16
I AM A GREATER NATIONALIST THAN ANYBODY ELSE
“ Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar now gave a clarion call to his people to give battle for the cause of justice and humanity and to expose the machinations and conspiracy hatched against the rights of his people. He knew this was the last opportunity to assert the rights and will of his people; for he feared that a free India might revert to the old traditions and his people would be impoverished, neglected and ostracized from society and public services.
On June 29, 1946 a caretaker Government was announced and the British Mission left for London, leaving other details to be settled by the Viceroy.
The battle started on July 15, 1946, at Poona, synchronizing with the opening of the Poona session of the Bombay Assembly.” [1]
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar in an interview with the A.P. A. on
17th July 1946 said,
“We like this country to progress as much as anybody else does. We do not want to stand in the way of that. All we want is that our position is safeguarded in the future India.”
“To this end we will take part in every kind of struggle against the British proposals of May 16. If the Muslim Leauge starts any direct struggle against the British—I fully support the stand taken by the Sikhs at present—then they will also get our support in their action.”
He also warned that the present Satyagraha movement by the representatives of the All India Scheduled Castes Federation in Poona would ultimately become a country wide struggle in the same “form of that launched by the Congress in August 1942.”
“This is only the beginning of our struggle,” Dr. Ambedkar said : “when the struggle is forced to take the form of the Congress movement, we will do every thing that the Congress had done in the August disturbances.”
Dr. Ambedkar described the Scheduled Castes demonstrations now going on in Poona as a “Protest against the breaking of every sort of promise given to the Scheduled Castes by the British Government during the past 28 years.”
1 : Keer, P. 381.