z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-06.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 469
EVIDENCE BEFORE SIMON COMMISSION 469
- Chairman: I imagine that the application of what you have told us, which is interesting, to our present inquiry is really this — because, of course, it is no part of the function of this Commission to interfere in day-by-day administration ?
Dr. Ambedkar : No.
- You are using it as an argument to support your view that the depressed classes should have a full representation ?
Dr. Ambedkar : In the services.
- That is your point ?
Dr. Ambedkar: That is my point. I will give some instances of what happens in judicial courts actually in this Presidency. I happened to defend a depressed class man in one of the courts, and, to my great surprise, I found that the man had to stand outside the court behind a little window, outside the wall, and he would not come in simply because, he said, “It is all right so far as you are concerned, but after you have left there will be terrible social ostracism if I enter the court”
- It was the client who did not want to come in ?
Dr. Ambedkar : Who dare not come in.
- What sort of social ostracism had he in mind ?
Dr. Ambedkar : The social ostracism would be that if he went back to the village there would be the boycott of the shop-keepers; nobody would sell him grain. The villagers would stop his dues as a village servant. He would not be allowed to come into the village. The depressed class people always live on the border of the village, not in the centre or in the midst
- Your point would be that he was timid about coming into court on this occasion because he thought that afterwards the other people of the village, not his own lot but the others, the caste people, would regard him as having pushed himself in where he should not go ?
Dr. Ambedkar : Certainly—having exceeded the bounds of his social status.
- That is a single case, is it ?
Dr. Ambedkar : I have had that experience but I think that the existence of a circular of the Bombay High Court to the effect that the depressed classes must be allowed entry in the courts indicates that that is often the case. There must be some reason for that circular.
- Mr. Miller: The only other question, I want to ask is this. If you got these
22 seats in the Council do you think you could bring forward 22 suitable men ?
Dr. Ambedkar : Yes, I think so.
- Khan Sahib Abdul Latif : Would you please enlighten the members of the Conference as to the fate of the minorities in the Bombay Council, when the official bloc is withdrawn for certain reasons ?
Dr. Ambedkar : I quite see that the fate of the minorities would be precarious. It has been precarious.
- Did the honou rable Minister belonging to the advanced class show