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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
a principle which would lead us to our national goal, having taken up the case of the Untouchables only to save their faces, with no conviction behind them, as we now see, the great Congress leaders with the exception of Mahatma Gandhi, have said through Rajagopalachariar, the Organizer-in-chief of the coming elections on behalf of the Congress :
‘It will be open to all Congressmen to have the matter duly considered before it is ever made into an official Congress Bill.’
“For this betrayal of the cause of the Untouchables, I hope constitutionalists will organize themselves, whether Hindus or Mussalmans. They can agree to differ later on on communal issues, but they will unite and offer a great battle to the Congress and bring that organ of masqueraders down on its knees. Sir, I think here is a betrayal of the cause of the Untouchables and the Depressed Classes; and, if I did not believe in this movement before Mahatma Gandhi could take it up or Mr. Rajagopalachariar went from door to door in Delhi, I should not have been here to move this Bill.”
VI
Here was a case of retreat from glory! And what an inglorious retreat? How did Mr. Gandhi react to it? In a statement issued on 4th November 1982, Mr. Gandhi said :—
“Untouchables in the villages should be made to feel that their shackles have been broken, that they are in no way inferior to their fellow villagers, that they are worshippers of the same God as the other villagers and entitled to the same rights and privileges that the latter enjoy.
“But if these vital conditions of the Pact are not carried out by caste-Hindus, could I possibly live to face God and man ? I ventured even to tell Dr. Ambedkar, Rao Bahadur M. C. Raja and other friends belonging to the suppressed group that they should regard me as a hostage for the due fulfilment by caste-Hindus of the conditions of the Pact. The fast, if it is to come, will not be for coercion of those who are opponents of reform, but it will be intended to sting into action those who have been my comrades or who have taken pledges for the removal of Untouchability. If they belie their pledges or if they never meant to abide by them and their Hinduism was a mere camouflage, I should have no interest left in life.”
He was never tired of repeating this. Exclusion of the Untouchables from the Hindu Temples, he described, as the