16 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the Chawdar Tank. But owing to the presence of the sympathisers of the Depressed Classes the meeting ended in pandemonium. Some Poona Hindu leaders tried to dissuade the caste Hindus from opposing the struggle, but to no purpose.
The District Magistrate visited Mahad on December 7, and the leaders of both the sides discussed the question with him. He asked the caste Hindus to have recourse to law and refused to issue an order prohibiting the Untouchables from taking water from the Chawdar Tank. The leaders of the orthodox section. therefore, filed a suit against Dr. Ambedkar, Shivtarkar and Krishnaji S. Kadam and Ganya Malu Chambhar of Mahad— leaders of the Depressed Classes—on December 12, 1927, in the Civil Court at Mahad and asked for the issue of a temporary injunction. The Court issued a temporary injunction on December 14, against the defendants pending the decision of the suit. Accordingly notices were served on Dr. Ambedkar, Shivtarkar and Krishnaji S. Kadam, prohibiting them and all the Depressed Classes or on their behalf these three leaders from going to the Chawdar Tank or from taking water from the Tank until further orders. The orthodox and reactionary forces shrewdly enough forced on Dr. Ambedkar a fight on two fronts. On the one side was standing an indifferent foreign Government and on the other was the caste Hindu section headed by the Orthodox Brahmins.” [1]
Text of Temporary Injunction in Chawdar Tank Case
ORDER
“This is an application asking the Court to grant to the applicants a temporary injunction restraining the opponents from going to the Chawdar Tank or taking water therefrom. The applicants have, on 12th 1927, filed in this Court, Regular Suit No. 405 of 1927, for obtaining a Declaration that the said Chawdar Tank is of the nature of private property of the touchable classes only and that the Untouchable Classes have no right to go to that tank nor take water therefrom and also for obtaining a perpetual injunction restraining the Defendants from doing any of these acts.
1 :Keer, Pp. 90 and 97-98.