z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-06.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 457
SAFEGUARDS FOR DEPRESSED CLASSES 457
( b ) This Conference requests the Government to appoint in each district a special Police Inspector from amongst the depressed classes for the protection of these classes and to admit recruits from these classes in the police service.
( c ) This Conference requests the Government immediately to quarter punitive police under the command of military pensioners belonging to the depressed classes, at the villages of Vadval, Matven, Tulsi, Degaon, Mandangad, Satara etc. at the expense of the so-called high caste Hindus residing in these villages in view of the fact that owing to harassment and social boycott and open assaults it has become impossible for the depressed classes to live in these villages.
- This Conference is emphatically of the opinion that no further instalment of self-government be given to India except with proper safeguard for the interests of the depressed classes.
Item No. 12
(From the Bombay Chronicle dated 20-10-27)
MUNICIPAL SCHOOLS [IN THE CITY OF BOMBAY]
The Schools Committee has made itself ridiculous by taking fright at the little question of drinking “lotas” (pots). It seems that, in spite of the Corporation’s resolution that there should be no caste discrimination in the Municipal Schools, “depressed” class children are given separate pots for drinking water. A sub-committee of the Schools Committee recommended that all children should be given the same pots. But the members of the Schools Committee gravely cogitated over this recommendation and entertained all sorts of fears. Some said that the change would be resented by the caste Hindus ; evidently, the resentment of the “low” caste Hindus does not count for much. Prof. V. G. Rao said that it was a revolutionary change and Mr. D. G. Dalvi, himself a well-known social reformer, added to these fears a legal one, that some parents might file a suit against the Committee. Ultimately the Schools Committee referred the question back to the subcommittee, which was tantamount to saying that the latter’s recommendation was not acceptable to them.
A CALCULATED INSULT
The fears mentioned above are absurd, as every boy is expected to wash a pot well before using it, on sanitary and—if he is so minded—on caste grounds. That a pot once used by an “untouchable” boy becomes itself untouchable or unusable by the “high” caste Hindus in spite of its being washed clean, is a calculated insult to the unfortunate “depressed” classes, which we certainly did not expect the Schools Committee to countenance. Mr. Dalvi stated that in view of compulsory education in some Wards parents might file a suit against the Committee “for enforcing an obligation which was by no means a legal one”. But nobody is under an obligation to