2
* Dr. Ambedkar and Mr. Rajah to Sir S. Cripps@
Cmd. 6350
1 April 1942
We told you when we met you on the 30th March† that the proposals of His Majesty’s Government relating to Constitutional development of India will not be acceptable to the Depresed Classes for the reasons which we placed before you at the interview. Since then We have had consultations with many of the Depressed Classes’ representatives in the various Provincial and Central Legislatures and all of them have unanimously endorsed the view we placed before you regarding the proposals.
We are all of us absolutely convinced that the proposals are calculated to do the greatest harm to the Depressed Classes and are sure to place them under an unmitigated system of Hindu rule. Any such result which takes us back to the black days of the ancient past will never be tolerated by us, and we are all determined to resist any such catastrophe befalling our people with all the means at our command.
We request you to convey to His Majesty’s Government our deepest anxiety regarding the future of the Depressed Classes and to impress upon them that we must look upon it as breach of faith if His Mejesty’s Government should decide to force upon the Depressed Classes a Constitution to which they have not given their free and voluntary
- The Transfer of Power, Vol I, No. 487, p. 603.
@ The text of this letter was transmitted by Lord Linlithgow to Mr. Amery in telegram 207-S.C.
of 18 April. MSS. EUR. F. 125/22.
†No. 442.