306 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
and whether I did not accept his amendment when the President called me aside and explained the exact financial position at the time. If this is the fact then why did the amendment not appear with the resolution?
(2) Did you enquire of Mr. Vithalbhai J. Patel whether the members of the A.I.C.C. did not propose me as the convener of the Sub-Committee and whether he did not then say — “As Swami Shradhanand’s name occurs first, naturally he will be the convener and therefore there was no need of moving any fresh resolution at all” I enquired about this from Dr. Ansari and he wrote back to me on June 17th, 1922 saying that I was appointed convener. Dr. Ansari is with you and you can verify it from him. I hope Mr. Patel has not forgotten all about it.
(3) Then the immediate work among the Untouchables here is very urgent and I can not delay it for any reason whatever. Kindly have my resignation accepted in the next meeting of the Working Committee, so that I may be free to work out my own plan about the removal of untouchability. This was my position at the end of July last. My experience in the Amritsar and Mianwali jails and the information I gathered there, have confirmed me in the belief that unless sexual purity (Brahmacharya) is revived on the ancient Aryan lines and the curse of untouchability is blotted out of the Indian society, no efforts of the Congress nor of other patriotic organisations out of the Congress will avail in their efforts for the attainment of Swaraj. And as national self realization and virile existence is impossible without Swaraj, I, as a Sanyasi, should devote the rest of my life to this sacred cause—the cause of sexual purity and true national unity.
Delhi, July 23, 1922. Shradhananda Sanyasi.
This shows what heart Congressmen had in the uplift work of the Untouchables.
2
So much for what Congressmen volunteered to do. How much did congressmen or Mr. Gandhi help the Untouchables who were working independently for the uplift of their own people. This was the period when the Untouchables themselves were on the warpath. They too were engaged in offering civil disobedience against the Hindus for the purpose of acquiring their civic and social rights. This was the period during which the Untouchables of Bombay Presidency had launched their Satyagraha at Mahad for establishing their right to take water