542 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
III
“Sir,
With reference to the attached U.O.R. No. dated 26th July
1926 from the General Department and the D. C. P.’s instructions thereon, I beg to report as follows :—
The constitution of the Bahishkrit Hitkarani Sabha has been laid down in a printed booklet. Copy of which is attached.
The President and the six Vice-Presidents (flagged at B in the Annual Report) do not belong to the Depressed Classes. The Council of Management with Dr. Ambedkar as Chairman, consists of Depressed Classes.
Subscription is :—
A Class of those paying Rs. 25 per year or more.
B Class of those paying Rs. 10 per year or more.
C Class of those paying Rs. 5 per year or more.
D Class of those paying Rs. 3 per year or more.
E Class of those paying Re. 1 per year or more.
The membership mostly of the E Class is numbered at about
There are about 10 Associate Members who had paid Rs. 200 for the welfare of the Depressed Classes. They belong to the contractors’ class but not the Depressed Class.
The Library at Clarke Road was opened about 4 months ago in a small room rented at Rs. 7-3-0 on the second floor of a chawl of the Bombay Improvement Trust at Clarke Road. It was a very dirty room with one broken bench, one broken cupboard containing no books, one table and one chair. On the table there were a few rags of old newspapers in a distorted condition. They had about 64 books, mostly Marathi books; some of them were issued to members and the others were kept in the two trunks belonging to the Social Service League.
The Social Service League has supplied 200 books kept in steel trunks each containing about 100 books. The library consists of books which are mostly social and religious but there are also some books in Marathi on Swaraj (political). About 10 to 12 members of the Depressed Classes come to the Library room on an average daily. It is open to all but others than the Depressed Classes do not