‘Down With Gandhi!' Untouchables Cry

Northern Advocate, 2 April 1946, Page 3

‘Down With Gandhi!' Untouchables Cry

(Rec. 10J10 a.m.) NEW DELHI, April 1 There were cries of “Down with Gandhi!” immediately Gandhi entered a hut- in the sweepers’ quarters of New Delhi today. s Demonstrators then approached the •hut and began to stone it. Police charged the demonstrators and drove them back. Gandhi, who was observing the customary Monday silence, ignored the incident. A violent clash occurred last night between residents of Worli, the Untouchables’ colony, on the outskirts of Bombay, and members of the Scheduled Castes Federation (the Untouchables’ political organisation), who de monstrated against Gandhi’s decision to stay there. Fifteen persons, including three of a police party attempting to separate the contestants, were injured, and 65 were arrested. Gandhi left Bombay before the clash occurred. Eight thousand millhands belonging to the Scheduled Castes' Federation in the Worli area, struck today. Eight mills are affected. A CLEAN SLATE Replying to criticism in the Indian Press, Sir Stafford Cripps stated: “We came to India without a scheme either on paper or in our heads. We are working with a clean slate. “Independence no longer being the issue, it is the mission’s sole duty now to do all it can to help India in arriving at an agreement for the new constitutional structure. “We have stopped going back to interpret past utterances. Conditions have changed and past utterances may even be contradictory to present circumstances. SIKHS OPPOSE DIVISION New Delhi political, social and religious leaders of India’s 6,000,000 Sikhs, meeting at Lahore, declared that they would oppose the division of India. They maintained that if India j was to be divided on religious grounds j the Punjab must be given to the Sikhs ! as the homeland of the community. MURDER THREAT Dr Ambedkar, leader of the Sched- | uled Castes, received a letter threat- j ening him with murder if he presses I for a separate electorate for the j scheduled classes when he meets the j Cabinet Mission on April 5. The letter added: “The threat may j be carried out even while the mission 1 is here.”