Vol. 1 · pages 246–250

231 RANADE, GANDHI AND JINNAH crude which have volume but no effect and which are neither fool-proof nor knave-proof and which break the back even of the most earnest and sincere servants of the country and disable them from further effort. In short Ranade was like the wise Captain who knows that his duty is not to play with his ship clever and masterful tricks, just for effect and show in the midst of the ocean but to take it safely to its appointed port. In short Ranade was not a forged bank note and in worshipping him we have no feeling of kneeling before anything that is false. In the second place this celebration of Ranade’s birthday is not all an act of hero-worship. Hero-worship in the sense of expressing our unbounded admiration is one thing. To obey the hero is a totally different kind of heroworship. There is nothing wrong in the former while the latter is no doubt a most pernicious thing. The former is only man’s respect for everything which is noble and of which the great man is only an embodiment. The latter is the villain’s fealty to his lord. The former is consistent with respect, but the latter is a sign of debasement. The former does not take away one’s intelligence to think and independence to act. The latter makes one a perfect fool. The former involves no disaster to the State. The latter is the source of positive danger to it. In short in celebrating Ranade’s birthday we are not worshipping a boss who is elected by no one, accountable to no one and removable by no one, but paying our tribute of admiration to a leader who led and did not drive people, who sought to give effect to their deliberate judgment and did not try to impose his own will upon them by trickery or by violence. In the third place it is not for hero-worship for which this gathering has assembled. This is an occasion to remind ourselves of the political philosophy of Ranade. To my mind it has become necessary to remind ourselves of it from time to time. For his is a philosophy which is safe and sound, sure if slow. Even if it does not glitter it is nonetheless gold. Do any have doubt ? If they have let them ponder over the following utterances of Bismark, Balfour and Morley. Bismark the great German Statesman said : “Politics is the game of the possible.” Balfour in his Introduction to Walter Bagehot’s well-known book on the English Constitution says : “If we would find the true basis of the long drawn process which has gradually converted medieval monarchy into a modern democracy the process by which so much has been changed and so little destroyed, we must study temperament and character rather than intellect and theory. This is a truth which those who recommend the wholesale adoption of British Institutions in strange lands might remember with advantage. Such an experiment can hardly be without its dangers. Constitutions are easily copied ; temperaments are not ; and if it should happen that the borrowed constitution and the native temperament fail to correspond, the misfit may

232 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES have serious results. It matters little what other gifts a people may possess if they are wanting in these which, from this point of view, are of most importance. If, for example, they have no capacity for grading their loyalties as well as for being moved by them ; If they have no natural inclination to liberty and no natural respect for law ; If they lack good humour and tolerate foul play ; If they know not how to compromise or when ; If they have not that distrust of extreme conclusions which is sometimes misdescribed as want of logic ; If corruption does not repel them ; and if their divisions tend to be either too numerous or too profound, the successful working of British Institutions may be difficult or impossible. It may indeed be least possible where the arts of Parliamentary persuasion and the dexterities of party management are brought to their highest perfection.” Morley has observed : “To hurry on after logical perfection is to show one’s self-ignorant of the material of that social structure with which the politician has to deal. To disdain anything short of an organic change in thought or institution is infatuation. To be willing to make such changes too frequently, even when they are possible, is fool-hardiness. That fatal French saying about small reforms being the worst enemies of great reforms, is, in the sense in which it is commonly used, a formula of social ruin.” These are the principles on which success in Politics depends. Are they different from those which Ranade enunciated ? It bespeaks greatness in Ranade that he should have propounded them years before Bismark, Balfour and Morley. The generation which Ranade served was wise in taking him as its political guide, friend and philosopher. His greatness lies in the fact that he can be a guide, friend and philosopher to this present, nay even to future generations. There is one charge against Ranade which is frequently made and which I think must be met. It is said of Ranade that he believed that the conquest of India by the British was Providential, that it was in the best interest of India, that she should remain within the British Empire and that therein lay her final destiny. In short Ranade is accused of being opposed to India’s Independence. The charge is founded on the following utterances of Ranade : “It cannot be easily assumed that in God’s Providence, such vast multitudes as those who inhabit India were placed centuries together under influences and restraints of alien domination, unless such influences and restraints were calculated to do lasting service in the building up of the strength and character of the people in directions in which the Indian races

233 RANADE, GANDHI AND JINNAH were most deficient. Of one thing we are certain, that after lasting over five hundred years, the Mohammedan Empire gave way, and made room for the re-establishment of the old native races in the Punjab, and throughout Central Hindusthan and Southern India, on foundations of a much more solid character than those which yielded so easily before the assaults of the early Mohammedan conquerors.” “Both Hindus and Mohammedans lack many of those virtues represented by the love of order and regulated authority. Both are wanting in the love of municipal freedom, in the exercise of virtues necessary for civic life, and in aptitudes for mechanical skill, in the love of science and research in the love and daring of adventurous discovery, the resolution to master difficulties, and in chivalrous respect for womankind. Neither the old Hindus nor the old Mohammedan civilization was in a condition to train these virtues in a way to bring up the races of India on a level with those of Western Europe, and so the work of education had to be renewed, and it has been now going on for the past century and more under the Pax Brittanica with results—which all of us are witnesses to in ourselves.” A mere glance at these statements is enough to show that the charge is based on a misunderstanding if not on a misreading of the statements. The statements are plain and simple and they cannot even by inference be said to lead to the conclusion that Ranade was opposed to India’s independence. In that sense the charge is false and without foundation. These statements of Ranade far from casting any reflection upon his selfrespect testify to his wisdom and to his sagacity. What did Ranade want to convey by these statements ? As I understand them, I think, Ranade wanted to convey two things. The first thing he wanted to convey was that the conquest of India by Britain has given India the time, the opportunity and the necessary shelter for rebuilding, renovating and repairing her economic and social structure, to refit herself for bearing the strain of any foreign aggression when she does become free. The second thing Ranade wanted to convey was that going out of the British Empire by India before she had satisfied and solidified herself into a single nation, unified in thought, in feeling, and charged with a sense of a common destiny, was to invite chaos and disruption in the name of independence. How very important these truths are ? People do not realize the part that shelter plays in the smooth working out of social, economic and political conflicts which are inevitable in every society which desires to advance. The late Prof. Maitland was once asked to explain why Parliamentary Institutions flourished in England but failed to take roots in Europe. His answer reveals the importance of shelter. He said the difference was due to the English channel. By this answer what he meant to convey was that by

