36
COMMUNISTS EXPLOITED THE LABOURERS
“Early in September 1937, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar presided over a District Conference of the Depressed Classes at Masur.
In the course of his address he told his audience that it was his confirmed opinion that Gandhi was not man to look to the interests of the working classes and the poor. Had the Congress been a revolutionary body, he would have joined it. But he was convinced that it was not a revolutionary body. Congress was not courageous enough to proclaim the ideal of social and economic equality, enabling the common man to get leisure and liberty to develop himself according to his liking. That was not possible, he observed, as long as the means of production were controlled by a few individuals in their own interests. According to Gandhism, he said, the farmer would be the third bullock to be harnessed to the plough along with the two natural ones.
As regards the labour movement carried on by the Communists, he added that there was no possibility of his joining them. He declared that he was a confirmed enemy of the Communists, who exploited the labourers for their political ends.” [1]
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1 :Keer, Pp. 295-296.