Vol. 17, Part III · pages 461–465

432 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES freedom. Independence will be a farce for our people. This will be independence of the High Caste people and not ours. But if our true representatives are in Parliament and State Assemblies, they can fight for our cause and get grievances redressed. Only then our children can get proper education; only then our poverty can be removed and only then we will be given equal share in all spheres of life. Although special privileges have been provided for the Scheduled Castes people in the Indian Constitution, the other parties specially the Congress are unnecessarily interfering with them. They are putting up their own henchmen for election to the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes. How can the people elected on Congress tickets safeguard our interests when they will have to go according to the wishes of their master ? What can they do for us? I want to tell you about the people who were elected to the Parliament on Congress tickets to the seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes. They were about 30 in number and in the Parliament for the last four years. Not a single member out of the thirty raised any question in the Parliament about the grievances of the Scheduled Castes. Even if a question was put in Parliament, the Speaker did not allow it and the matter ended there. If the Speaker was generous and had allowed the question and it was included in the business then the Chief Whip of the Congress would go to the member concerned and ask him to withdraw the question before it is printed. Per chance, if the question had been printed, then the Chief Whip would ask the member concerned to leave the Station for the day when the answer is required and thus there would be no discussion at all in the Parliament on the matter raised as the member himself would not be there. For one month there is discussion on the Budget in Parliament. At that time any person can speak on the Budget and point out that such and such privileges should be provided for his community or his party. He can point out that so much money is being spent on unnecessary projects whereas the important proposals have been neglected. During these four years, I have not seen a single member moving any Cut Motion. This is all due to Congress Party’s discipline (Dunda). If the members wanted to move a Resolution, they had to obtain the

433IF OUR.....................FARCE permission of the Chief Whip long before it was actually moved. Neither these Members put up any Bill during these four years. How can. the Untouchables, Indian Christians, Anglo Indians etc. avail of the privileges provided for them in the Constitution, if the seats reserved for them are occupied by their enemies through the Congress ticket ? I want to make the point clear that if you voted for the Congress, you will have to suffer for ever. Our representatives on Congress ticket will keep silent in the State Assemblies and the Parliament. Our interests can be safeguarded only if our true representatives are elected on Federation’s ticket which is the only organisation of the Scheduled Castes. Had there been any possibility of getting our grievances redressed in the Congress I would not have left the Organisation. I know that Congress has sufficient money and will try to buy the votes with that. But you should be careful about it. If I wanted I could remain in the Congress for ever and definitely have got a good place there. But I would have done only if I had selfish motives and not any regard for my community. I would have remained there, if I was in need of any licence or permit for myself. The man seeking licence and permits can do so at the expense of his community. He will do anything for his own self and nothing for his community. This is the experience I have gained during the period I remained in the Congress Government. The English people could do for the welfare of our community during their stay in India had they wished so but they also deceived us. That time has passed now and another phase has come into being. If at this time also we are not careful and kept our eyes closed, then we will be ruined. If you want that your coming generations should not suffer as you are suffering now, then you should do something for that now. When you plant a tree, you get the fruit after some time. I want to impress upon you that the reservation of seats in the Assemblies and the Parliament is only for 10 years. Although I wanted it till Untouchability was prevalent in India, our own people who became Members of the Parliament on Congress tickets opposed me not to speak of members belonging to High Castes. So thinking that

434 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES something is better than nothing, I agreed that reservation may be for 10 years and secured something for our people. The reservation is only for two elections and only upto that time, the interested parties like the Congress will come to you and request for votes. And this way, this period of 10 years will pass away and there will be nobody to ask for extension of this period. I want to ask you, what will you do then ? Will these Congress people come to you then and request you to stand on their tickets? Certainly not. They are not such fools. They want to befool you people. These Congressmen will not even spit on the face of these people who are seeking Congress tickets today. So you should all ponder over this problem and then decide to which candidate you have to vote. Every party must have either power or money. Our community has neither any money nor any power. We are living in the villages in small numbers at the mercy of these High Caste people. Baniyas and Marwaris etc. are also not powerful but they have got money. With money they can buy anything. So this is the opportunity for you to do something for yourselves. If you are united, you can send your representatives to the Assemblies and Parliament for safeguarding of your interests otherwise you will be ruined. So you must unite under the banner of the Scheduled Castes Federation to pull your community out of chaos. Every Achhut should help the Federation in electing their true representatives. Many parties will come to you and ask for votes but do not be misled by them. A few days back, Pandit Nehru came here. It was reported that two-three lakhs of people gathered to hear him. I do not know how many people were there. Yesterday when I visited Jullundur over two lakhs of people gathered there but the pressmen published that thirty thousand people had gathered there. What I want to tell you is that if there is any conference of the Congress, then even if the audience is very thin, they will publish that a large gathering witnessed the Conference. For five they will say fifty for fifty they will say five hundred, for five hundred they will say five thousands and for five thousands they

