Babasaheb Dr B.R Ambedkar

(xii)
EDITORIAL
It was learnt that Shri J. B. Bansod, an Advocate from Nagpur,
had filed a suit against the Government in the High Court Bench at
Nagpur, which was later transferred to the High Court of Judicature at
Bombay. The petitioner had made a simple request seeking permission
from the court to either allow him to publish the unpublished writings of
Dr. Ambedkar or to direct the Government to publish the same as they
had assumed national significance. This litigation was pending before
the Bombay High Court for several years.
After the formation of this Committee and after the appointment of
Shri V. W. Moon as Officer on Special Duty in January 1978, it was felt
necessary to secure the unpublished writings of Dr. Ambedkar and to
publish them as material of historical importance. Shri Moon personally
contacted the legal heirs of Dr. Ambedkar and the Administrator General.
Shri Bansod, Advocate, was also requested to cooperate. It must be noted
with our appreciation that Smt. Savita B. Ambedkar, Shri Prakash Y.
Ambedkar and his family members and Shri Bansod, Advocate, all showed
keen interest, consented to the Government project for publication and
agreed to transfer all the boxes containing the Ambedkar papers to the
Government. At last, the Administrator General agreed to transfer all the
papers contained in five iron trunks to the Government. Accordingly, Shri
Vasant Moon took possession of the boxes on behalf of the Government
of Maharashtra on 18th September 1981. All the five trunks are since
stored safely in one of the Officer’s chambers in the Education Department
of Mantralaya.
Shri M. B. Chitnis, who, as a close associate of Dr. Ambedkar,
was intimately familiar with the latter’s handwriting. He was at that
time Chairman of the Editorial Board. On receipt of the papers, he
spent a fortnight identifying which of the papers were Dr. Ambedkar’s
manuscripts. This basic process of identification having been accomplished,
there remained the stupendous task of reading, interpreting and collating
the vast range of MS material in the collection, to decide in what form
and in what order it should be presented to the public.
In 1981, Shri Moon, OSD, set to work on this project. This work
of matching and sorting was a delicate and difficult one as well as
immensely time-consuming. Many of the works what Dr. Ambedkar
had evidently intended to complete, were scattered here and there in
an incomplete state in the manuscript form. It was therefore necessary
to retrieve and collate the fragments in order to place them in proper
order. Only after very many hours of reading, selecting and reflecting
not only on the contents of these papers but also what was already