z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-08.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 659
IN THE MINORITIES COMMITTEE 659
to bring into being a committee. I can only act as a humble messenger of peace, try to get together representatives of different interests and groups, and see whether by being closeted in one room and by heart-to-heart conversation, we may not be able to remove cobwebs of misunderstanding and see our way clear to the goal that lies so hazily before us today.
I do not think, therefore, that anybody need be afraid as to being able to express his opinion or carrying his opinion also. Mine will be there equal to that of everyone of us; it will carry no greater weight; I have no authority behind me to carry my opinion against the opinion of anybody. I have simply given expression to my views in the national interest, and I shall give expression to these views whenever they are opportune. It will he for you, it is for you to reject or accept those opinions. Therefore please disabuse your minds, everyone of us, of the idea that there is going to be any steam-rolling in the Conference and the informal meetings that I have adumbrated. But if you think that this is one way of coming closer together than by sitting stiffly at this table, you will not only carry this adjournment motion, but give your wholehearted co-operation to the proposal that I have made in connection with these informal meetings.
Sir Hubert Carr: Mr. Prime Minister, my community has not been mentioned. It is a very small one ; but I would like to say that we welcome an adjournment or any other means which will assist a solution of this question which we recognise must precede the final consideration of other questions in which we are all vitally interested.
Dr. Datta: May I say I welcome this adjournment ?
Chairman: Then I shall proceed to put it. I put it on the clear understanding, my friends, that the time is not going to be wasted, and that these conferences—as Mr. Gandhi has said, informal conferences, but nevertheless I hope very valuable and fruitful conferences—will take place between now and our next meeting. I hope you will all pledge yourselves to use the time in that way.
Ninth Sitting—8th October 1931
- Chairman: When we met last Thursday, by common consent we adjourned for a week in order to enable informal and unofficial consultations to take place, with a view of coming to an agreement. Perhaps our first business is to receive a report from those who conducted the negotiations. May I ask Mr. Gandhi to speak first ?
Mr. Gandhi: Prime Minister and friends, it is with deep sorrow and deeper humiliation that I have to announce utter failure on my part to secure an agreed solution of the communal question through informal
*Proceedings of the Federal Structure Committee and Minorities Committee, Vol. I, pp. 1356-58.