ROLE OF ......................... INDIAN DEMOCRACY 159
The interview was protracted and Dr. Ambedkar did most of the talking, while Gandhi lay weak and still in his bed. “I want my compensation,” Dr. Ambedkar urged repeatedly. “I am with you in most of the things you say,” assured Gandhi, “but you say you are interested in my life.”
Dr. Ambedkar :— “Yes, Mahatmaji, I am. And if you devote yourself entirely to the welfare of the Depressed Classes, you would then become our hero.”
Gandhi :— “Well, if you are interested in my life, you know what you have got to do to save that life. Your position, from what you tell me, is like this. You want adequate price and compensation before you can agree to forgo what you have already secured under the Premier’s decision. You say that the double system of voting proposed by you gives sufficient scope to the other party to rise, while the seats to be filled under the Panel System are designed to satisfy the aspirations of your group. What worries me, however, is this. Why do you propose the Panel System only for some seats ? Why do you not propose it for all the seats ? If the panel system is good for one section, it should be good even for the whole of the Depressed Classes. That is how I regard the question. You are ‘Untouchable’ by birth, but I am now going to make, what might appear as an astounding claim for a man in my position, I am an ‘Untouchable’ by adoption, and as such more of an ‘Untouchable’ in mind than you. Any scheme that is really good should subserve the interests not of this group or of that, but of the Depressed Class as a whole. That is the criterion by which I judge this scheme. My first suggestion to you is that, if the Panel System is good for any section of the Depressed Classes, it should be extended to all the Depressed Class seats. I cannot stand the idea that your community should either in theory or in practice be separated from me. We must be one and indivisible. As I have told the other friends, I feel no difficulty in accepting your scheme of electing a panel for a few seats. I want to make a present of it to you for all the seats. I confess I do not like the scheme as it stands. It will divide your community, and would give my life to prevent that, just as I am giving my life to prevent the disruption of the whole Hindu Community. (Epic Fast Pp. 209-210)” [1]
1 : Reprinted, Khairmode, Vol. 5-Pp. 45-46.