900 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
to do it. Therefore I hope that he will take the matter more seriously and attend to it in the manner in which a statesman ought to.
Now, I come to the subject matter of education. It is quite satisfactory I must admit, that the Government has been spending annually more and more on the education of the Scheduled Castes. If my friend will forgive my mentioning myself., he will realise that it was for the first time in the year 1942 that the Government of India, at my instance when I was a Member of the Executive Council, accepted that they too had the responsibility for the education of the Scheduled Castes. Theretofore, education was purely a provincial subject. It was only so far as the Muslims and Hindus were concerned, that the Government of India had taken upon themselves the responsibility of supporting the Aligarh University and the Benares Hindu University by an annual grant of Rs. 3 lakhs. I raised the question whether the Government which had recognised its duty for the Muslim and the Hindus, had not also a duty for the Scheduled Castes, and the Government of India agreed that it was a legitimate question and that the answer to that question could not be except in the affirmative. They granted Rs. 3 lakhs as a grant for the education of the scheduled castes from the Central funds. While, I am satisfied with the progress that is being made year by year by the enlargement of the educational grants for the Scheduled Castes, there are two points with which I am greatly dissatisfied. One is this: At the time in 1942 when this question was raised by me for the first time in the Government of India, it was agreed that the responsibility for the education of the Scheduled Castes up to the university standard in India was to be borne by the Provincial Governments and that whatever contributions the Government of India made towards the education of Scheduled Castes would be devoted for their education in foreign countries. According to that understanding, the first batch of Scheduled Caste students was sent to England, although there was great, difficulty in the matter of getting admission to English and American universities, because they were overflooded. Yet we here in the Government of India pressed upon the foreign