24 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
doubt that if he had worked on the Committee he would have produced a very big scheme. That the Congress did not want him in the Committee and was afraid that he would make big demand on Congress funds for the cause of the Untouchables is clear from the correspondence [1] that passed between him and Pandit Motilal Nehru, the then General Secretary of the Congress, and which is printed in the Appendix. If this conclusion is right, then it shows how empty of sincerity were the words of the Congress which passed that resolution.
Did the Congress abandon the programme because it was revolutionary ? The resolution was in no sense a revolutionary resolution. This will be clear from the note which the Working Committee had appended to the resolution and which the All-India Congress Committee had approved. The note said :—
“Whilst therefore in places, where the prejudice against the Untouchables is still strong separate schools and separate wells must be maintained out of Congress funds, every effort should be made to draw such children to national schools and to persuade the people to allow the Untouchables to use the common wells.”
Obviously, the Congress was not out for the abolition of Untouchability. It had accepted the policy of separate schools and separate wells. The resolution did no more than to undertake amelioration of the condition of the Untouchables. And even such a timid and mild programme the Congress was unable to carry through and which it gave up without remorse or shame.
II
Did the Congress abandon the programme because it had no funds ? Quite the contrary. The Congress had started the Tilak Swaraj Fund in 1921. How much money did the Congress collect? The following table will give some idea. Rupees one crore and thirty lakhs were contributed by the public to the fund. The fund was collected to carry out Congress propaganda and to finance the constructive programme of the Congress as drafted by the Working Committee at Bardoli. How was this huge amount spent by the Congress? Some idea as to the purposes on which the money out of this fund was spent can be gathered from the list of grants voted by the Working Committee during the years
1921, 1922 and 1923.
1 Appendix I.