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WE ARE THE MAKERS OF THE DESTINY OF THIS COUNTRY
Accompanied by P. N. Rajbhoj, General Secretary, Scheduled Castes Federation and V. Ramkrishan, ACM, Labour Department, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar reached Rajmahendri on Thursday the 28th September 1944 in the afternoon. Dr. Ambedkar was presented with Civic Address on behalf of Municipality in the Museum Hall. Somina Kameshwar Rao, Municipal Chairman and K. Vyankatadri Chaudhari, Municipal Commissioner welcomed Dr. Ambedkar. [1]
While replying to the Civic Address, Dr. Ambedkar said :
“We are meeting today under the shadow of very sad piece of news that has come to us. It has been reported that the talks between Mr. Gandhiji and Mr. Jinnah have failed. We have never been able to muster together. We have never been able to sink our differences and patch up things in order to march on. Something has always happened at the most critical moment. The Old Testament somewhere says, “The Nation which has lost its vision will be destroyed.” One of the defects which I have noticed in Mr. Gandhi is the complete lack of vision. I wonder what the founders of the Congress would think of this Pakistan. Those who met for the first time in 1885, in order to see that India get Home Rule, no doubt, by stages, never dreamt that the movement will be carried on in such a manner, in such a spirit, that just about the time when India was about to reach her destiny, India would be cut up in two parts. We are told that the old fellows who had started the Congress were too slow. They were only arm-chair philosophers and were doing nothing but sending letters to the Viceroy. It was said that those methods did not suit the country. The result was that the most dynamic movement was started under the aegis of Mr. Gandhi. We had mass movement and agitations. We had everything except light and vision. Mr. Gandhi is approximated to a large extent to Abraham Lincoln. The attitude that Abraham Lincoln took with regard to the question of slavery was very much the attitude about the minorities problem that Mr. Gandhi took in India. Abraham Lincoln was passionately devoted to the Union. He
1 : Khairmode, Vol. 9, P. 394.