APPENDIX - X
REACTIONS ON THE STATEMENT DATED
19-6-1936 ISSUED BY DR. B. R. AMBEDKAR ON CONVERSION
I
Dr. Moonje’s Letter to Mr. Rajah
Dr. Moonje wrote the following letter dated. New Delhi
30th June 1936 to Rao Bahadur M. C. Rajah :—
“Dear Sir,
On urgent calls from Bombay friends and also from Shreeman Seth Jugal Kishore Birla with the concurrence of Dr. Ambedkar, I had occasion to go to Bombay on the
18th instant. There Dr. Ambedkar had long conversations with me for three days. Eventually a fomula for amicable settlement of his revolt against Hinduism was drafted. Dr. Ambedkar entirely agrees with it.
The formula is as follows :—
“If Dr. Ambedkar were to announce his decision that he and his followers are prepared to embrace Sikhism in preference to Islam and Christianity and that he shall honestly and sincerely co-operate with the Hindus and the Sikhs in propagating their culture and in counteracting the Muslim movement for drawing the Depressed Classes into the Muslim fold, the Hindu Mahasabha will be prepared, in view of their having agreed to remain within the Hindu Culture, to make an announcement that it will not object:—
(1) To the conversion of the Depressed Classes to Sikhism;
(2) To the inclusion of the Neo-Sikhs in the list of the Scheduled Castes; and
(3) To the enjoyment by the Depressed Classes of the political rights of the Poona Pact by free competition between the Non-Sikhs and the Neo-Sikh Depressed Classes as provided for under the Poona Pact.”