Vol. 12 · pages 761–765

740 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES (9) In every province out of the educational grant, an adequate sum shall be earmarked for providing educational facilities to the members of the Depressed Classes. This pact forms the charter of the political liberty of the Untouchables. The first election . . . . . . . (Left incomplete—ed.) zz

9 WHICH IS WORSE ? SLAVERY OR UNTOUCHABILITY ? [Dr. Ambedkar has dealt with the subject of Slavery and Untouchability in chapter 3 & 8 of Vol. 5 of this series, under the caption- ‘Roots of the Problem’ ‘Parallel cases’. We have however now come in possession of a booklet in which there are certain paragraphs which do not find place in Vol. No. V chapter 3 & 8. The material reproduced here when read together, makes consistent and complete reading. We have also no reason to doubt the genuineness of the material as the publisher of the said booklet Shri Devi Dayal was associated with Dr. Ambedkar during 1943-47. The facsimile of the title at the beginning of the chapter, as printed in the booklet vouchsafe the authorship of Dr. Ambedkar. Earlier paragraphs in the booklet i.e. from page 1 to 11 upto ‘considerations of humanity’ are already printed in Vol. 5 at page nos. 80 to 88. Mr. Bhagwandas of Delhi deserves credit for publishing this article for Mr. Devi Dayal—Editor] Slavery in India Among the claims made by the Hindus for asserting their superiority over other nations the following two are mentioned. One is that there was no slavery in India among the Hindus and the other is that Untouchability is infinitely less harmful than slavery. The first statement is of course untrue. Slavery is a very ancient institution of the Hindus. It is recognized by Manu, the law giver and has been elaborated and systematized by the other Smriti writers who followed Manu. Slavery among the Hindus was never merely ancient instititution which functioned only in some hoary past. It was an institution which continued throughout all Indian history down to the year 1843 and, if it had not been abolished by the British Government by law in that year, it might have continued even today. While slavery lasted it applied to both the touchables as well as the untouchables.

742 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The untouchables by reason of their poverty became subject to slavery oftener than did the touchables. So that up to 1843 the untouchables in India had to undergo the misfortune of being held in double bondage-the bondage of slavery and the bondage of untouchability. The lighter of the bonds has been cut and the untouchable is made free from it. But because the untouchables of today are not seen wearing the chains of slavery on them, it is not to be supposed that they never did. To do so would be to tear off whole pages of history. The first claim is not so widely made. But the second is. So great a social reformer and so great a friend of the untouchables as Lala Lajpat Rai in replying1 to the indictment of the Hindu Society by Miss Mayo insisted that untouchability as an evil was nothing as compared with slavery and he fortified his conclusion by a comparison of the Negro in America with the untouchables in India and showed that his conclusion was true. Coming as it does from Lala Lajpat Rai the matter needs to be more closely examined. Is untouchability less harmful than slavery ? Was slavery less human than untouchability ? Did slavery hamper the growth more than untouchability does ? Apart from the controversy raised by Lala Lajpat Rai, the questions are important and their discussions will be both interesting and instructive. To understand this difference it is necessary to begin by stating the precise meaning of the term slavery. This is imperative because the term slavery is also used in a metaphorical sense to cover social relationship which is kindered to slavery but which is not slavery. Because the wife was entirely in the power of the husband, because he sometimes ill-used her and killed her, because the husband exchanged or lent his wife and because he made her work for him, the wife was sometimes spoken of as a slave. Another illustration of the metaphorical use of the term is its application to serfs. Because a serf worked on fixed days, performed fixed services, paid fixed sums to the lord and was fixed to the land, he was spoken of as a slave. These are instances of curtailment of freedom, and inasmuch as they are akin to slavery because slavery 1 Unhappy India.

743MISCELLANEOUS NOTES also involves loss of freedom. But this is not the sense in which the word is used in law, and to avoid arguing at cross purpose, it would be better to base the comparison on the legal meaning of the word slavery. In layman’s language, a person is said to be slave when he is the property of another. This definition is perhaps too terse for the lay reader. He may not understand the full import of it without further explanation. Property means something, a term which is used to denote a bundle of rights which a person has over something which is his property, such as the right to possess, to use, to claim the benefit of, to transfer by way of sale, mortgage or lease and destroy. Ownership therefore means complete dominion over property. To put it concretely, when it is said that the slave is the property of the master, what it means is that the master can make the slave work against his will, take the benefit of whatever the slave produces without the consent of the slave. The master can lease out, sell or mortgage his slave without consulting the wishes of the slave and the master can even kill him in the strictest legal connotation of the term. In the eye of the law the slave is just a material object with which his master may deal in any way he likes. In the light of this legal definition, slavery does appear to be worse than untouchability. A slave can be sold, mortgaged or leased ; an untouchable cannot be sold, mortgaged or leased. A slave can be killed by the master without being held guilty for murder ; an untouchable cannot be. Whoever causes his death will be liable for murder. In fact, the slave could not be killed with impunity, the law did recognize his death as being culpable homicide as it did in the case of the death of a freeman. But taking the position of the slave as prescribed by laws the difference between the condition of the slave and the untouchable is undoubtedly clear-that the slave was worse off than the untouchable. There is however another way of defining a slave which is equally legal and precise although it is not the usual way. This other way of defining a slave is this : A slave is a human being who is not a person in the eye of the law. This way of defining a slave may perhaps puzzle some. It may therefore be necessary to state that in the eye of the law the term person is identical with the term human being. In law, there may be human beings whom the law does not regard as persons. Contrariwise there are in law persons

744 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES who are not human beings. This curious result arises of the meaning which the law attaches to the word person. For the purposes of law a person is defined as an entity, human or nonhuman, in whom the law recognized a capacity for acquiring rights and bearing duties. A slave is not a person in the eye of the law although he is a human being. An idol is a person in the eye of the law although an idol is an inanimate object. The reason for this difference will be obvious. A slave is not a person although he is a human being, because the law does not regard him as an entity endowed with the capacity for rights and duties. Concisely an idol is a person though not a human being because the law doeswhether wisely or not is another question-recognize the capacity for rights and duties. To be recognized as a person is of course a very important fact fraught with tremendous consequences. Whether one is entitled to rights and liberties upon this issue, the rights which flow from this recognition as person are not only as life but are as vital as life. They include right over material things, their acquisition, their enjoyment and their disposal— called right to property. There are others far more important than these rights over material things. Firstly, there is the right in respect of one’s own person—a right not to be killed, maimed or injured without due process of law called a right to life, a right not to be imprisoned save in due process of law-called right to liberty. Secondly, there is a right to reputation-a right not to be ridiculed or lowered in the estimation of fellow men, the right to his good name i.e. the right to the respect so far as it is well founded which others feel for him shall not be diminished. Thirdly, there is the right to the free exercise of powers and liberties l. 1 There is a distinction between Rights. Powers and Liberties which perhaps need to be explained especially in a treatise intended for the common man. When it is vain that a person has a right it means that it is a duty on some other person either to make the right real by fulfilling his duty or not to injure that right by a wrong doing or non-doing. There is a distinction between right and liberty which is some times lost by using the word right in a wider sense so as to include liberty. For instance ibis said that a person has a right i.e. he is at liberty to do as he pleases with his own ; but this omits to take into account that a person has no right and he is not at liberty to interfere with the liberty of another. The distinction between right and liberty may be stated thus ; Rights of person are concerned with things which other persons “ought” to do for him. Liberties of a person are concerned with things he ‘may’ do for himself. Liberties are acts which a person may do without being restrained by the law. The sphere of a person’s legal liberty is that sphere of activity within which the law is content to leave him alone.