434 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
something is better than nothing, I agreed that reservation may be for 10 years and secured something for our people. The reservation is only for two elections and only upto that time, the interested parties like the Congress will come to you and request for votes. And this way, this period of 10 years will pass away and there will be nobody to ask for extension of this period. I want to ask you, what will you do then ? Will these Congress people come to you then and request you to stand on their tickets? Certainly not. They are not such fools. They want to befool you people. These Congressmen will not even spit on the face of these people who are seeking Congress tickets today. So you should all ponder over this problem and then decide to which candidate you have to vote.
Every party must have either power or money. Our community has neither any money nor any power. We are living in the villages in small numbers at the mercy of these High Caste people. Baniyas and Marwaris etc. are also not powerful but they have got money. With money they can buy anything. So this is the opportunity for you to do something for yourselves. If you are united, you can send your representatives to the Assemblies and Parliament for safeguarding of your interests otherwise you will be ruined. So you must unite under the banner of the Scheduled Castes Federation to pull your community out of chaos. Every Achhut should help the Federation in electing their true representatives. Many parties will come to you and ask for votes but do not be misled by them.
A few days back, Pandit Nehru came here. It was reported that two-three lakhs of people gathered to hear him. I do not know how many people were there. Yesterday when I visited Jullundur over two lakhs of people gathered there but the pressmen published that thirty thousand people had gathered there. What I want to tell you is that if there is any conference of the Congress, then even if the audience is very thin, they will publish that a large gathering witnessed the Conference. For five they will say fifty for fifty they will say five hundred, for five hundred they will say five thousands and for five thousands they