60
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
“Chairman: I was going to make this suggestion. Do not ask me to appoint that Committee; do it yourselves. I have invited you to get together. Could not you manage to hold an informal meeting amongst yourselves and talk the matter over, and then when you speak here you will speak with some sort of knowledge of the effect of what you are saying on others ? Could we leave it in that way ?
“Dr. Ambedkar: As you like.
“ Chairman : That would be far better.”
No settlement was evidently arrived at between the three parties during the adjournment. Consequently when the Minorities Committee met again on 1st October 1931, Mr. Gandhi said :—
“Prime Minister, after consultation with His Highness the Aga Khan and other Muslim friends last night, we came to the conclusion that the purpose for which we meet here would be better served if a week’s adjournment was asked for. I have not had the opportunity of consulting my other colleagues, but I have no doubt that they will also agree in the proposal I am making.”
The proposal was seconded by the Aga Khan. I got up to oppose the motion. What I said will be clear from the following extract from the proceedings :—
“Dr. Ambedkar: I do not wish to create any difficulty in our making every possible attempt to arrive at some solution of the problem with which this Committee has to deal, and if a solution can be arrived at by the means suggested by Mahatma Gandhi, I, for one, will have no objection to that proposal.
“But there is just this one difficulty with which I, as representing the Depressed Classes, am faced. I do not know what sort of committee Mahatma Gandhi proposes to appoint to consider this question during the period of adjournment, but I suppose that the Depressed Classes will be represented on this Committee.
“Mr. Gandhi: Without doubt.
“Dr. Ambedkar: Thank you. But I do not know whether in the position in which I am today it would be of any use for me to work on the proposed Committee. And for this reason. Mahatma Gandhi told us on the first day that he spoke in the Federal Structure Committee that as a representative of the Indian National Congress he was not prepared to give political recognition to any community other than the Muhammadans and the Sikhs. He was not prepared to recognize the AngloIndians, the Depressed Classes, and the Indian Christians.