by A. G. NOORANI
Gandhi and M.A. Jinnah. Gandhi offered to concede the demands of the Muslim Delegation, led by the Aga Khan, if it supported him in his opposition to Ambedkar’s demand for separate electorates for the untouchables. The Muslims refused. The offer was made in writing in a document dated October 6, 1931. PHOTO/The Hindu Archives
Back in India after the Round Table Conference in London, B.R. Ambedkar and Gandhi arrived at a compromise on reservation of seats and signed the Poona Pact on September 24, 1932, to enable Gandhi to call off his fast. Here, M.R. Jayakar, Tej Bahadur Sapru and Ambedkar(second from right) at Yerwada jail on the day the pact was signed. PHOTO/The Hindu Archives
The inner history of the negotiations to give recognition to the untouchables as a separate political entity. By A.G. NOORANI
“For me religion is one in essence, but it has many branches and if I, the Hindu branch, fail in my duty to the parent trunk, I am an unworthy follower of that one indivisible, visible religion…. My nationalism and my religion are not exclusive, but inclusive and they must be so consistently with the welfare of life.” Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi wrote to Sir Samuel Hoare, the Secretary of State for India, in September 1932, on the eve of his fast to death against granting separate electorates for the untouchables. Earlier, on March 11, 1932, he had warned Hoare: “So far as Hinduism is concerned, separate electorates would simply vivisect and disrupt it. For me the question of these classes is predominantly moral and religious. The political aspect, important though it is, dwindles into insignificance compared to the moral and religious issues.” In a letter to Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in September 1932, Gandhi wrote: “In the establishment of separate electorates at all for the ‘depressed classes’, I sense the injection of poison that is calculated to destroy Hinduism.”
To William Shirer, the famous American writer, Gandhi wrote on September 23, 1932: “Americans should know that my politics are derived from my religion.” (See William Gould; “The U.P. Congress and ‘Hindu Unity’: Untouchables and the Minority Question in the 1930s”; Modern Asian Studies; Volume 39, 2005; pages 845-860.)
With such an outlook, a clash with Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar was inevitable. Clash they did, directly, sharply and in person at the Round Table Conference in London. Back in India, they arrived at a compromise on reservation of seats and signed the famous Poona Pact on September 24, 1932, to enable Gandhi to call off his fast.
Ambedkar was under great pressure and was none too happy about his climbdown. As if this and the clash in London were not enough, there came to light a singularly sordid stratagem by Gandhi in London—he offered to concede the demands of the Muslim Delegation, led by the Aga Khan, if it supported him in his opposition to Ambedkar’s demand for separate electorates for the untouchables. The Muslims refused. The offer was made in writing in a document dated October 6, 1931.
The clash is well recorded in the proceedings of the Committees of the Round Table Conference reproduced in Volume 2 of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches (compiled and edited by Vasant Moon, Education Department, Government of Maharashtra) and in Ambedkar’s work What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (Bombay 1945). It has the added advantage of Ambedkar’s personal testimony about the proceedings of the conference, which was inaugurated on November 12, 1930, by King George V. Nine committees were set up, including the Minorities Committee (Chapter III, “A Mean Deal”). Another was the Federal Structure Committee.
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