WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : AN ABJECT SURRENDER 113
is put. If he will be in the camp of my opponents, I must tell him that I cannot be in his camp now. If he will be in my camp he ought to be in it now.
B. R. A MBEDKAR .
Dewan Bahadur R. Srinivasan who along with me represented the Untouchables at the Round Table Conference also did not support the movement for Temple entry. In a statement to the Press, he said :—
“When a Depressed Classes member is permitted to enter into the caste Hindu temples he would not be taken into any one of the four castes, but treated as man of fifth or the last or the lower caste, a stigma worse than the one to be called an Untouchable. At the same time he would be subjected to so many caste restrictions and humiliations. The Depressed Classes shun the one who enters like that and exclude him as casteman. The crores of Depressed Classes would not submit to caste restrictions. They will be divided into sections if they do. ‘Temple entry cannot be forced by law. The village caste-men openly or indirectly defy the law. To the village Depressed Class man it would be like a scrap of paper on which the “sugar” was written and placed in hands for him to taste. The above facts are placed before the public in time to save confusion and disturbance in the country.”
To the question I put to Mr. Gandhi in my statement he gave a straight reply. He said that though he was against untouchability he was not against caste. If at all, he was in favour of it and that he would not therefore carry his social reform beyond removing untouchability. This was enough for me to settle my attitude. I decided to take no further part in it.
The only leading member from the Untouchable community was the late Dewan Bahadur Rajah. One cannot help saying that he played a very regrettable part in this business. The Dewan Bahadur was a nominated member of the Central Assembly from 1927. He had nothing to do with the Congress either inside or outside the Assembly. Neither by accident nor by mistake did he appear on the same side of the Congress. Indeed, he was not merely a critic of the Congress but its adversary. He was the staunchest friend of the Government and never hesitated to stand by the Government. He stood for separate electorates for the Untouchables to which the