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* Dr. Ambedkar to the Marquess of Linlithgow
MSS. EUR. F. 125/124
NEW DELHI, 29 October 1942
My dear Lord Linlithgow,
In the course of my second weekly interview with you I told you that the position of the Scheduled Castes was very unsatisfactory and that the Central Government had not done what I thought it was bound to do for their treatment. On that you very kindly asked me to prepare a Memorandum for your consideration contianing the grievances of the Scheduled Castes and the remedies for removing them. All this of course must be within your recollection. Indeed it is you who reminded me several times since then if the Memorandum was ready. Unfortunately owing to the heavy pressure of work which fell on me since I took charge, I could not give to the work of preparing the Memorandum the priority which I should have liked to give to it. I am, however, happy that at last I have been able to submit it for your consideration.
- The @Memorandum unfortunately has become a very lengthy document. I had a choice between making the Memorandum a short one containing bare recital of the grievances and the remedies to remove the same or to make it an exhaustive one containing not only the grievances and the remedies but also the reasoning in support of the remedies suggested. I have chosen the latter alternative. In doing so I have had to bear in mind the fact that the grievances set out in the Memorandum and the remedies suggested for their removal will go to different Departments for their opinion, and unless the Memorandum contained the reasons, the remedies can have very little chance
*The Transfer of Power, Vol. III, No. 125, pp. 165-68.
@ The Memorandum has been included in section I of Part II of this volume. —Ed.