Vol. 12 · pages 156–160

135THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA the action of Government in a matter of this kind, but after all, if you analyse the situation, it is a social problem, and the British Government, very properly, as I think, in conformity with its ancient traditions, holds aloof from all interference with social questions. “Government can do a great by way of education, a great deal by helping forward the industrial movement among the Depresseed Classes. But the vital problem, the problem of problems, is one of social uplifting, and there the Government can only afford to be a benevolent spectator. It may sympathize with our efforts, but it cannot actively participate in them ........” The Hon’ble Mr. Dadabhoy had to defend himself. In his reply he said:— “Sir, I find myself in a very peculiar and unfortunate position. There are two parties in this Council, and they are both on the defensive on this occasion. My justification for bringing in this Resolution, if any justification were needed, is to be found in the unenthusiastic and half hearted support which I have received from my non-official colleagues. It was no pleasure, I assure you, Sir, to me to bring in this Resolution. If I could possibly have avoided it, I would have very cheerfully and very willingly done so. This is the sixth year of the life of this Reformed Council, as Hon’ble Members are aware, and the second term is now approaching expiration. During the major portion of that time—the five years that I have been on this Council—I anticipated that the champions of public liberty, public spirit and public enterprize and culture—men like my friends the Hon’ble Surendra Nath Bannerjee or the Honourable Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya— would take the trouble of moving a Resolution to this effect. I waited all this time to see if one of these enthusiastic members would bring in a Resolution for the amelioration of the Depressed Classes, but when I found that none of them had taken up the matter—though at times this matter is discussed even in the Congress Pandal in a certain manner; when I found that it was not taken up in this Council— .................... I, as a Parsee, representing a Hindu constituency thought it my duty to bring this matter for public discussion in this Council.” The Government naturally felt relieved by this quarrel. Resting behind the moral support of the Hindu members of the Legislature for covering up their delinquency Sir Reginald Crad-dock speaking on behalf of the Government disposed off the Resolution in the following terms :— “Sir, we sympathize with the objects of the Hon’ble Mr. Dadabhoy’s Resolution. We are willing to go so far as to ask Local Governments to put on record what they have done, are doing, and what further they can do,

136 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES to improve the condition of these people. But we can place no faith in special committees. Have I not indicated to the Council how wide are the problems, and how impossible it would be to deal with them by means of Committees ? The problems extend over me whole range of Government from top to bottom. What I say is that, while extending our sympathy to the objects aimed at by the Hon’ble Mr. Dadabhoy, we can go no further than promise to refer the question to Local Governments, and ask them whether they can do more than they are doing. That is as far as we can go, and with that assurance, I will ask the Hon’ble Member to withdraw his Resolution.” The second time the Untouchables are mentioned in the proceedings of the Legislature was in 1928 when Mr. M. R. Jayakar moved the following Resolution :— “This Assembly recommemds to the Governor-General in Council to issue directions to all Local Governments to provide special facilities for the education of the Untouchables and other depressed classes, and also for opening all public services to them, specially the Police.” On this occasion the Government of India was no more enthusiastic than it was in 1916. Mr. G. S. Bajpai, speaking on behalf of the Government of India said :— “The Local Governments are alive to their responsibility, they are doing what they can. It is not my privilege to claim for them that they have achieved the ideal, but I do claim that there is an awakening and an awakened and roused sense of responsibility and a roused sense of endeavour for improving the position of these depressed classes. That being so, it is no function to interfere by direction or by demand. They (i.e. the Government) can, if the House wishes, communicate to them the views of the House on this very national problem.” For this speech, Mr. Bajpai, according to the official report of the proceedings, was cheered ! ! Such is the record of the British Government in the matter of social Reform. What a miserable record it is ? How meagre a record it is; Six social Laws in sixty years of legislative activity ! ! From the very beginning, its attitude to social reform has been of a very halting character. It kept on some mask of a responsible Government up to 1860. After 1860 it threw off the mask. The Government would not move and reform came to a dead stop. In 1881 a great agitation was started in favour of legislation prohibiting child marriage. Rather than be pestered

137THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA with social reform, it took courage to announce publicly and once for all its policy of opposition to reform. In a Government Resolution of that year, the British Government proclaimed : “In dealing with such subjects as those raised in Mr. Malabari’s Notes, the British Government in India has usually been guided by certain general principles. For instance, when caste or custom enjoins a practice which involves a breach of the ordinary criminal law, the State will enforce the law. When caste or custom lays down a rule which is of its nature enforceable in the Civil Courts, but is clearly opposed to morality or public policy, the State will decline to enforce it. When caste or custom lays down a rule which deals with such matters as are usually left to the option of citizens, and which does not need the aid of Civil or Criminal Courts for its enforcement, State interference is not considered either desirable or expedient. “In the application of such general principles to particular cases, there is doubtless room for differences of opinion; but there is one common-sense test which may often be applied with advantage in considering whether the State should or should not interfere in its legislative or executive capacity with social or religious questions of the kind now under notice. The test is, ‘Can the State give effect to its commands by the ordinary machinery at its disposal ?’ If not, it is desirable that the State should abstain from making a rule which it cannot enforce without a departure from its usual practice or procedure. “If this test be applied in the present case, the reasons will be apparent why His Excellency in Council considers that interference by the State is undesirable, and mat the reforms advocated by Mr. Malabari, which affect the social customs of many races with probably as many points of difference as of agreement, must be left to the improving influence of time and to the gradual operation of the mental and moral development of the people by the spread of education. “It is true that the British Government in India has by its legislation set up a standard of morality independent of, and in some material respects differing from, the standard set up by caste; and it may be that the former standard has had some beneficial effect in influencing native customs, practices, and modes of thought. But legislation, though it may be didactic purposes; and in the competition of influence between legislation on the one hand, and caste or custom on the other, the condition of success on the part of the former is that the Legislature should keep within its natural boundaries, and should not, by overstepping those boundaries, place itself in direct antagonism to social opinion.” The policy laid down in this Resolution has ever since remained the policy of the British Government in the matter of Social Reform.

138 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES V Why did the British Government leave the Untouchables in the cold without any care or attention ? The explanation for so criminal a neglect was furnished by Sir Reginald Craddock. In replying on behalf of the Government of India on the Resolution moved by Sir Maneckji Dadabhoy in the Imperial Legislative Council in 1916, he stated what the position of the British Government took with regard to the Untouchables in the following terms :— “With regard to them (i. e. the Untouchables) the difficulty is not that Government does not recognize them, but that, until the habits and prejudices of centuries are removed, the hands of their neighbours must necessarily press upon them ............... you must remember that these people live mostly in villages and very often in the back lane of towns, and that their neighbours have not yet come under these broad and liberal minded influences. Therefore, as many speakers have indicated, the problem in dealing with this question is more social and religious than purely administrative. “I know myself of many difficulties in the matter of schools. There are many places where the Mahar boys will not be allowed into the school; they may be allowed in the Verandah and get only a small part of the master’s attention there, or they may be entirely excluded. But it is only gradually that the difficulty can be met. I have constantly dealt with this very problem on the spot. I have reasoned with people ; I have said to them. There are tax payers like yourselves, either let them come into the school, or if you wish to indulge in your own prejudices—they may be reasonable prejudices, as you consider them—but if you wish to indulge them, should you not contribute something in order that these boys may have a school of their own ? In that what some of the better people have come forward to help in the matter of wells, and schools for the low castes ; they have assisted, and the difficulties have been got over. But of course it is a matter which must take time, and Government itself cannot use compulsion. They go rather near to it sometimes, for example, in travelling by railway : and when petitions are presented in Court. But they cannot ensure that these people shall always be well-treated in their offices. Very often, I think, some of these classes refrain from seeking service they might otherwise wish to secure, because their neighbours are not likely to treat them warmly. Although the Hon’ble mover described the statement made by the Government of Bombay as a ‘magnificent non-possumus’ , I think that it very accurately describes that the real difficulties of the situation are. Even though Government is willing to help in every way these unfortunate people, yet it remains true that’ the position

139THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA of these castes and tribes in the future depends partly on their own selves, and partly those more favoured Indian Communities, which by extending the hand of human comradeship or hardening their hearts and averting their faces, have it in their power to elevate or to degrade them.’ “That Sir, I think, represents very truly and accurately the position of affairs as regards these Depressed Classes. * * *” The same attitude was reiterated in 1928 when the resolution of Mr. Jayakar was discussed in the Central Legislative Assembly. Mr. Bajpai speaking on behalf of the Government said:— “ ........................it is not by increasing the number of special schools or by providing special facilities that you are going to solve this problem (of the Untouchables) .................... You will solve this problem only by a quickening and broadening the spirit of all sections of the community towards the so called depressed classes.” Leaving the problem to be solved by the quickening of me consciences of the Hindus, the British Government just neglected the Untouchables and believed that as a Government they were not called upon to do anything to help to improve the lot of the Untouchables. How did the British justify this neglect of so helpless and so downtrodden a class of their subjects as the Untouchables ? The answer is very clear. They did it by taking the view that the evil of Untouchability was not of their making. They argued that if they did not deal with the evil of untouchability, they are not to be blamed for it because the system did not originate with them. This was clearly enunciated by the Government of Bombay in 1856. In June 1856 a petition was submitted on behalf of a Mahar boy to the Government of Bombay complaining that though willing to pay the usual Schooling fee, he had been denied admission to the Dharwar Government School. In disposing of the application, the Government of Bombay thought the matter so important that it issued a Resolution dated 21st July 1856 of which the following is the full text:— “1. The question discussed in the correspondence is one of very great practical difficulty. 2. There can be no doubt that the Mahar petitioner has abstract justice on his side ; and Government trust that the prejudices which at present prevent him from availing himself of existing means of education in Dharwar may be ere long removed.