z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 251
ON PARTICIPATION IN THE WAR 251
the village office and you want to sit in the office as our equal ! Take care, better give up this job.”
One day the Talati called me to Saijpur to prepare the population table of the village. From Jentral I went to Saijpur. I found the headman and the Talati in the village office doing some work. I went, stood near the door of the office and wished them good morning, but they took no notice of me. I stood outside for about 15 minutes. I was already tired of life and felt enraged at being thus ignored and insulted. I sat down on a chair that was lying there. Seeing me seated on the chair the headman and the talati quietly went away without saying anything to me. A short while after, some people began to come to the village library. I could not understand why an educated person should have led this mob. I subsequently learnt that the chair was his. He started abusing me in the worst terms. Addressing the Ravania, that is, the village servant, he said, “Who allowed this dirty dog of a bhangi to sit on the chair ?” The Ravania unseated me and took away the chair from me. I sat on the ground. Thereupon the crowd entered the village office and surrounded me. It was a furious crowd ranging with anger, some abusing me, some threatening to cut me to pieces with a dharia and I implored them to excuse me and to have mercy upon me. That did not have any effect upon the crowd. I did not know how to save myself. But an idea came to me of writing to the Mamlatdar about the fate that had befallen me and telling him how to dispose of my body in case I was killed by the crowd. Incidentally, it was my hope that if the crowd came to know that I was practically reporting against them to the Mamlatdar they might hold their hand. I asked the Ravania to give me a piece of paper which he did. Then with my fountain pen I wrote the following on it in big bold letters so that everybody could read it :—
“To the Mamlatdar,
Taluka Borsad.
Sir,
Be pleased to accept the humble salutations of Parmar Kalidas Shivram. This is to humbly inform you that the hand of a mean death is falling upon me today. It would not have been so if I had listened to the words of my parents. Be so good as to inform my parents of my death.”
Now, I will refer to certain instances showing the behaviour of the majority towards the Scheduled Castes. One is the case from the Kekatnim-bhore village, taluka Jamner. It is as follows :—
“The Depressed Class people of this village have given up observance of any Hindu festival and have adopted a clean mode of living. One holiday they were asked by the caste Hindu to provide for their Holi cowdung from the fields. The Depressed Class people did so. But they did not have Holi and hence they did not provide for fire to the caste Hindus. Therefore the Hindus rushed into their colony, beat them in