z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-09.indd MK SJ+DK 21-9-2013 721
EVIDENCE : DR. B. S. MOONJE AND OTHERS 721
M.A., B.L. of the Amrita Samaj, Babu Pramathanath Banerjee, M.L.C., of Midnapore, Babu S. C. Das Gupta of the Khadi Pratisthan, besides men like Pandit Malaviya, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Mr. M. R. Jayakar, Mr. Rajgopalachari ?”
Mr. J. Bannerjee: Excepting one, none of them was present at Poona.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: That was a statement in the Council.
- Mr. J. Bannerjee: Will you permit me to go on ?
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Please answer when I ask a question.
Mr. J. Bannerjee: It is an incorrect statement.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I say this statement has not been contradicted by anyone in the Bengal Legislative Council ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee: I was present on that day. No speech was delivered, but something was read from paper, and it is quite possible that people missed those bits. A paper was read indistinctly.
- Mr. M. R. Jayakar: The proceedings of your Council are published, are they not ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee: Yes.
- Mr. M. R. Jayakar: Since the publication of those proceedings has there been any contradiction ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee: Yes ; immediately after the debate was held, as soon as we heard that certain names were given out, a contradiction was made in the newspapers.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I put it to you that not only were these men present at Bombay ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee: I am speaking of Poona.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I am talking first of all about Bombay. Not only were these men present at Bombay when the sub-committee was appointed, but they had conversations with me individually in my office and urged me to come to a settlement. This is a fact which I disclosed in an interview which I gave to the Bombay Times and which is published on the 17th March, soon after your legislative proceedings were announced ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee: The very next day I contradicted your statement and said that did not touch the point because three of those members had not, according to your own admission, gone to Poona, and were not present at the time of the Pact.
Mr. B. C. Chatterjee: I just want to say this, that it is nobody’s case and I do not think it is Dr. Ambedkar’s case—that these gentlemen were sent to Bombay, or a solitary gentleman who was present at Poona was sent there by the Bengali Hindus or anybody of Bengali Hindus ; they may have been there accidentally or may have been there because they wanted to see the Mahatma who was ill. Some actually went there for the glory of carrying his dead body in a procession.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I will put it to you that if that is the case that it was well known that, these men had left Calcutta for the