916 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
gives me a very sad thought and it is this that our Prime Minister has taken no interest in this matter at all. In fact, he seems to be not only apathetic but anti-untouchable. I happen to have read his biography and I find that he castigated Mr. Gandhi because Mr. Gandhi was prepared to die for the purpose of doing away with separate electorates which was given to the Scheduled Castes. He has said in his biography, ‘Why on earth Mr. Gandhi is bothering with this trifling problem ? Sir, I was shocked and surprised to hear the Prime Minister—rather Mr. Nehru then in 1934—uttering these words. I thought that since the responsibility of Government had fallen on his shoulder he may have changed his view and thought that he must now take the responsibility which Mr. Gandhi was prepared to take on his shoulder, but I do not find any kind of a change in his mind. Sir, in the year 1952 a conference was held at Nagpur under the Presidentship of my hon. friend Babu Jagjivan Ram.
I understood that there was a very big shamiana. Two silver chairs were placed on the dais, one for Mr. Jagjivan Ram and one for Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. There was an audience of two hundred to three hundred and one thousand police. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was supposed to inaugurate that conference. I have got his speech here, but I do not wish to trouble the House by reading it, but this is the gist of it. He was, I am told, in great anger against Babu Jagjivan Ram for having organised the conference. He said loudly “I do not recognize that there is such a problem as that of the untouchables. There is a general problem of the economically poor and the problem of the untouchables is a part of that problem. It will take its place and receive its attention along with the other problems. There is no occasion, no purpose in bestowing any special thought upon it.” Sir, if the Prime Minister is prepared to throw such cold water—not cold, water from the refrigerator, so to say—what enthusiasm can we expect from the rest of the workers who have taken upon themselves the duty or the responsibility or the interest in carrying on with this particular problem : I do not think that untouchabality will vanish. They believe ‘yes’. I think ‘no’, as I said, because it has a mental twist. It will take years