Vol. 15 · pages 926–930

907PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES results depends upon who are the people who are charged with the duties of executing that policy. If the executive authority is unsympathetic, is antagonistic, that policy, however good it may be, can never fructify. And let me add, that so far as my experience goes, the whole of the administration which is now composed of caste Hindus, is the most unsympathetic administration that the scheduled castes have to suffer under. This is because of the unsympathetic character of the administration. And when we have been shouting for representation in services, that claim is being maligned by calling it communalism. What we are trying to do is to reduce the communalism of the other people. We are not asking for communalism. I hope my hon. friend will remember this. Until and unless your administration and your executive becomes more sympathetic to the scheduled castes, none of your laws and none, of your administrative policies will bear any fruit. Then let us come to, what are called, the Central Services. Here I am taking only the figures of permanent posts, not the temporary ones, as they stood on 1st December, 1952. The Commissioner says that the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Information and other organisations under its control have not supplied information on this point. Therefore, these figures relate to those departments which have supplied the information. The figures are very telling. In class I the actual strength is 752 and the scheduled castes number 10; according to the proportion fixed by the Home Ministry that ought to have been 175. Class II (gazetted posts) total number is 642 while the scheduled castes number only seven; that ought to have been 107 according to the proportion; class I (non-gazetted) total number is 1123 and the scheduled castes number 44; that ought to have been 185. Class III total number is 10,372 and the scheduled castes number 536 and this ought to have been 728. In class IV, the total number is 8807. Dr. P. C. Mitra (Bihar) : How many of them applied ? Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : The scheduled castes number 1251 but ought to have been 1478. Class IV servants, I think, are

908 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES chaprasis and there you find the number of scheduled castes people fairly large. There are the figures which must be within the ken of the Home Ministry. They have laid down a proportion and surely, it is their duty to see that that proportion is carried out by the different Ministeries. Why has there been this defalcation on the part of the various Ministeries and why has the Home Minister not taken any action ? If he had taken any action, what is the action that he took in order that the scheduled castes receive their quota which is fixed by him ? Sir, it is a very black picture, if I may say so, very black. It reminds me of a cartoon which was drawn by the Germans during the last War. The cartoon depicted an old negro gentleman in Washington. When war was declared, the negro—as everybody knows, negroes are not well disposed towards the whites in America; they are always very angry, quarrelling with them for not giving them equality of opportunity—suddenly felt very patriotic and he said that he must transfer some of his patriotism to the young boy who was his son. He went to the market and purchased an American National Flag—small one which the boy could hold—and gave it to the boy. He said, “My son, I want to show you today our capital, our capital”. The boy did not realise what it meant. Holding the boy by the right hand— and the boy holding the flag in his left hand—the old man took him round and round in Washington City, showed him the Supreme Court, the Congress House, the Senate and so on and so on and ultimately, after lunch, came down to the White House, stood there for a minute or two, and said to the young boy, “My dear boy, this is the House of our President”. But the boy said, “Father, what are you talking ? He is a white man and how do you praise him ?” The old man said, “Oh, shut up, that is only outward”. That is to say, inside he is quite black. I think that might well be applied to the Home Minister; notwithstanding the white dress, he is very black inside and the evidence is the neglect which has been shown in the matter of seeing that the Home Ministry’s own orders are carried out. Nothing has been done. I have dealt with services and I will deal now with the question of propaganda. I see that the Government of India

909PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES has sanctioned about Rs. 50 lakhs for the year 1953-54 for the purposes of carrying on propaganda against untouchability. The scheme, I understand, is that a part of the money is given to private agencies choosen by the State Governments and part of the money is given to all-India or Organisations directly by the Government of India. That is the scheme. I have no idea what my hon. friend means by the abolition of untouchability. What is untouchability ? Let us understand it very carefully. Untouchability, so far as I understand it, is a kind of a mental disease of the Hindus. It is not a disease from which I am suffering, not any tumour which I have got, not a rheumatic pain or any of the physical disabilities which can be removed but it is a mental twist; every Hindu believes that to observe untouchability is the right thing. I do not understand how my friend is going to untwist the twist which the Hindus have got for thousands of years; unless they are all sent to some kind of a mental hospital, it is very difficult to cure them and I do not want them to be sent there. Therefore, let us understand what we talk and what we are doing. Besides, all must realise that untouchability is founded on religion. There is no doubt about it and let us not be ashamed of realising it. Manu, in his law book, very difinitely prescribes untouchability. He said that the untouchables shall live outside the village, that they shall have only earthen pots, that they shall not have clean clothes, that they shall beg for their food and so on and I canot see how you blame the Hindus. For thousands of years, by the teaching of this dirty law. they have got inculcated in their mind the doctrine that untouchability is a most sacred thing. The Hindu has been taught that the most pious and best of life is that of a rat who lives in a hole, unconnected with anyone, he must not touch this, he must not touch that, he must not eat this, he must not eat that, etc. and this is a kind of life which a rat observes by living in a hole. A rat would not allow another rat to come into its own house. That is the position and all that we can do is to see that untouchability which, as I said, is a mental twist of the Hindus does not protrude so much into public life as to involve the civil liberties of the people.

910 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Dr. P. C. Mitra: Untouchability is only a custom and usage. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : If you want to study that subject with me, I can spend a few hours with you. Therefore, Sir, this propaganda business is quite impossible for me to understand. I agree with my hon. friend Mr. Kunzru that it may result in nothing else but a waste of public money. Secondly, I do not undersand why this matter should be left to these what are called organisations of social workers. A social worker in this country is a professional, he has no such things as inner sympathy. He is a professional. If the Muslim league wants him, he will probably serve the Muslim League; if the Hindu Mahasabha wants him, he will serve the Hindu Mahasabha; if the Congress wants him, he will serve the Congress. He is a professional and there is no such thing as, for instance, an inner love. As Tolstoy has said— rightly said—before you serve, you must learn to love., No man can serve anybody unless he loves him. These professionals have no love; they are simply trying to make their livelihood and therefore, perhaps, I would not be suprised if they are getting remuneration from all the three. I do not wish to comment on it. The proper thing, if my hon. friend wants to do, seems to me to be to take hold of these unemployed graduates. There are plenty of them, intelligent educated boys, who can be said to have some kind of modern outlook in life or who might be said to have developed some public conscience in the matter. You employ them on some reasonable salary, give them a motor-bike or a cycle and give each man seven, ten or fifteen villages, an ask him to go round village by village, hold public meetings, address the people on the question of untouchability and tell them that this is something which is going to bring disgrace upon this country in the modern world. That way it would be far more fruitful and far more effective than the kind of thing that my hon. frined is doing. Why these social organisations have a fascination for the Congress Government, I do not know. In olden times, during the British regime, the Centre acted administratively through the Collector. Money was given to him and he was

911PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES asked to discharge certain functions in certain fields. He could be held accountable to the Government. Money was safe in his hands. If you do not like the Collector then employ the kind of agency that I have submitted, namely, a group of intelligent boys who would be longing to do this service. This kind of a thing, a motley crowd, calling itself by some kind of a name to attract people is of no consequence at all. Then , Sir, ……….. Shri K. B. Lall (Bihar) : Will they not be professional ? Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : The Government servant is not a professional. Why ? You want to use them later for canvassing votes for you in the elections. That is the whole trouble about it. Now, Sir, regarding the other point, namely, selection of certain agencies by the Government of India and giving them funds to do this propaganda work, the Commissioner has made some observations on some communication that passed betwen me and the Home Department. He has said that other agencies have accepted the offer of the Government to receive money and to do propaganda. I was one naughty boy who refused and he thought that it might be well in bringing this default on my part to public notice. I wish he had given him the full letter which I had written to the Home Department. I think Mr. Datar dealt with the matter if I mistake not, and he will recall that what I said was this that the bodies that were chosen by the Government of India, were political parties like the Harijan League and some other League, something like that, were all political bodies. The Federation was also a political body. So I thnk it was wrong for Government to hand over public funds to political bodies who may use the funds for political propaganda and not for the elevation of the Scheduled Castes, and I told him that there was the Chairman of another body which was being built up in Bombay, which was a purely social welfare body. It had large funds, somewhere between two and three lakhs of rupees. They were going to build a hall and carry on activity. Of course I forgot to mention therein that that body, although it was formed in Bombay, was not confined in the matter of its social