MAHAD SATYAGRAHA 7
small groups in the city. Some were busy packing and a few were taking their meals before dispersing for their villages. The majority of the delegates had by now left the town. The rowdies pounced upon the delegates in the pandal, knocked down their food in the dust, pounded the utensils and belaboured some before they knew what had happened. There was utter confusion in the pandal. Up-till now the orthodox had lost their conscience. They now showed signs of losing their senses !
Untouchable children, women and delegates, who were strolling in the streets of Mahad, were frightened at the sudden sweep of this event. Stray individuals amongst them were beaten. They had to run into Muslim houses for shelter. The local Mamlatdar and the Police Inspector, who failed to check the rowdies, saw Dr. Ambedkar in this matter at four O’clock in the evening at the Travellers Bungalow where Dr. Ambedkar and his party were staying during the days of the Conference. “You control others, I will control my people,” said Dr. Ambedkar to the officers, and he hurried to the scene with two or three of his lieutenants. In the street a batch of rowdies mobbed him, but he calmly tried to soothe them by telling that there was no desire nor any plan on their part to enter the temple. He went ahead, saw things for himself and returned to the Bungalow. Up to this moment about twenty persons from the Untouchables were seriously wounded. A doctor was sent for. He came. He jeered at them for their “ill-timed” adventure and dressed their wounds !
The rowdies then began patrolling the main streets and assaulting members of the Depressed Classes who were in stray batches on the way to their villages. But the most reprehensible part of their conduct was that they sent messages to their henchmen to punish the delegates of the Conference in their respective villages. In obedience to this mandate assaults were committed on a number of Mahar men and women either before or after they had reached their villages.
Meanwhile, this news of the brutal attack on the delegates spread like wild fire. When Dr. Ambedkar returned to the bungalow, he saw about a hundred men impatiently awaiting his