286 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
‘ The Protest Strike is condemned as having fallen flat, that it was a fiasco, that the workers defied the orders of their leaders. Those who went on strike were supposed to have been ‘intimidated’ ‘bullied’ ‘terrorised’ ‘coerced’ and so on’.
People are familiar with these words. But so far they used to come from a press that was considered anti-national. Today they come from Congress and pro-Congress press. That is the tragedy. That is the grim reality we have to face.
‘I ask these journals, what has happened to your Truth and Non-violence, what has happened to your common decency ?’
‘As far as the workers are concerned they cannot be misled by this or any other propaganda. They were witnesses to the gigantic demonstrations of protest against the Trades Disputes Bill. They know what mighty success the strike has been.’
Ministry Warned
‘Let the Congress Ministry and Congress leaders remember this one fact very clearly, that every lathi charge that has been directed on the workers, every shot that has been fired on members of the working class will echo and re-echo in this city and this presidency for weeks and months to come.’
‘Those lathi charges and firing will be echoed and reechoed during the forth-coming Municipal Elections from a hundred platforms and in a hundred meeting. Those lathi charges and firing are going to cost the Congress much more than its leaders seem to realise today.
‘Those outrages on our right and our freedom will be heard in the farther most corners of this province in the remotest villages of this presidency.
‘The Congress Ministry seems to be intoxicated with power. They seem to be ignorant of the one great lesson of democracy that mighty majority in parliaments and legislatures are swept off overnight by a single incident by single miscalculated step. But that lesson will be driven home during