COMMENTS ON..........POONA-PACT 469
Classes, came out as the accredited leader of the Depressed Classes all over India. In the new arrangement both the sides had to lose something. The Caste Hindus had to grant
148 seats instead of 71. The Depressed Classes lost their chance of bending the Caste Hindu leaders to their will as the Depressed Classes were under the Award entitled to elect their own representatives to the Assemblies separately, and besides they were to vote in general constituencies with the Caste Hindus in electing the Caste Hindu representatives. Now the Caste Hindus got the power to elect the representatives of the Depressed Classes. By a resolution at its Delhi Session on September 26, the Hindu Mahasabha also ratified it.
The third thing that was proved was that whenever the Mahatma in Gandhi got the upper hand of the politician in Gandhi, he performed the marvel of making simple things complex and complicated ! At the Round Table Conference the Mahatma in Gandhi dominated the politician in him; and the Mahatma shook the world, but the politician failed. At Yeravda the politician in Gandhi became successful and the Mahatma was defeated ! So effective and crushing was the victory of Gandhi that he deprived Dr. Ambedkar of all the life-saving weapons and made him a powerless man as did Indra in the case of Karna. Dr. Ambedkar was justified in saying that had Gandhi shown enough resilience at the Round Table Conference in the matter of the problem of the Depressed Classes, the Mahatma would not have been required to go through the ordeal. The ordeal was of Gandhi’s own making.
The Poona Pact closed an epoch. But did the war, which had been declared at Manibhuvan on August 14, 1931,* come to an end ? Or was it a second battle and the war was to continue even after the truce ?” [1]
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- See Pp. 51-56 of this part-Editors.
1 :Keer, Pp. 215-16.