Vol. 15 · pages 951–955

932 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES I would like to say a word about the title of the Bill. It is not a very important point, but I think the name does matter. Shakespeare has said that rose smells as sweet whether it is called rose or by some other name. I disagree with that statement of Shakespeare. I think that name is a very important matter, and I think that a good law ought to have a good and succinct name. What is the name of this Bill ? ‘A bill to provide punishment for the practice of untouchability or the enforcement of any disability arising therefrom’. I personally think that it is a very clumsy name and very mouthful. What really should be the name of the Bill may be a matter of dispute but I personally think that it ought to have been called ‘The Civil Rights (Untouchables) Protection Act’ After all, what you are doing is nothing more than protecting their civil rights. The emphasis ought to have been therefore on civil rights. I venture to tell my friend incharge of the Bill if he had referred to the case of the Negroes in the United States or to the Civil War, he would have found that the Bill that he is now proposing to be passed by Parliament has had its predecessor in the United States and that Bill, if he will refer to it he will find, is simply styled Civil Rights Protection Bill. Even the word ‘negro’ is not mentioned in it. I don’t know why he should keep on repeating untouchability and untouchables all the time. In the body of the Bill he is often speaking of scheduled castes. The Constitution speaks of the scheduled castes and I don’t know why he should fight shy of using the word scheduled castes in the title of the Bill itself. Personally for myself, I would be quite happy with the name Untouchables Civil Rights Protection Bill or Scheduled Castes Civil Rights Protection Bill. I hope my friend will take this into consideration. Now, Sir, I find there are certain very grave omissions in the Bill and it is to these ommissions that I propose to draw the attention of the House. There is really, as a matter of fact, no provision for the removal of any bar against the exercise of civil and constitutional rights. No doubt the ultimate result of the Bill would be freedom to exercise civil and constitutional rights but I personally think that it would 3-00 P.M.

933PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES have been much better if my friend had expressly stated that the Bill was intended to remove any kind of a bar against the exercise of any civil and constitutional rights. I would just like to read to him a provision from the Civil Rights Bill as they call it in the United States. This is how the provision reads. Don’t read the title page of the book—it will hurt you. It is the United States Constitution Amendment XIV taken from Government of Ireland Act, 1920 and also Professor Keith’s Command Paper. This is how that provision reads. I have of course converted it to make it applicable to the untouchables but the original is taken from the text of the Civil Rights Bill : “All subjects of the State are equal before the law and possess equal civil rights. Any existing enactment, regulation, order, customs or interpretation of law by which any penalty, disadvantage, disability is imposed upon or any discrimination is made against any subject of the State on account of untouchablity, shall, as from the day on which this Constitution comes into operation, cease to have any effect”. I think such a positive statement was necessary. It is no doubt contained in article 13 but there can be no harm in repeating the whole of that article 13 with such amendments as are necessary in this Bill. I don’t know why the Bill is silent. The Bill seems to give the appearance that it is a Bill of a very minor character, just a dhoby not washing the cloth, just a barber not shaving or just a mithaiwala not selling laddus and things of that sort. People would think that these are trifles and piffles and why has Parliament hothered and wasted its time in dealing with dhobies and barbers and ladduwalas. It is not a Bill of that sort. It is a Bill which is intended to give protection with regard to civil and fundamental rights and therefore, a positive clause, I submit, ought to have been introduced in this Bill, which the Bill does not have now in its present form. That is one ommission which I think requires to be made good. The other omission, which, I find, is of a very grave character, is that there is no provision against social boycott. Now I feel from my experience that one of the greatest and the heinous means which the village community applies in order to prevent the scheduled castes from exercising these rights is social boycott. They boycott

