. We do not want on our register and on our census Untouchables classified as separate class. Sikhs may remain as such in perpetuity, so may Muhammadans, so may Europeans. Will Untouchables remain Untouchables in perpetuity ? I would fear rather that Hinduism died than that untouchability lived. Therefore, with all my regard for Dr. Ambedkar, and for his desire to see the Untouchables uplifted, with all my regard for his ability, I must say in all humility that here the great wrong under which he has laboured and perhaps the bitter experiences that he has undergone have for the moment warped his judgment. It hurts me to have to say this, but I would be untrue to the cause of the Untouchables, which is as dear to me as life itself, if I did not say it. I will not bargain away their rights for the kingdom of the whole world. I am speaking with a due sense of responsibility, and I say that it is not a proper claim which is registered by Dr. Ambedkar when he seeks to speak for the whole of the Untouchables of India. It will create a division in Hinduism which I cannot possibly look forward to with any satisfaction whatsoever. I do not mind Untouchables, if they so desire, being converted to Islam or Christianity. I should tolerate that, but I cannot possibly tolerate what is in store for Hinduism if there are two divisions set forth in the villages. Those who speak of the political rights of Untouchables do not know their India, do not know how Indian society is today constructed, and therefore I want to say with all the emphasis that I can command that if I was the only person to resist this thing I would resist it with my life.