Vol. 17, Part I · pages 96–100

71ROLE OF ......................... INDIAN DEMOCRACY “At long lost the report of the Simon Commission came out in may 1930. The Commission disregarded the meaning and aim of Indian nationalism and its forces. It recommended a continuation of Separate Electorate in Indian elections far want of any agreed pact among the Indian political parties : It was the opinion of the Commission that the Nehru Report was not an agreed solution.” 1 In order to discuss the future political Constitution of India the Government decided to hold Round Table Conferance at London. It was necessary that the Depressed Classes must at the critical junture assert themselves and make it clear to the power that be as to what safeguards and guarantees the future Constitution of India must contain for the protection of their civic rights. With this view it was decided in consultation with Dr. B. R. Ambedkar to bring out people from the difference provinces of India together for the purpose of the discussion. Accordingly the All India Depressed Classes Congress was convened at Nagpur under the Presidentship of Dr. B. R„ Ambedkar on 8th/9th August 1930. On 8th August 1930 Dr. Ambedkar spoke of the Indian problem in the context of British Imperialism or world affair keeping in view the safeguards and guarantees to be provided to the Depressed Classes in the proposed Constitution of India. “As declared, the British Government convened a Round Table Conference in London consisting of the representatives of India, the British Government and the British Political parties to frame a Constitution for India with a view to satisfying the demands of the people of India. The Round Table Conference consisted of eighty-nine Members, out of which sixteen were representatives of the three British parties, fifty-three Indian Members of the delegation representing various interest except the non-co-operting Congress, and twenty of the Indian States. Amongst the invitees were thirteen eminent Hindu liberal leaders including Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, M. R. Jayakar, Sir Chimanlal Setalvad, Srinivas 1 : Keer, P. 139.

72 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Sastri and C. Y. Chintamani. Representing the Muslims, were H. H. the Aga Khan, Sir Muhamed Shafi, Mohomed Ali Jinnah, and Fazlul Huq, while Sardar Ujjal Singh represented the Sikhs, Dr. B. S. Moonje, the Hindu Mahasabha, K. T. Paul, the Indian Christians, Rulers of Alwar, Baroda, Bhopal, Bikaner, Kashmir, Patiala and Sir Akbar Hydari, Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Aiyar, Sir Mirza Ismail represented the Indian States. Sir A. P. Patro and Bhaskarrao V. Jadhav represented other interests; Dr. Ambedkar and Rao Bahadur Srinivasan represented the Depressed Classes. Dr. Ambedkar received the invitation to the Round Table Conference through the Viceroy on September 6, 1930. The Round Table Coference was indeed a great event in the history of both India and England. But to the Untouchables in particular it was an epoch-making event in their history; for, it was at this Conference that they were being invested along with other Indians with the right to be consulted in the framing of the Constitution for India. Their voice was to echo for the first time in the history of two thousand years, and more so in the governance of their Motherland. Dr. Ambedkar left Bombay for London on October 4, 1930, by the s.s. Viceroy of India. The atmosphere in the country was not congenial to his departure. The whole country was in a turmoil. Congressmen hated, abused and cursed those leaders who co-operated with the British Government in solving the Indian problem in their own honest way. The situation was so tense and fraught with danger that Dr. Ambedkar wrote from Aden, on October 8, to Shivtarkar, his secretary and trusted lieutenant, that he was very anxious for their safety. He warned them to be on their guard in their walks and talks and to avoid all work at night. He asked him to lock the office of the party with an iron bar across it and to watch the movements of a certain Depressed Class leader in Bombay who was at loggerheads with their organization. Dr. Ambedkar found the political atmosphere in England much sympathetically inclined to the problem of the Depressed Classes. On his arrival, he immediately began to contact Britain’s important political party bosses in connection with the problem of the Depressed Classes. Yet he was anxious to know

