1
I HAVE NO HOMELAND
In the third week of July 1931, the names of the delegates to the second session of the Round Table Conference were announced. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi were invited to attend the Conference in London. It was not decided as yet whether Mahatma Gandhi would attend the Round Table Conference. Naturally all eyes were focussed on Manibhuvan at Bombay where Mahatma Gandhi was staying. Gandhiji wanted to sound Dr. Ambedkar as to his demands. So Gandhi wrote Ambedkar,
“Dr. Mr. Ambedkar,
I would come to see you to-night at 8 p.m. if you can spare that time. I would gladly come over to your place if it is inconvenient for you to come.
Bombay : Yours Sincerely
6-8-31. M. K. Gandhi.” [1]
“Dr. Ambedkar had just arrived from Sangli, and was running a temperature. He wrote in reply that he would himself go to Gandhi at eight O’Clock that night. But in the evening the temperature soared to 106; so Dr. Ambedkar sent a message that he would come after the fever abated.
Subsequently, Ambedkar went to meet Gandhi on August
14, 1931 at Manibhuvan, at two in the afternoon. A batch of his lieutenants, Deorao Naik, Shivtarkar, Pradhan, Bhaurao Gaikwad and Kadrekar accompanied him. When Dr. Ambedkar was shown in to the third floor, Gandhi was busy talking with his partymen and eating some fruits. The Doctor and his party bowed to Gandhi and sat on a blanket.
In the characteristic way which Gandhi observed in dealing with non-Muslim and non-European leaders and representatives, he did not look at first for a while at Dr. Ambedkar and kept chatting with Miss Slade and others. Dr. Ambedkar’s men now feared that a little more indifference on the part of Gandhi, a
1 : Ratnakar Ganvir, Ambedkar-Gandhi: Teen Mulakhati (Marathi), P. 9.