Vol. 17, Part III · pages 406–410

377THE MINORITY................TO In the end, I tell you, make proper use of the facilities provided by the Siddharth College. I hope that therein only I shall be able to watch the rising star to the occasion to lead the Scheduled Castes and will prove his worth. Every man has two temptation in the world, first, the money and secondly, the wife and then the children follows. It is but natural; but our people do not understand the meaning of a few children. Then in the gulf, they have no time to look where Scheduled Castes stand. So it is upto you to stand to the need of the Scheduled Castes, at large. You must be able to create devoted workers. I do not know when our forces will be needed; but we should be on our guard to wait and see. Hitherto, you must have noticed that while a large majority of our students had been interesting themselves in political movements they had not a clear realisation of what politics means, what responsibilities it involves and what methods must be pursued in order to bring political activities to function. There was, as I observe it, a complete dissociation of what we call academic life from the practical problems of life and politics. You will have to do two things :— (i) to enlarge your minds, your vision, your capacity to think, your ability to solve problems; and (ii) to bring that capacity, that vision, that ability to form judgment to bear upon the actual problems which the vast mass of the people of this country are facing today. It is no more going to be mere incubation in our solitary room, in a chemistry or physics laboratory, it is something much wider than that. You will not merely learn political economy, political science, history, commerce, trade, currency, all the subjects which touch upon the practical life of people, but you will use that teaching, that learning to suggest not merely to yourselves but to the politicians in charge of the affairs of this country what are the right solutions of the problems before them and where they are going wrong.

378 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES There is one other things which you must also remember and it is this. In an autocracy where the laws are made by the wishes of a dictator or by an absolute monarch the art of speaking is unnecessary. No autocrat, no absolute monarch need pay any attention to eloquence because his will is law. But in a parliament where laws are made, no doubt by the wishes of the people, the man who succeeds in winning our opposition is the man who possesses the art to persuade his opponent. You cannot win over a majority in this House by giving a black eye to your opponent. A minority is not going to curb a majority by bringing goondas, nor is the majority going to record and obtain a victory by laying low the members of the minority. You will have to carry a proposition only by the art of speaking, by persuading his opponent, by winning him over his side by argument, either gentle or strong, but always logically and instructively. Therefore, a supreme qualification for success in a parliamentary institution is the capacity to possess the House. Therefore, you should go to Parliament fully prepared to make a serious contribution to a serious subject and I also want to add that you should learn, very seriously the art of public speaking. It is not a very difficult art as I can tell you from my own experience. I am not a very great speaker and I do not know if anybody who would care to write the history of people in India who have played their part in Indian politics would find any justification to put me among the best speakers in India. I do not cover that honour. At one time, I was so much overwhelmed by my shyness which made me so nervous that I was on the point of giving up a job of a Professor in the Sydenham College for nothing else except for the fear that boys will probably run me down. But I can assure those of you who have similar fear to cast it away and to make an effort to acquire the command over language which is not a very difficult task at all. Then, there must be absolute unconditional obedience to the ruling of the Speaker. You must never question the ruling of the Speaker. If there is a difficult point of order on which there is no precedent, on which, he cannot off hand, give his ruling, he will call on different sides of the House to express their point of view as to what is the correct interpretation of a certain ruling. But

379THE MINORITY................TO after he has heard all the sides and proceeds to give his ruling, then, that ruling you must accept as sacrament. No matter how wrong that ruling is. I have been in parliamentary institutions from 1926 to 1946 with a very short break. I have known speakers of different varieties, good and others but we have observed the ruling. You can move a motion that a certain standing order to be amended. It is unfortunate that you have no opportunity of what I call ‘visual institutions’ of how parliaments work. If you get a chance to go to Paris and see the actual session there or to London and see the House of Commons or go to the U.S.A. and see the House of Representatives, you will see wonderul difference between all these three bodies. In Paris you will see a wonderful assembly. Once I went to the Lower House in Paris on two or three successive days. I could not distinguish that August Assembly from the Crawford Market. People were moving from one place to another, from one corner to another, there was no order, nobody was listening to the Speaker, the poor Speaker had a big log of wood on his table and big hammer also of wood. He continuously hammered, there was no attention paid to him. But just the opposite was the condition in the House of Commons. There is a rule that no member can stand in the chair when the Speaker is standing. Every member must sit. When one member is standing no other member can stand in the chair. He must sit and listen. No member can begin to speak in the House of Commons unless the Speaker calls on him. There is no duty nor obligation on the Speaker to call upon any particular individual to speak. There is a phrase “That the Speaker calls upon such person as are able to catch his eye.” That is a very delusive phrase A Speaker may catch an eye and may deliberately wink at it. The reason is obvious. The Speaker having been in the chair for a number of years knows every individual, knows his good points, knows his bad points. As that he does is now known as his family history. He rarely, allows a man to speak who is tedious and who speaks but says nothing. We have today what is called Parliamentary Democracy. Let us know that word. It is a very singular insititution. It differs from autocracy or unlimited monarchy because in autocracy or

