674 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
a sad plight we were in yesterday ! I was not here yesterday ; otherwise I should have witnessed the scenes with my own eyes. I went to Alwar and returned only last night at eleven o’clock and the first thing that my wife told me was that there was a lathi charge and some people were dangerously wounded and so on. Naturally the news is exaggerated from lip to lip and from ear to ear. It is a most pathetic spectacle again that I witness today opposite to me. Generally I speak under an impulse or inspiration, but today I speak under an irritation of the sight of three women Police sitting opposite to me in the gallery. Has it come to this that this house cannot get on and the women that are in attendance in the gallery and below cannot be trusted except under the care of the baton of the women Police ? Are you really proud that these police women should arraign our sisters hereafter ? We have had enough of policemen. You know this is the most tragic development of this Bill. The Doctor will kindly note and if you cannot come to this house without the protection of the Police, women police for the women and men police for the men, then woe betide our progress, our legislation and our Assembly. I am really very sorry. I now leave the general observations and come to one or two salient points with which we are concerned today here and before that I shall submit a word about the progenitors of this legislation. I am very sorry that it should have fallen to Dr. Ambedkar’s lot to pilot this Bill
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Minister of Law) : I am not sorry at all.
Dr. B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya : I know ; otherwise you would not be sitting so proudly in your seat. The doctor knows what I said about him. I referred to the indomitable, irresistible, unconquerable spirit of Dr. Ambedkar,—for good or for evil, whatever it be. We want always to say that the spirit is there and, therefore, we admire him, but at the same time, he is out of tune with society.
Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi : He is perfectly in tune, absolutely in tune.
Dr. B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya : I do not call him a misanthrope, but he is not a normal anthrope, that is all I can say ; the training, the surroundings, the environment, the culture, all these put him out of tune with the spirit of the nation. He is one of our best intellects, there is no doubt about it and I wish he would have health and prosperity for a long time, but all this does not mean that we accept his point