UNDER THE PROVIDENCE OF MR. GANDHI 323
against Muslims in elections to the Legislatures, there may not be sufficient Muslims returned to the Legislature, that the Muslims will sink politically and that to prevent such a calamity they must be given special representation. As against this one ground in favour of Muslims there were a hundred grounds in favour of the claim by the Untouchables. With what face could the Musalmans oppose this demand of the Untouchables ?
The Musalmans had not lost their balance or their sense of shame. They refused to be party to such a deal—a deal which they could not publicly defend. Mr. Gandhi still kept on pestering the Musalmans. When he could not induce them to accept the price he offered—namely the grant of fourteen points—because they felt that the world would not call it price but would call it the wages of sin, Mr. Gandhi sought to appeal to the religious scruples of the Musalmans. The day before the
13th November [1] 1931 when the minorities pact [2] was presented to the Minorities Sub-Committee of the Round Table Conference Mr. Gandhi took a copy of the Koran and went to the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly where the Rt. Hon. H. H. Aga Khan was staying to meet the Muslim delegates who had assembled there. To Muslim delegates he asked—“Why are you dividing the Hindu Community which you are doing by recognizing the claim of the Untouchables for separate representation ? Does the Koran sanction such a deed ? Show me where it does ? If you cannot, will you not stop perpetrating such a crime upon your sister Community ?” I do not know how the Muslim delegates answered this question of Mr. Gandhi. It must have been a very difficult question for them to answer. Such a contingency could not have been present to the mind of the Holy Prophet and he could not have provided for it specifically. His followers knew that contingencies would arise for which he had given no directions and they had therefore asked him what they should do, and the Prophet had given them this general direction. He said to them, “in such a case see what the Kaffirs are doing and do just the opposite of it” [3] . Whether the Muslim delegates relied upon this to answer Mr. Gandhi is more than I can say. What I have stated is what I have heard and my source is the most authentic source. Here again Mr. Gandhi failed because the next day in the open Committee when Mr. Gandhi let loose his fury against the Untouchables, the Mahomedans were silent.
What can one say of this conduct of Mr. Gandhi ? Mr. Bernard Shaw has said that the British do everything on principle.
1 See Ambedkar, B. R., “What Congress and Gandhi have been done to the Untouchables”, p. 67.—Ed.
2 Ibid. . Appendix III, pp. 307-11.
3 See Koran.