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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
that without some cash for preliminary expenses, no enquiries on the spot could be made and hence no proper scheme could be formulated. I also learnt that Rs. 25,000 had been voted by the Working Committee for “the Independent” of Allahabad and that an application for grant of Rs. 10,000 to the Urdu daily Congress of Delhi had been placed by Hakim Ajmal Khan and Dr. Ansari before the Working Committee. So, considering that after all, the Congress might not be so hard pressed for cash, I wrote a letter addressed to the President, asking him to give the Untouchability Sub-Committee an advance of Rs. 10,000 for preliminary expenses.
After all this,- the following resolution of the Working Committee forwarded by your letter No. 331 presents a very interesting reading:—
“Read letter from Swami Shradhanand, dated 8th June 1922 for an advance for drawing up a scheme for Depressed Class work— Resolved that Mr. Gangadharrao B. Deshpande be appointed convener of the sub-committee appointed for the purpose and he be requested to convene a meeting at an early date, and that Swami Shradhanand’s letter be referred to the Sub-Committee.”
There is another matter which is inexplicable. After my first letter had been acknowledged, I addressed the following letter from Hardwar on 3rd June 1922 :—
“M Y D EAR M R . P ATEL,
I shall leave Hardwar the day after tomorrow and reach Lucknow on the morning of June 6th. You know by now, that I feel the most for the so-called Depressed Classes. Even in the Punjab I find that no attention worth the name has been paid to this item of the constructive programme. In the U. P. of course it will be an uphill work. But there is another very serious difficulty.
The Bardoli programme in its note under item (4) lays down that where prejudice is still strong, separate wells and separate schools must be maintained out of the Congress Funds. This leaves a loophole for those Congress workers who are either prejudiced against the Depressed Classes or are weak and no work can be done in inducing people to agree to allow the Untouchables to draw water from common wells. In the Bijnoor District, I learn there was no restriction and the Untouchables drew water freely from common wells. But in some places, fresh prejudice is being engendered under the aegis of the Bardoli resolution note. In my recent visits to Ambala Cant., Ludhiana, Batala, Lahore, Amritsar and Jandiala, I found that the question of the removal of disabilities of the Untouchables is being ignored. In and near Delhi, it is the Dalitodhar Sabha, of which I am the president, rather than the Congress which is doing appreciable work. I think that unless item (4) of the Bardoli