COMMUNAL DEADLOCK AND A WAY TO SOLVE IT
Mr. President,
I am indeed very grateful for your kind invitation to address the Annual Session of the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation. I am happy to see this great gathering of the Scheduled Castes. Having regard to the very short time which has elapsed since its establishment, the growth of the Federation appears by all evidence to be phenomenal. That the Scheduled Castes all over India have rallied round the Federation and are determined to make the Federation their only representative organization is beyond question. The growth of the Federation within so short a time will not be fully appreciated unless the tremendous difficulties in the way of our organization have been fully appreciated. There are agents of other political organizations which decoy our people by false blandishments, by false promises and by false propaganda. There is the ignorance of our own people, who do not know the critical nature of the times we are living in and who do not know the value of organization for achieving our political objects. There is a lamentable lack of resources at our command. We have no money. We have no press. The cruelest of tyrannies and oppressions, to which our people are subjected, day in and day out all over India, are never reported by the Press. Even our views on social and political questions are systematically suppressed by an organized conspiracy on the part of the Press. We have no funds to maintain a machinery, to render help to our people and to educate, agitate and organize them.
These are the odds we have to contend against. That the Federation, notwithstanding these difficulties, should have grown to this dimension is entirely due to our men who have been ceaselessly and unselfishly devoting themselves to the building up of this organization. I am sure you would like me to pay Mr. Ganpat Mahadev Jadhav, the President of the Bombay City Scheduled Castes Federation, our tribute for the work he has done. As everyone knows, he possesses remarkable degree of organizing capacity and I am sure the success of this Session is due to a great extent to his efforts and to those who have been his co-workers.