Vol. 17, Part III · pages 366–370

95 GANDHI WAS CONTENTED WITH PROVINCIAL AUTONOMY On 24th September 1944, Dr. Ambedkar attacked Srinivasan Shastriar and Gandhiji vehemently in his speech at Shivraj Memorial Hall, Madras. 1 He said, “.......... In some of his recent speeches, the Rt. Hon. V. S, Srinivasan Shastriar has said that he considered Mr. Gandhi as the embodiment of India’s soul, and that Mr. Gandhi should represent India at any international gathering and that great precautions should be taken to see that in no circumstances should persons like him (Dr. Ambedkar) be given a place at any future international conference. “............ I was searching my heart in order to find out whether really in the whole of my public career which I am ready to admit is not so extensive as that of the Rt. Honourable Shastriar nor probably as glorious as that of his, whether during the short span of my public life, I have done something so disgraceful that India would be ashamed to see me sitting at an International gathering. I do not wish to use my abusive language, for I could have very easily said that the Rt. Hon. Shastriar was a ‘lap-dog’ of the British Government. He has been sitting on the lap of the British Government all this, while and if he had achieved any notoriety and greatness either in India or outside, it was largely due to the fact that the British Government had been pleased to make him a ‘Show-boy’. I do not wish to say that what Mr. Shastri has said is really croaking of an old crow sitting on the tree with the diseased bowels............”. “............What Mr. Shrinivasan Shastriar had said was probably typical of what most Congressmen had been saying, namely that the Scheduled Castes, in so far as they had been under his leadership, had been inimical to the general interests of the country. Most people did not know what Mr. Gandhi did at the Round Table Conference. They all thought that the part he played was a glorious one. The Mahatma went to the conference with a mandate to demand independence, something which was far beyond many sober politicians in 1 : Khairmode, Vol. 9, P. 384.

338 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES India were prepared to ask. But what did Mr. Gandhi do ? This old medieval gentleman who went to the conference with a mandate to demand nothing short of independence said Sir Samuel Hoare that he was quite prepared to be content with provincial autonomy. (Cries of Shame)” 1 zz 1 : The Mail, Madras, dated 26th September 1944.

96 WE ARE THE MAKERS OF THE DESTINY OF THIS COUNTRY Accompanied by P. N. Rajbhoj, General Secretary, Scheduled Castes Federation and V. Ramkrishan, ACM, Labour Department, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar reached Rajmahendri on Thursday the 28th September 1944 in the afternoon. Dr. Ambedkar was presented with Civic Address on behalf of Municipality in the Museum Hall. Somina Kameshwar Rao, Municipal Chairman and K. Vyankatadri Chaudhari, Municipal Commissioner welcomed Dr. Ambedkar.1 While replying to the Civic Address, Dr. Ambedkar said : “We are meeting today under the shadow of very sad piece of news that has come to us. It has been reported that the talks between Mr. Gandhiji and Mr. Jinnah have failed. We have never been able to muster together. We have never been able to sink our differences and patch up things in order to march on. Something has always happened at the most critical moment. The Old Testament somewhere says, “The Nation which has lost its vision will be destroyed.” One of the defects which I have noticed in Mr. Gandhi is the complete lack of vision. I wonder what the founders of the Congress would think of this Pakistan. Those who met for the first time in 1885, in order to see that India get Home Rule, no doubt, by stages, never dreamt that the movement will be carried on in such a manner, in such a spirit, that just about the time when India was about to reach her destiny, India would be cut up in two parts. We are told that the old fellows who had started the Congress were too slow. They were only arm-chair philosophers and were doing nothing but sending letters to the Viceroy. It was said that those methods did not suit the country. The result was that the most dynamic movement was started under the aegis of Mr. Gandhi. We had mass movement and agitations. We had everything except light and vision. Mr. Gandhi is approximated to a large extent to Abraham Lincoln. The attitude that Abraham Lincoln took with regard to the question of slavery was very much the attitude about the minorities problem that Mr. Gandhi took in India. Abraham Lincoln was passionately devoted to the Union. He 1 : Khairmode, Vol. 9, P. 394.

340 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES was the upholder of the slave system, yet the Proclamation of the Freedom of the Slaves was issued in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. He was free to do so in order to win the Negroes to get their help for the Northern Armies. Mr. Gandhiji’s attitude seemed to be exactly the same. He always said, “I want freedom, but I want Chaturwarnashram Dharma.” One of the reasons why Mr. Gandhi had failed all along was because of this attitude of his. I hope and trust that Mr. Gandhi will be able to realise the mistake. Every one desired Independence for the country. They did not, however, realise that there is in politics a graded system of equality. They wanted equality and liberty and freedom for minorities. Any Indian who objects to the provision of safe guards to the minority interests is not a friend of this country and he is not a democrat. He is the enemy of the country. May I again say that, this is probably the finest opportunity that this country has. There are many friends who believe that because the British Government has not given any clear declaration to the position of India after war that they are rather apprehensive as to what will happen. He did not feel apprehensive about India’s future after the war. He did not believe that the destiny of this country would depend on the decision of one man, however great he might be, in the British Empire. We are the makers of the destiny of this country. The whole thing depends on how much solidarity we can build up among ourselves. If we could manage our internal affairs, our quarrels in such manner that we can draft a constitution which can be signed by all those who are the representatives of the different sections and communities in the country. We can send Mr. Gandhi as the single and solitary representative of the people to the Prime Minister or to any body. It depends upon what ideas Mr. Gandhi will have........” 1 zz 1 : The Hindu dated 2nd October 1944.

97 STUDENTS SHOULD SEE THAT DEGREE CARRIES POSITIVE KNOWLEDGE “The view that there had been a marked deterioration in the educational attainments of the student-world of the present generation was expressed by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, addressing a meeting of students of the Scheduled Castes held at the Students’ Hall, Calcutta yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon 2nd January 1945.* Prof. J. C. Mondal of St. Paul’s College presided. In his speech Dr. Ambedkar attacked the All-India Students’ Federation and asked the students to dissociate themselves from it and form an all-India organisation of the Scheduled Castes. The All-India Students’ Federation was a well-known body, he said, about whose activities they had often read. There was for some reason a separate organisation formed-Muslim Studentseven there. He did not know the reasons but the Muslim students found it necessary to start their own organisation. Many of them probably did not know, remarked the speaker, that politics was not his usual pasture. He had been driven into it. The field to which he took delight, the field to which he hoped to return after his term expired was the educational field. He had been a professor of economics and law and therefore he might be forgiven if he made some trenchant comments on the All-India Students’ Federation from his intimate experience of the student world. Dr. Ambedkar had no hesitation in saying that education in India had considerably deteriorated at present. Comparing the first products of their universities with the students that he had met during his professorial career, he had no hesitation in saying that there had been a marked deterioration in educational attainments of the student world. Mentioning in this connection the names of Justice Ranande, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gokhale, Sir Surendra Nath and Sir Sivaswamy Iyer, Dr. Ambedkar said : “I do not think I shall be regarded as very hostile or very ungenerous if I say that none of you of this generation would reach even the knees of those people.” * Source of Date—Janata : dated 6th January 1945.