380 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES unlimited monarchy there is no such thing as parliament. People’s wishes count for nothing. The King or the autocrat is the sole master of the situation. He claims to represent the will of the people and governs the people according to what might be called his own will. We have another sysem in vogue which is called today the dictatorship of the proletariat. The difference between the two from our point of view is very minor. Autocracy has taken upon itself the obligation to serve what are called the masses but fundamentally this kind of dictatorship does not materially differ from absolute monarchy because in neither of them the people play any part. Parliamentary Democracy is a midway between the two. It is very delicate institution. Its characteristics ought to be noted very carefully, in order that no violence has been described by a variety of political philosophers in a variety of different ways. Parliamentary Democracy has been described as Government by law. At one time this characteristic of Parliamentary Democracy that it was Government by law was undoubtedly very significant, very real. When monarchy was abolished in Europe and Parliamentary Democracy came into being and became operative, the generation which saw this change from absolute monarchy to Parliamentary Democracy could well understand that the description of the Parliamentary Democracy as Government by law was indeed very real and very significant. Because before it, the rule was personal rule. The ruler depended upon his wishes in the first place. Secondly, he always placed himself above the law. The law was for the people and not for himself. The rule of law which we now enjoy is a well established principle. We have so become used to it that we do not regard it as a matter of great virtue. But the significant fact that remains even now is that, when we make the law, we place even the makers of law below that law. Some one has also said that Parliamentary Democracy is a democracy by majority. It is true that in our legislation there is a rule that all questions shall be decided by a majority. But I could ask to be very careful about that principle. It is one of the most dangerous principle that we have got. The majority rule has

381THE MINORITY................TO been admitted merely for reasons for convenience. But for God’s sake do not ride that principle too much. You will create a great deal of difficulties. In a certain sense the rule of majority is the wrong rule. I am prepared to argue that case. Let me illustrate. We are engaged in framing a Constitution. I have been placed at the head of it as its Chairman. We have to guard the fundamental right of the minorities. Do not forget that the fundamental right means that the majority has no right to do a certain thing. That is the meaning of the fundamental right. The fundamental right in a constitution puts absolute limitation upon the power of the majority to do a certain thing. As a matter of fact, the majority rule has come but by what I call a fluke. If you examine the procedure of the House of Commons and the History of it, you will find that about the year fourteen fifteen hundreds of (what happened was this that) a motion was moved in the House of Commons: those in favour went and sat in one lobby, those who were against it sat in the other lobby. The Speaker asked the clerk how many were in Ayes’ lobby and how many in Noes’ lobby. He was told that there were 20 in the Noes’ lobby and 50 in the Ayes’ lobby. The Speaker did not declare the result of the motion. What he did was to tell the Ayes lobby to go into the Noes lobby and to persuade them to come and sit in the House and then only he declared the result. What does that mean, something very significant, that the majority cannot have a decision in its favour unless the speaker was confident that the minority, if not actively, at least passively was prepared to give consent. That was the original procedure. Later on for some reason this practice or this obligation upon the majority to go out and persuade their brethren in the opposite side to come back and to listen was dropped. However, although Parliamentary Democracy for the purpose accepted the principle of a majority rule do not think that you can by any way you like ill-treat or put to a disadvantage a minority. You will create a great deal of trouble for youself in this very House. The minority must always be won over. It must never be dictated to.