Vol. 17, Part I · pages 311–315

286 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES ‘ The Protest Strike is condemned as having fallen flat, that it was a fiasco, that the workers defied the orders of their leaders. Those who went on strike were supposed to have been ‘intimidated’ ‘bullied’ ‘terrorised’ ‘coerced’ and so on’. People are familiar with these words. But so far they used to come from a press that was considered anti-national. Today they come from Congress and pro-Congress press. That is the tragedy. That is the grim reality we have to face. ‘I ask these journals, what has happened to your Truth and Non-violence, what has happened to your common decency ?’ ‘As far as the workers are concerned they cannot be misled by this or any other propaganda. They were witnesses to the gigantic demonstrations of protest against the Trades Disputes Bill. They know what mighty success the strike has been.’ Ministry Warned ‘Let the Congress Ministry and Congress leaders remember this one fact very clearly, that every lathi charge that has been directed on the workers, every shot that has been fired on members of the working class will echo and re-echo in this city and this presidency for weeks and months to come.’ ‘Those lathi charges and firing will be echoed and reechoed during the forth-coming Municipal Elections from a hundred platforms and in a hundred meeting. Those lathi charges and firing are going to cost the Congress much more than its leaders seem to realise today. ‘Those outrages on our right and our freedom will be heard in the farther most corners of this province in the remotest villages of this presidency. ‘The Congress Ministry seems to be intoxicated with power. They seem to be ignorant of the one great lesson of democracy that mighty majority in parliaments and legislatures are swept off overnight by a single incident by single miscalculated step. But that lesson will be driven home during

287MINISTRY ............... WITH POWER the Bombay Municipal Elections, it will be driven home when the Government face the electorate again. ‘I have not the slightest doubt that it will be driven home with a deadly effect.’ zz

22 INJUSTICE TO TILLERS OF SOIL Analysis of Prakasam Committee’s Recommendations Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Leader of the Independent Labour Party, has issued the following statement:— I have read the recommendations of the Prakasam Committee on conditions in zamindari areas. While the view that the zamindar is no more than an assignee of revenue may be justified, the stand that the Committee has taken that no tenancy rights for the actual cultivator can accrue in lands belonging to proprietors of the soil is neither legally correct, nor just to the cultivator, nor conducive to the sound development of the agricultural economy. It is legally incorrect, because grades of proprietary rights grown during that last century and have been recognised in law in all tenancy legislations. It is unjust to the cultivator, because the purpose of fixing a low rent or revenue is to leave a wide surplus for him and to provide him with a living income, to improve his farm and tide over scarcity years, and not to create a large number of smaller zamindars to enrich themselves both at the expense of the zamindar and the cultivator. It is against the interests of agriculture, because proprietary interests ought not be allowed to exploit land as a property for rack-renting the cultivator as against its conservation for use for agricultural purposes. The report of the Prakasam Committee is nothing more than an assessment of the distribution of the rack-rent collected from the cultivators among the superior holders. MR. PRAKASAM’S RECENT REPLIES TO A QUESTION IN THE LEGISLATURE THAT TENANCY LEGISLATION WILL NOT BE UNDERTAKEN IN RAYATWARI AREAS BECAUSE RAYATWARI HOLDERS ARE PROPRIETORS OF THE SOIL SHUTS OUT ALL HOPES OF ANY GOOD COMING TO THE CULTIVATOR FROM THE CONGRESS MINISTRY.

289INJUSTICE.........OF SOIL I have no doubt that the Scheduled Class representatives in Madras will not be a party to any legislation which, in the name of proprietary rights, creates a new class of rent receivers. And I think that any support given by them to any such legislation would be grave betrayal of the interests of the cultivator.”1 zz 1: The Bombay Chronicle : dated 18th January 1939.

23 DR. AMBEDKAR CHALLENGES GWYER AWARD “Since February 1939 trouble had been brewing in the Rajkot State where a strong agitation was going on for political reforms. Defeated and disappointed by Subhas Bose’s election to the Presidentship of the Congress, Gandhi hurried to Rajkot apparently to settle the State problem, but with an inward desire to create a crisis just at the time of the Tripuri Congress Session over which Subhas Bose was to preside. Dr. Ambedkar was urgently called by the local Depressed Classes to intervene in the dispute regarding their noninclusion in the Reforms Committee of the State. He therefore, left by air for Rajkot and on the evening of April 18, saw the ruler, the Thakor Saheb, and at night addressed a meeting of the Depressed Classes, urging them to carry on their struggle for political rights. The next morning he had a talk with Gandhi for forty-five minutes on the question of representation for the Harijans on the Reforms Committee. He stated in an interview at Rajkot that he could not discuss in detail all the points with Gandhi, as the Mahatma had a sudden temperature. He, however, revealed that the suggestion that his, alternative proposal should be submitted to a constitutional expert like Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru was not acceptable to Gandhi. At last Gandhi failed in his attempt to effect a change of heart by his non-violent methods and resorted to coercive methods by appealing to the Viceroy to intervene. Gandhi, the apostle of the principle of change of heart and non-violence, himself publicly confessed that his non-violence had not yet been developed to the fullest power, and so he left Rajkot, to quote his words, with hopes cremated and body shattered. Accordingly, a few days thereafter Sir Maurice Gwyer, the Chief Justice of the Federal Court, gave an Award on the disputes in the State of Rajkot. Dr. Ambedkar challenged the interpretation of the word “recommend” given by Sir Maurice Gwyer. He stated that Gwyer had given his decision on the footing that “There is