z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-10.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 764
764 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Pact by His Majesty’s Government, and he said : “His Majesty’s Government has learned with great satisfaction that an agreement has been reached between the leaders of the depressed classes and the rest of the Hindu community.” That was the very next day it was announced in the Assembly. These are the dates if you will kindly check them. May I take it, judging by those, as also by your answers which you were pleased to give yesterday, that the Government here was under the impression that an agreement had been reached between the leaders of the depressed classes and the rest of the Hindu community ? That must have been your impression ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: I will answer your question when you have finished it.
- Sir N. N. Sircar: I have finished this question.
Sir Samuel Hoare: The Government, rightly or wrongly, have, under the terms of paragraph 4 of their original Communal Award, accepted the Poona Pact as an All-India agreement between the parties concerned, that is to say, between the depressed classes and other Hindus. Everyone in public life in India must have known that the negotiations from which the Poona Pact emerged were in progress, and it was to be presumed that any interested parties would take steps to secure that their views were not overlooked. It is perhaps not without significance (and I would draw the attention of the Committee to this fact) that no protest from Bengal sees to have come for a considerable time after the announcement of the Pact. Indeed, during the course of the discussions we received scores of telegrams in favour of the Pact; not a telegram against it, and, amongst those scores of telegrams, I remember offhand a telegram from a very distinguished Hindu in Bengal, Sir Rabindranath Tagore. I do not know when protests first began to be made in Bengal, and I cannot trace that any representations were made to His Majesty’s Government until something like three months after their acceptance of the Poona Pact. The Government expresses no opinion on the merits of the Pact in relation to Bengal. They would, of course, be perfectly ready to accept any modification in respect of Bengal reached by mutual agreement between the parties concerned, but the Government, as a Government, is precluded by the terms of its original communal award, from itself taking part in any negotiations towards that end.
- Mr. M. R. Jayakar: What was the nature of the telegram sent by Sir Rabindranath Tagore ? Did he approve of the Pact ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: Urging the Government to accept the Pact.
Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru: May I, Sir Samuel Hoare, tell you and the Committee one thing with regard to this matter ? Both Mr. Jayakar and I happened to be in Poona for about four or five days during the progress of these negotiations. I have a very distinct recollection that telegrams were received from Bengali Hindus. I, personally, received a telegram from two or three important Bengali Hindus. I have not got those telegrams here, but I will further add that Sir Rabindranath did pay a visit to Mr. Gandhi