Babasaheb Dr B.R Ambedkar

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330 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
sent to a Conference which was convened to forge a constitution
which was to reconcile the diverse interests of India. Mr. Gandhi was
thoroughly ignorant of Constitutional Law or Finance. He does not
believe in intellectual equipment. Indeed he has a supreme contempt
for it and his contributions to the solutions of the many difficulties
is therefore nil. He was tactless because he annoyed almost all the
delegates by constantly telling them that they were nonentities and
he was the only man who counted and who could deliver the goods.
At the first Round Table Conference the delegates did not agree upon
a solution of the communal problem. But it is equally true that they
were very near agreeing to it and when they departed they had not
given up hope of agreeing. But at the end of the second Round Table
Conference, so much bad blood was created by Mr. Gandhi that there
was no chance of reconciliation left and there was no way except
arbitration.
The Prime Minister’s decision on the communal question was
announced on 17th August 1932. The terms of the decision in so far
as they related to the Untouchables were as follows : 1
COMMUNAL DECISION BY HIS MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT 1932
In the statement made by the Prime Minister on 1st December
last on behalf of His Majesty’s Government at the close of the second
session of the Round Table Conference, which was immediately
afterwards endorsed by both Houses of Parliament, it was made
plain that if the communities in India were unable to reach a
settlement acceptable to all parties on the communal questions
which the Conference had failed to solve, His Majesty’s Government
were determined that India’s constitutional advance should not
on that account be frustrated, and that they would remove this
obstacle by divising and applying themselves a provisional scheme.
2. On the 19th March last His Majesty’s Government, having
been informed that the continued failure of the communities to
reach agreement was blocking the progress of the plans for the
framing of a new Constitution, stated that they were engaged upon
a careful re-examination of the difficult and controversial question
The following text of the Communal Award is not typed in the MS. This is reproduced
from ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’ by the author. (Thacker
and Co. Ltd. . 1st Ed. June 1945, pp. 80-82).—Ed.