Vol. 17, Part I · pages 401–405

43 GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE IMPARTIAL The pitiable plight of the Untouchables coming from Eastern Punjab was becoming worse day by day. To get the solution to this problem officials from the Untouchables were to be appointed in the Relief and Rehabilitation Department. Hence Dr. Ambedkar wrote a letter to Hon’ble Mr. K. C. Neogy, Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation, New Delhi. The letter is as follows.—Editors. “Personal New Delhi, 23rd March 1948. My dear Neogy, You will recall that you wanted me to recommend the names of some special workers who could be employed under your Department for helping the Scheduled Caste refugees who have come over from Western Punjab to Eastern Punjab in the matter of their rehabilitation. I gave you a list of persons who could be employed for this work. I do not know what you have done with regard to the names contained in the list. There are, however, two persons whom I recommended and whom you have appointed, and about whom I propose to write to you in this matter. They are Messrs B. K. Gaikwad and R. S. Jadhav. Both of them have been complaining to me that they are given no work at all and that they are wasting their time. They also reported to me that they were called over by Mr. Shevakram Karamchand who is the Director of the Harijan Section of your Department and who cross questioned as to their views on the general politics of this country. The impression left upon them, which they conveyed to me, is that the Government of India is not prepared to employ people because they do not belong to the Congress. It seems to me absurd, if not mischievous, for Government to insist that its employees should have the same political opinion as the Party in power, and I am sure that you do not share the view-point expressed by Mr. Shewakram Karamchand. What I am concerned about is that these two men who have been retained are not given the work for which they were

377GOVERNMENT.............BE IMPARTIAL recruited. Mr. Karamchand told them in the course of the interview that the persons recommended by the Harijan League were thoroughly incompetent and were of no use for the sort of work they were expected to do and that the persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes Federation were the most competent, and yet these men are not given the responsible work for which they were recruited merely because their political opinions are distasteful to this gentleman. I am, therefore, driven to ask you whether you intend to give them any responsible piece of work for which they are fitted. If you are not prepared to do that I think it is only right that you should discontinue their service and allow them to return to their places and do the social work that they had been doing. I am sorry I have to write to you in this very direct fashion, but when one’s patience is exhausted one has no other way. With kind regards. Yours sincerely, Sd/—B.R. Ambedkar. Honourable Mr. K. C. Neogy, Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation, New Delhi.”1 zz 1 : Reprinted, Khairmode, Vol. 10, Pp. 34-35.

44 BE YOUR OWN LIGHT ! “On a balmy evening in May 1950, two gentlemen seated themselves on a bench in Bombay’s Cuffe Parade and proceeded to hold a conversation. One of them was the architect of the Indian Constitution Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. The other was noted writer Mulk Raj Anand, author of ‘The Untouchable’. Forty years later, Dr. Anand recalls the illuminating conversation with the Messiah of the downtrodden. Mulk Raj Anand : Namaskar, Dr. Ambedkar ! B. R. Ambedkar : I prefer the Buddhist greeting—Om mani padmaye ! May the lotuses awake. MRA : I agree. How thoughtless we are ! We inherit words without questioning their meaning ! Of course, namaskar means I bow before you . . . . . BRA : That perpetuates submission ! May the lotuses awake is a prayer for enlightenment! MRA : Indeed, old habits die hard. We adopt them unthinkingly . . . . . BRA : In everything. MRA: Come to think of it, one is not born stamped Hindu ! Or Muslim ! or Christian! Hindu parents give their child a name during the naming ceremony ! Sanctified by a priest reciting verses in Sanskrit, which the child does not understand. A sacred thread is put on his body. And to and behold the boy is a Hindu ! BRA : Idiocy ! MRA : If you by mean the Greek word, idiot-going round and round in circles ! BRA : One must question all old habits, ideas, practices. Education should encourage the new young to ask the teacher, one new question a day . . . . .

379BE YOUR OWN LIGHT ! MRA : The best way to teach teachers ! They often don’t know what is not in the text book. As a matter of fact, even in one’s mature youth, one can only grow by asking questions. I learnt this from Henri Bergson’s book Creative Evolution. I was in difficulties about various philosophical problems after reading Hegal, Kant and Descartes. Bergson said : One can heighten consciousness by questioning every philosophical proposition . . . . . BRA : Buddha argued with Brahmins about every one of their beliefs. They had degraded whole people as outcastes. They said, God had ordained you varnas—Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras. Buddha asked : What about man himself—the individual ? Because a man is born in a family which handles corpses of dead cattle, he is condemned to be an Untouchable. All forest people are junglis to the Hindus . . . . . MRA : Rejected ! BRA : Indeed ! Everyone who works with hand was, and is, rejected. Those who skin animals! Those who carry dung! Those who do menial labour on the land ! All branded and bonded forever ! After five thousand years it is still worse ! An Untouchable can’t enter a temple even if he has a bath before he goes there ! He can’t draw water from the village well—he must take it from the filthy pond outside the village ! He can’t graze his cattle on the landlord’s land. He is dirty because he cleans dirt. Always considered impure ! An animal can be touched, not an Untouchable . . . . . MRA : As a member of the Constituent Assembly have you been able to assert the rights of the individual ? I see that your committee gives fundamental rights—the right of the individual to freedom. But we see that you have also conceded the right to property as a fundamental right Does not the right to property give a decisive advantage to those who have inherited wealth ? So the poorest of the poor, the Untouchable will always be at a disadvantage. BRA : In our Constitution, we have put forward the ideal of a secular, socialist democracy... If every one can have the right to till the land from the State tenancy rights then equality of privilege

380 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES can be assured and there need be no exploitation. So far Untocuhables and even many Caste Hindus and Muslims do not have tenancy rights. All these landless peasants are mere hands. MRA : Then the right to work should have been recognised as a fundamental right. BRA: I was only one of the members of the drafting committee. MRA : So you became a lamb before the lions ! BRA : I bleated good deal ! I am now roaring ! MRA : As a lawyer, you know how the judges will always decide in favour of the high caste, upper class Hindus. BRA : Of course, the only Non-Brahmin in our Government of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru fought hard against the night to own property being a fundamental right .... But Babu Rajendra Prasad felt that Nehru wanted to make India into Russia. The Caste Hindus, therefore, only conceded the other rights of man as directive principles .... to be fought for in Parliament. MRA : Which would be weighted in favour of men of property. BRA : The socialists can win a majority one day. And ask for redress. Any how, the outcastes and tribals have been declared Scheduled Castes. They will be given certain privileges to uplift them—like reservation for admission to schools and colleges and scholarships. MRA : The Caste Hindus will always resent reservation. BRA : We must organise ourselves. Arouse the disinherited to fight. There are more outcastes than Caste Hindus—if we include the Muslims who are also regarded as Untouchables by the casteists. And the tribal people. Together, with the socialists they can abolish ownership of private property ! No landlords, no tenants ! No landless labourers ! MRA : State capitalism might also prove to be dangerous. You know what Stalin has done in Russia. Imposed a set of bureaucrats on the people in the name of Communism !