934 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES them completely. It is a kind of non-co-operation. This is not merely my opinion but it is the opinion of a Committee that was appointed by the Bombay Government in order to investigate into the conditions of the scheduled castes and also of the depressed classes and aboriginal tribes. I might mention to the House that the late Thakkar Bapa was a member of this Committee and he had signed this report. I will just read only, one para from the report of that Committee which relates to the question of social boycott. It is paragraph 102. This is what the Committee said : “Although we have recommended various remedies to secure to the depressed classes their rights to all public utilities, we fear that there will be difficulties in the way of their exercising them for a long time to come. The first difficulty is the fear of open violence against them by the orthodox classes. It must be noted that the scheduled castes form a small minority in every village opposed to which is a great majority of the orthodox who are bent on protecting their interests and dignity from any supposed invasion of the depressed classes at any cost. The danger of prosecution by the police has put a limitation upon the use of violence by the orthodox classes and consequently such cases are rare. The second difficulty arises from the economic position in which the depressed classes are found today. The depressed classes have no economic independence in most parts of the presidency. Some cultivate the land of the orthodox classes as their tenants at will. Others live on their earnings as farm labourers employed by the orthodox classes, and the rest subsist on the food or grain given to them by the orthodox classes in lieu of service rendered to them as village servants. We have heard of numerous instances where the orthodox classes have used their economic power as a weapon against those depressed classes in the villages when the latter have dared to exercise these rights and have evicted them from their land and stopped their employment and discontinued their remuneration as village servants. This boycott is often planned on such an extensive scale as to include the prevention of the depressed classes from using the commonly used paths and the stoppage of the sale of the necessaries of life by the village bania. According to the evidence, sometimes small causes suffice for the proclamation of a social boycott against the depressed classes. Frequently it follows on the exercise by the depressed classes of their right to the use of the common well; but cases have been by no means rare where stringent boycot has been proclaimed simply because a depressed class man has put on the sacred thread, has bought a piece of land, has put on good clothes or ornaments, or has carried a marriage procession with the bridegroom on the horse through the public street. We do not know

935PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES of any weapon more effective than this social boycott which could have been invented for supression of the depressed classes. The method of open violence pales away before it, for it has the most far-reaching and deadening effect. It is more dangerous because it passes as a lawful method consistent with the theory of freedom of. contract. We agree that this tyranny of the majority must be put down with a firm hand if we are to guarantee the depressed classes the freedom of speech and action necessary for their uplift.” This is the conclusion of a committee which was specially appointed to consider the condition of the scheduled castes. I do not find any provision to deal with this point of social boycott. I may draw the attention of the hon. Member to the Burma Anti-boycott Act of 1922, if he thinks that it is difficult to put the matter in express words which can be legally of use to the courts. I say he can copy the provisions contained in this Burma Anti-bycott Act of 1922. It gives us the most valuable definition of a difficult matter, namely, social boycott. That will be found in section 2 of that. Act. This Burma Act not only creates social boycott an offence, but it also creates the instigating of social boycott an offence. It also creates the threatening of social boycott an offence, in pharaseology as’ precise as any meticulous lawyer would want to have. My hon. Friend has tried, I think, in sub-section (2) of section 8, to have some kind of a garbled version of it for defending a Hindu who does not wish to practise untouchability but whose caste-fellows compel him to do so. I believe they can only do that in two ways, either by committing violence against him or by organising social boycott. As the Committee has said, the village communities most often prefer the social boycott because it is an act behind the curtain and appears to be perfectly in consonance with the terms of the law of contracts, to violence which, as I have said, becomes an offence under the Indian Penal Code. Therefore, instead’ of going round about and bringing about a haphazard result, why not proceed directly and recognise social boycott as an unlawful means of compelling the scheduled castes not to exercise their rights ? After all, what can be the objection to social boycott ? I say, in legal terms, social boycott is nothing else than a conspiracy, which is an offence recognised by the Indian Penal

936 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Code. If two people engage themselves in doing a wrong to a third person, well, that is conspiracy, This social boycott is brought about by the concurrence of the majority of the people and is also a conspiracy and could be recognised as an offence. I do not know why my hon. friend forgot that very important fact in this matter. The third omission—I do not know whether it is an omission or not, I speak subject to correction. I wish the Law Minister was here because it is purely a legal matter. But there is no doubt about it that our Home Minister was a Law Minister in the beginning and certainly has been a practising lawyer and he could not be unfamiliar with what I am saying. Now the question that I ask myself is, are these offences mentioned in this Bill compoundable or non-compoundable ? The Bill says nothing about it. It is completely silent. The other day when we were discussing the Report of the Commissioner for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, hon. Members will recall that the Commissioner drew pointed attention to the fact that the untouchables were not able to prosecute then persecutors because of want of economic and financial means and consequently they .were ever ready to compromise with the offenders whenever the offenders wanted that the offence should be compromised. The fact was that the law remained a dead letter and those in whose favour it was enacted are unable to put it in action and those against whom it is to be put in action are able to silence the victim. That has been the conclusion of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Such a situation is not to be tolerated. The offences must not be made compoundable if the offence is to be brought home to the guilty party. If the guilty parties by compounding the offence either by payment of a small sum or something like that are able to get away they can continue their career of harassment of the untouchables until the moon and the sun are there and untouchability would never end. Therefore, compounding of the offence is a grave matter and a grave issue and it must have been expressly dealt with. I do not know what the intention of my hon. friend is but in order that we may be able to judge by reference to other provisions in other laws, I shall refer to section 345 of the