z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-09.indd MK SJ+DK 21-9-2013 724
724 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Mr. B. C. Chatterjee: It is. It comes to my house. I read it occasionally.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I put it to you that the proceedings of the Malaviya Conference held on the 20th are given on full front page in “Liberty” ?
Mr. B. C. Chatterjee: I hear that from you.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: You can see it for yourself. I will pass it to you ?
Mr. B. C. Chatterjee: I accept your word for it.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Similarly, what happened on the 21st is published on the front page fully in the issue of the 22nd ?
Mr. B. C. Chatterjee: I dare say.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: So that anybody in Bengal would really know what was happening in Bombay and Poona. I will put to you one more point ?
Mr. B. C. Chatterjee: We thought before any decision of this weightly character could ever become applicable to public bodies in Bengal they would be invited to send their representatives to take part in the deliberations.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: When the Sub-Committee was propounded there was no protest made against its composition ?
Mr. B. C. Chatterjee: They would have no right to.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: If you refer to the “Liberty” of the 22nd September 1932, it contains the Report of the proposals I made to this SubCommittee on the basis of which I was prepared to negotiate. Mr. Jayakar will corroborate me that I did propose certain things on the basis of which I was prepared to negotiate. In my proposals I had demanded 50 seats for the Bengal.
Mr. J. Bannerjee: Depressed Classes you mean ?
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I mean Depressed Classes, and yet there was not a single statement of protest from the Bengal caste-Hindus either to Pandit Malaviya, who was supposed to negotiate the Pact on this basis, nor did you send anybody to Poona although you know I had made this demand which was published, as I say, in a most prominent place in the issue of the 22nd September ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee : I am sorry, but I am afraid we did not attach as much importance to Dr. Ambedkar’s proposals as we ought to have done.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I am sorry, you are to suffer for it. I just want to ask you one or two questions about this. The announcement of His Majesty accepting the Poona Pact was made on the 26th September, 1932, in the Central Legislature in both Houses. That announcement by His Majesty’s Government was acclaimed by everybody in the Central Legislature ; there was no protest made then by any member either in the Council of State or in the Legislature against the acceptance of this Pact. Is not that so ?
Mr. J. Bannerjee. : That may be so.