73ROLE OF ......................... INDIAN DEMOCRACY by cable from India about the new list of the members nominated to the Bombay Legislative Council and about the judgment of the Court on the Chawdar Tank Case. The curtain was raised on November 12, 1930. Keen interest was evinced by the British public in the opening of the Round Table Conference. Approaches to the House of Lords, the avenue of the Conference, were thronged by spectators. His Majesty the King-Emperor appeared. Inaugurating the Conference, he said : “More than once the Sovereign has summoned historic assemblies on the soil of India, but never before have British and Indian statesmen and Rulers of Indian States met, as you now meet, in one place round one table, to discuss the future system of Government for India and seek agreement for the guidance of my Parliament as to the foundations upon which it must stand.” The KingEmperor concluded by expressing a hope : “May your names go down to history as those of men who served India well”. After the King-Emperor had withdrawn from the House, Ramsay MacDonald was unanimously elected Chairman of the Round Table Conference. A labour leader and author of The Government of India, he expressed Britain’s determination to solve the Indian problem, and said that they were at the birth of a new history. The Round Table Conference was not a Constituent Assembly entrusted with the work of drafting a Constitution. It was a gathering of Indian and British statesmen who were not to take decisions by votes. The sense of the Conference on the main issues which came up before it for consideration was to be ascertained and noted. The venue of the Conference thereafter shifted to St. James’ Palace. During the course of a general discussion which took place from 17th November to 21st November, Sapru, Jayakar. Moonje, Jinnah, the Maharaja of Bikaner and Dr. Ambedkar made very sincere and impressive speeches. In his lucid and appealing style the guide, friend and philosopher of the Conference, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, said : “ India wants and is determined to achieve, a status of equality—equality with all the three members of the British Commonwealth—an equality which will give it a Government not merely responsive to, but responsible to the popular voice.”

74 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The Maharaja of Bikaner identified himself and the princely order with the aspirations of British India and declared that the Princes were prepared to federate of their own free will with self-governing Federal British India. This was a surprise to all. This declaration of Federation was also endorsed by the Maharaja of Patiala and the Nawab of Bhopal. The Muslim Members welcomed an All-India Federation : but with great vigour they pressed for a status for the NorthWest Province equal to that of the other Provincial units of British India and for the creation of a separate province of Sind. Jayakar, in his deep and sweet flow of speech, asked for a declaration of Dominion Status, and added: “If you give India Dominion Status today, in the course of a few months the cry of independence will die of itself. If, on the other hand, we return empty-handed from our labours in the Conference, it will be the surest way of raising in volume and in intensity this demand for independence.” Dr. Moonje, following the Maharaja of Patiala, refuted all the arguments of Lord Peel and told the Conference how the British Government had crushed Indian shipping, cotton and other industries. He added that the British belief that they would put down the National Movement of Civil Disobedience by a display of force was erroneous ; the time had passed. N. M. Joshi pleaded for more rights for the labourers in the new constitution. Sir Mirza said that the future constitution should be based on federal basis. Sir C. P. Ramaswami Iyer opined that the future constitution should be worth living under. Then, after two or three speakers, rose a man, stout, sober and confident, with scintillating eyes and tight lips. Arisen from the lowest rung to the height by dint of his mental and moral force alone, he sat there in the assembly of the princes and potentates, legal celebrities and great brains representing great thrones, jahagirs, institutions and interests. He represented the poorest of India’s poor who were half-fed, half-nude and dumb ! What would he say now ? How would he say it ? There was in the Assembly the prince who had financed his education. There was one amongst them who was

75ROLE OF ......................... INDIAN DEMOCRACY his teacher in the school. All eyes were rivetted upon the speaker. He was not the least agitated. He knew his mind; he knew what to say and how to say it. Except the Premier MacDonald and Joshi none from that August Assembly had seen poverty in its crudest and ugliest form. There were highlights in the Conference, Pundits and literateurs, but he was the only leader who had attained the highest degree in the academic world, the Doctorate in Science. This man was Dr. Ambedkar, the leader of the suppressed humanity in India. At the outset, Dr. Ambedkar declared that in speaking before the Conference, he was placing the viewpoint of onefifth of the total population of British India—a population as large as the population of England or France—which was reduced to a position worse than that of a serf or a slave. He then declared to the surprise of all that the Untouchables in India were also for replacing the existing Government by a Government of the people, for the people and by the people. He said that this change in the attitude of the Untouchables to British rule in India was surprising and a momentous phenomenon. And justifying his stand, he observed with a rise in his voice and a glow in his eyes : “ When we compare our present position with the one which it was our lot to bear in Indian society of pre-British days, we find that, instead of marching on, we are marking time. Before the British, we were in the loathsome condition due to our Untouchability. Has the British Government done anything to remove it ? Before the British, we could not draw water from the village well. Has the British Government secured us the right to the well ? Before the British, we could not enter the temple ? Can we enter now? Before the British, we were denied entry into the Police Force. Does the British Government admit us into the force ? Before the British. we were not allowed to serve in the Military. Is that career now open to us ? To none of these questions can we give an affirmative answer. Our wrongs have remained as open sores and they have not been righted, although 150 years of British rule have rolled away.”