Vol. 17, Part I · pages 26–30

The Historical Chawdar Tank at Mahad This Conference is held to unfurl the banner of Equality and thus may be likened to the National Assembly in France convened in 1789. — Dr. B.R. Ambedkar

5MAHAD SATYAGRAHA that it was utterly disgraceful to sell their human rights for a few crumbs of bread, and appealed to them fervently to do away with the humiliating, enslaving traditions, to abandon their Vatans and seek forest lands for agricultural pursuits. In conclusion, in a moving tone he said: “There will be no difference between parents and animals if they will not desire to see their children in a better position than their own.” The Conference passed resolutions on important subjects. By one resolution the Conference appealed to the Caste Hindus to help the Untouchables secure their civic rights, to employ them in services, offer food to Untouchable students, and bury their dead animals themselves. Lastly, it appealed to Government to prohibit the Untouchables by special laws from eating carrion, enforce prohibition, provide them with free and compulsory primary education, give aid to the Depressed Classes hostels and make the ‘Bole Resolution’ a living reality by enjoining upon the local bodies, if necessary, to proclaim section 144 of Indian Criminal Procedure Code at their places, for its enforcement. On the first day, a few caste Hindu spokesmen, local as well as outsiders, made speeches justifiying the rights of the Depressed Classes and promised them help. The Subjects Committee, which met that night, decided, after taking the sense of the leaders of the upper classes who attended the Conference, that the Conference should go in a body to the Chawdar Tank and help the Depressed Classes to establish their right to take water. Next morning the Conference called upon two caste Hindu spokesmen to support the resolution regarding the duties and responsibilities of the Caste Hindus. Excluding the clause regarding inter-caste marriage, they both supported the resolution. In pursuance of the resolution of the Mahad Municipality which in 1924 had declared to have thrown open its Tank to the Depressed Classes, it was now decided to take water from the Tank and establish the right of the Untouchables. The delegates accordingly began to march peacefully in a body to the Chawdar Tank to assert their right of taking water from the Tank. And now the momentous event, great in its magnitude and far-reaching in its consequences, was taking place. Anti-slavery, anti-caste,

6 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES anti-priest. Dr. Ambedkar, who represented the awakened spirit of the Untouchable Hindus, was marching towards the Tank from which the Muslims and Christians took water along with the so-called touchable Hindus, but from which the Untouchable Hindus who worshipped the Hindu Gods, stuck to the same Hindu religion through ages past, were, although their throats parched with thirst, not allowed to take even a drop of water. Thus, led for the first time in their history by a great leader of their own, the Untouchables were marching to vindicate their rights. They all displayed discipline, energy and enthusiasm. The march wended its way through the streets of Mahad and terminated at the Chawdar Tank. Dr. Ambedkar himself was now standing on the verge of the Tank. Enlightened among the enlightened, the equal of any erudite man on earth, a Hindu of noble aspirations, yet unable even to take water from a public watercourse or to read in a public library in Hindustan, the land of his birth and faith, was now defying the arrogance of the tyrants, exposing the baseness of a people who boasted that their religion treated even animals with forbearance, but who treated their coreligionists worse than cats and dogs. Dr. Ambedkar took water from the Tank and drank it. The vast multitude of men followed suit and vindicated their right. The processionists then returned peacefully to the pandal. Two hours after this event, some evil-minded caste Hindus raised a false rumour that the Untouchables were also planning to enter the temple of Veereshwar. At this a large crowd of riffraff armed with bamboo sticks collected at street corners. All orthodox Mahad was up in arms and the whole town at once became a surging mass of rowdies. They said that their religion was in danger, and strangely enough they clamoured that their God, too, was in danger of being polluted ! Their hearts fluttered, their hands shivered, and their faces were ablaze with anger at this humiliating challenge. Enraged at this misconstrued outrage on their religion and at the thought of defilement of the temple of Veereshwar, the caste Hindus dashed into the pandal of the Depressed Classes Conference. Many of the delegates were at that time scattered in

7MAHAD SATYAGRAHA small groups in the city. Some were busy packing and a few were taking their meals before dispersing for their villages. The majority of the delegates had by now left the town. The rowdies pounced upon the delegates in the pandal, knocked down their food in the dust, pounded the utensils and belaboured some before they knew what had happened. There was utter confusion in the pandal. Up-till now the orthodox had lost their conscience. They now showed signs of losing their senses ! Untouchable children, women and delegates, who were strolling in the streets of Mahad, were frightened at the sudden sweep of this event. Stray individuals amongst them were beaten. They had to run into Muslim houses for shelter. The local Mamlatdar and the Police Inspector, who failed to check the rowdies, saw Dr. Ambedkar in this matter at four O’clock in the evening at the Travellers Bungalow where Dr. Ambedkar and his party were staying during the days of the Conference. “You control others, I will control my people,” said Dr. Ambedkar to the officers, and he hurried to the scene with two or three of his lieutenants. In the street a batch of rowdies mobbed him, but he calmly tried to soothe them by telling that there was no desire nor any plan on their part to enter the temple. He went ahead, saw things for himself and returned to the Bungalow. Up to this moment about twenty persons from the Untouchables were seriously wounded. A doctor was sent for. He came. He jeered at them for their “ill-timed” adventure and dressed their wounds ! The rowdies then began patrolling the main streets and assaulting members of the Depressed Classes who were in stray batches on the way to their villages. But the most reprehensible part of their conduct was that they sent messages to their henchmen to punish the delegates of the Conference in their respective villages. In obedience to this mandate assaults were committed on a number of Mahar men and women either before or after they had reached their villages. Meanwhile, this news of the brutal attack on the delegates spread like wild fire. When Dr. Ambedkar returned to the bungalow, he saw about a hundred men impatiently awaiting his