216 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
for me is the bitterest possible and I am therefore obliged to take things lying very low indeed. Under the circumstances I am for the present unable to return the money spent by the State much as I wish to do. If the Baroda Government interprets my inability to pay as an unwillingness to pay then the way for them is to go to Court, get a decree and execute it if they think that it will be really to their advantage. It may be true that if matters go to court then the name of the community will suffer. On the other hand it is my belief that if the community were to know as it will in the course of the suit the way in which I have behaved towards the Baroda Government, I am sure there will be nothing which it shall have to be ashamed of on my account. On the other hand I have no doubt that in the mudslinging that will follow the contemplated suit some mud will stick to His Highness and to the Baroda State of which both shall have to be ashamed.
Of course it will be better if all this were avoided. But the only way in which it can be avoided is by the Baroda Government giving me time till I am in a position to pay. The Baroda Government don’t seem to know me sufficiently well. I have once shown them that I am a man of character. If I had not had sufficient character I would never have returned at Baroda. I had immeasurable offers to enter British service who would have thrown them away except by a man of character ? They only know me as an independent fellow. But they forget it is only a man of character who can be independent.
Be that as it may I hope you will understand that I am most anxious to meet my obligations to the State and if I cannot do it immediately it is only because I am hard up. The moment I am in easy circumstances you may depend upon it that I will commence to repay. More than this I cannot for the present say or do. My real object which I have disclosed to repay it to the University of Bombay and to request the University to