435IF OUR.....................FARCE will report five lakhs. I do not mind this criticism of the pressmen. They all have criticised me for so many years but in spite of that I have progressed physically as well as mentally. I do not want to witness large gatherings. What I want is that our people should organise themselves to fight against the atrocities of these Caste Hindus. I want that our people should hear me. Whether they gather in small numbers or large numbers is immaterial. Every political party has put forward its Manifesto. Every party promises that if it comes into power it will do this and that. Scheduled Castes Federation has also published a very voluminous Manifesto but when they came to understand that ordinary people would not follow it, they amended it and compressed into a small one. I hope by and by their Manifesto will become smaller and smaller and a day will come when there will be no Manifesto of the Congress. I want to tell you what should be in the Manifesto and what should not be. I challenge all the political parties to constitute a committee to find out which Manifesto is the best and I have no doubt in mind that our Manifesto will be the best of all. All the parties have promised many things in their Manifestoes to the people. To promise is easy but difficult to put it into practice. If you promise one thing you can promise one hundred. Manifesto should not be a list of promises only. It should deal with the problems facing the country and also how to solve these problems. Is there anything of that sort in the Manifesto of the Congress ? The only thing impressed in the Congress Manifesto is the Muslim problem. According to it, there is no other problem facing the country. Can anybody agree to this ? Of course, Muslim problem was there when India was united and when there was no Pakistan. But then too. this was not the only problem. The Muslims have migrated to Pakistan, and only Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities are in India. Do you think that India is now facing Muslim problem ? Do you agree that nothing should be done for the Depressed Classes, who are ten times poorer and backward than the Muslims ? There are Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Criminal Tribes, which need the best attention of the Government. But the Congressmen say that people should not be communal minded and should not demand some special privileges for these backward classes.

436 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The other problem is that of poverty in India. People in India are very poor so much so that 90 per cent people do not get proper meals. They do not get any clothes. They do not have any shelter. Food-stuffs worth crores of rupees are being imported every year. If we have to import even foodstuffs from outside and spend so much, how will we be able to pull on? But all these things have no place in the minds of Congressmen. They have only one problem to solve and that is Muslim problem. I want to inform you that we are putting up candidates for the coming elections through the Scheduled Castes Federation. The Scheduled Castes Federation is for all Backward Classes. Every Backward Class will be given representation. Nobody should be afraid of it. Chamars and Bhangis are all equal. We should be united and nobody should think himself separate from the other. I want to request all men and women that they should leave aside every thing on the day of polling and go to the polling booths and cast their votes. Already our votes are not sufficient and if the voters do not cast their votes on that day, it would not be good for us. We will be unrepresented. The day of polling is the day of life and death for the Scheduled Castes. Every political party which is taking part in the coming elections has been allotted a Party Symbol. Our Federation’s symbol is ‘Elephant’. I have selected this so that there may not be any confusion in the minds of our people. Some parties selected oxen, horses, donkeys as their symbols. But for distinction I have selected ‘Elephant’. This time we will not have the cumulative system of voting so that we may cast all our votes to a single candidate of our choice. But we have distributive system and will have to distribute our votes among different candidates. In a constitutency where a seat has been reserved for Scheduled Castes, people will have two votes, one for general seat and the other for the reserved seat. We cannot cast both of our votes to our party candidate who is standing for the reserved seat. We can cast in his favour only one vote and the other vote must be given to the other candidate standing on general seat. So we shall have to join some party which will give their second vote to our