COMMENTS ON..........POONA-PACT 467
Mohammedan delegates who would yield none of their demands. Day after day Dr. Ambedkar came into greater prominence. He spoke for the ‘Untouchables’ and every speech on the welfare of India whether from a Conservative or a Socialist-would contain references to the tragic flight of the ‘Untouchables’. It was a sentimental rather than a practical concern. Mr. Gandhi, by representing the Untouchables, would have drawn eulogies from almost every one in England-but now Dr. Ambedkar had destroyed this platform. He so opposed the Mahatma that the public began to believe that two personalities dominated the Conference, Mr. Gandhi and Dr. Ambedkar. Nothing could have been further from the truth. To begin with, Mr. Gandhi was not dominating the Conference nearly enough. He spoke over after Sir Samuel Hoare, when he came to like more and more, had spoken in favour of indirect election. Mr. Gandhi agreed with him entirely and he proceeded to elaborate his Panchayat Scheme whereby villages elect their representatives, a group of village-representatives elect their district representative and a group of district-representatives elect the representative for legislature. It is a system which while weakening Conservative fear, meets the Congress demand for adult suffrage. Indian Liberal delegates were warm in their approval. “Within a week,” one of them said, “Gandhi will have the Conservatives at his feet.” He never spoke in this fashion again, instead there was a wrangle with Dr. Ambedkar. At first Mohammedans seemed to enjoy the Mahatma’s discomfiture, but in time every delegate was wishing that Dr. Ambedkar would show Mr. Gandhi the courtesy to which his personal eminence certainly entitled him.”
(The Tragedy of Gandhi, pages 266-267)
“Henceforward Bow and Knights bridge were not to be the only centres for Conference plotting. Representative Mohammedans, Europeans, Anglo-Indians, Untouchables met together. In a very short period of time they had drawn up a Minorities Pact to which representatives of the Minorities with the notable exception of the Sikh leader, Sardar Ujjwal Singh, appended his signature. Mr. Benthall sent Mr. Gandhi a copy of the pact and a courteous, if rather buoyant explanatory letter. Dr. Ambedkar met Mr. Gandhi’s gaze at St. James with an almost defiant smile. There were but two obvious courses open to