I AM A GREATER . . . . . . ANYBODY ELSE 247
Dr. Ambedkar said that the British Cabinet Mission had decided rightly or wrongly — the Scheduled Castes considered it wrongly and iniquitously — that the heirs to the British Power, authority and sovereignty in India were only two — the Muslims and the Caste Hindus. The Scheduled Castes had no quarrel with the Muslims, for they were prepared to make a declaration of their intentions towards the protection of the rights of the Scheduled Castes and there would be no Satyagraha in such Provinces where the Muslims were in power. The Congress, however, so far had been mute over this question. In the Constituent Assembly, the Congress would be in a majority of three fourths and they would decide the issues affecting the rights and interests of the Scheduled Castes by their majority vote. The Scheduled Castes were, therefore, entitled to get an answer from the Congress to their question.
Dr. Ambedkar said that if the Scheduled Castes were troubling the Bombay Government, it was because it was a part and parcel of the Congress machinery. Mr. B. G. Kher had suggested in his statement that the present Satyagraha was motivated by the sense of frustration on the part of the Federation because they had lost in the last elections, “Mr. Kher” Dr. Ambedkar said, “was free to attribute any motives, high or low, to the movement but he wanted to make it clear that so far as he was concerned, he would do nothing in politics or public life which he could not justify publicly.” It was wrong, however, to say that a sense of frustration had been created in the minds of the Scheduled Castes. They had scored cent per cent victories though they had lost cent per cent seats.
“There would have been frustration if the Scheduled Castes had voted against our candidates, and for the Congress nominees. That would have been our ruination. But not over four per cent voted in favour of the Congress candidates who have been returned on Caste Hindu votes. That was not our defeat but triumph. But the fact that we lost these elections does not mean that we are going to lose them every time.”
Turning to the demands of the Scheduled Castes, Dr. Ambedkar said, one of them was the abrogation of the Poona Pact. “Why should we not agitate against it?” he asked. “No treaty in the world is accepted as sacrosanct. The Poona Pact has resulted in