234 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES reason of the English channel England was immune from foreign aggression while she was repairing her own body politic and therefore it became safe for people to fight against their King for Liberty and also safe for the King to allow it to his people. This importance of shelter was also emphasized by Abraham Lincoln. In a speech devoted to showing why American Political Institutions were destined to remain perpetual, Lincoln said : “All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined. . . with a Bonaparte for a Commander, could not by force take a drink from Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.” In this Lincoln was also emphasizing the importance and the necessity for shelter for social reconstruction. India is not a sheltered country as England and America are. She lies across and on the roads, whether the roads are land routes, sea routes or air routes. As she has no shelter the fear is that she will be broken up if she is attacked from outside while she is engaged in refitting herself. India needs a dry dock as a shelter for the period of her refitting and the British Empire is a dry dock for her. Who can say that Ranade was not wise in asking his countrymen to bear in mind the importance of a shelter which the British Empire can give and which India needs so much? A servient nation is always eager to cut the knot and declare its independence of the dominant nation. But it seldom stops to consider the effect of independence on itself. Such a consideration is however very important. It is not often realized that the knot which binds the servient nation to the dominant nation is more necessary to the servient nation than to the dominant nation. It depends upon the conditions inside the servient nation. The servient nation may be one whole. The servient nation may consist of parts. The parts may be such that they will never become one whole. Or the parts may be such that they are not yet one whole but if held together longer they will become one whole. The effect which the cutting of the knot will have on the servient nation will depend upon the internal condition of the servient nation. There may be every good in cutting the knot by a servient nation which is one whole. Nothing good or nothing worse can happen—depends upon how one looks at it—by the cutting of the knot by a nation in which the parts can never become one whole. But there is positive danger in the third case. The premature cutting of the knot is sure to lead to disintegration where integration is desirable and possible. It would be a wanton act. This is the second danger which Ranade wanted to caution his countrymen against. Who can say that Ranade was not wise in giving this caution ? Those who are inclined to question its necessity have only to look to China. It is 30 years since the Chinese Revolution took place. Have the Chinese settled down ? No. People are still asking “when will the Chinese revolution stop revolving ?”

235 RANADE, GANDHI AND JINNAH and those who know the conditions in China cannot do better than say “Perhaps in another hundred years.” Has China found a stable Government having the allegiance of all Chinese ? Far from it. Indeed if truth be told, China after the revolution has been a land of disunity and disruption far more than she was ever before. The Revolution has produced a chaos of such magnitude that her very independence has been put in peril. Few Indians are aware of the fact that if China has not lost her independence as a result of the chaos caused by the Revolution it is only because she had too many enemies who could not agree as to which of them should devour her. The Chinese Revolution was a great mistake. That was the opinion of Yuan Shih-k’ai who said : “I doubt whether the people of China are at present ripe for a Republic or whether under present conditions a Republic is adapted to the Chinese people... The adoption of a limited monarchy would bring conditions back to the normal and would bring stability much more rapidly than that end could be attained through any experimental form of Government unsuited to the genius of the people or to the present conditions in China... My only reason for favouring the retention of the present Emperor is that I believe in a constitutional monarchy. If we are to have that form of Government, there is nobody else whom the people would agree upon for his place... My sole aim in this crisis is to save China from dissolution and the many evils that would follow.” Those who think that China should be rather a warning to Indians than an example will, far from accusing Ranade for opposing India’s independence will be happy that he had the wisdom to foresee the evils of a premature revolution and warn his countrymen against taking a similar step. X Posterity is always interested in the last words and last regrets of great men. The last words of great men are not always significant of their experience of this world or their vision of the next. For instance the last thoughts of Socrates were to call Crito and say, “We owe a cock to Aesculapius; discharge the debt, and by no means omit it.” But their last regrets are always significant and worth pondering over. Take the case of Napoleon. Napoleon before his death at St. Helena showed evidence of being uneasy over three capital points which constituted his last regrets. They were: that he could not have died at some supreme moment of his career ; that he left Egypt and gave up his Eastern ambitions ; and last but by no means the least his defeat at Waterloo. Had Ranade any supreme regrets ? One thing is certain that Ranade if he had any, could not have the same regrets such as those which disturbed the peace of mind of Napoleon. Ranade lived for service and not for glory. It mattered very little to him whether the moment of his death was glorious or inglorious or whether he died as a hero, as a conqueror or