Vol. 17, Part III · pages 56–60

27PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT Does not the case of India itself prove the point ? If India today has a feeling of unity and nationhood, however inchocate, the cause of it admittedly is the common Government under which she has been living since the British rule. Historically as well as logically it seems to me not open for any one to urge that the diversity of condition and peoples puts a bar in the way of India’s self-government. Indeed, if the ideal is that India should be a united nation, I venture to say, selfgovernment would be the most potent instrument for the realisation of that ideal. II. Conditions of the Problem. 5. You will no doubt ask, is this diversity of conditions and peoples prevalent in India a matter of no consequence ? Need we not take it into account in framing the constitution for a self-governing India ? I say without hesitation that we must. There is a tendency in the average Congress politician in India to ignore this diversity of conditions and peoples and to insist upon a constitution for a self-governing India free from any limitations or restrictions. Gentlemen, where would be the centre of political power in the constitution of a self-governing India which did not recognise the social conditions of the country ? Do you think it will find its lodgement in the members of the minority communities ? Do you think it probable that the lower classes can become heirs to it ? If I am certain of anything it is of this; that in a self-governing India which did not recognize the hard facts of Indian society the strings of political power will be in the hands of the ambitious members of the upper strata of Indian society drawn from the high-placed, well educated and opulent castes, i. e. in the hands of the aristocracy of wealth, education and social standing. In politics as in other walks of life the victory is always to the stronger. The aristocracy will have the resources derived from wealth and education. But this will not be the only advantage in favour of the aristocracy against which members of the minor and weaker communities will have to struggle for their share of political power. There is another which, though subtle in its operation. is yet real. It consists in its social determinism. In this

28 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES determinism there is no place for merit or ability. The only thing that counts is kinship which prompts the Indian to discriminate against persons who are not his kindred. The effect of this determinism operating in the minds of the members of the majority community is bound to put members of the smaller communities at a formidable disadvantage and may indeed for ever shut them out from political power. The working out of this social determinism is bound to be most pernicious to the Depressed Classes. As you are aware the gradation of castes in India, founded as it is in theology, forms an ascending scale of reverence and a descending scale of contempt. The effect of this gradation is to create in the minds of the lower orders a preference for the members of the higher and in the minds of the higher orders a repulsion for the members of the lower. The working of such a psychology is bound to be disastrous to the Depressed Classes in their struggle for political power. Without casting a single vote in favour of the Untouchables, the touchables will be able to make a large draft upon the votes of the Untouchables who will therefore not only lose in the fight but will quite unwillingly help their opponents to win. If the effect of the ignoring of the social facts is to make the aristocracy of wealth, education and social standing the governing caste, I think it is our duty to prevent it by all means consistent with our aim. For, surely we ought not to be content with the mere change of masters. I agree with the Congressman that no country is good enough to rule over another. But I must also take the liberty to tell him pointblank that the proposition does not end there and that it is equally true that no class is good enough to rule over another class. In the competition between the members of the European bureaucracy and the native aristocracy—I am using the word to denote the combined force of wealth, education and superior social standing—as to who can best look after the masses, the aristocracy asserts that as far as knowledge of the conditions of the life of the masses, their habits, their ways of living and thinking, their wants and grievances, and ability to enter into their thoughts and appreciate what is necessary for them, are concerned, it has all these in a far higher degree than the European bureaucracy can lay claim to.

29PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT But be that as it may ; it seems to me that the aristocracy cannot escape the charge that its members have in them a class bias, a definite clanishness, a tendency to favour their own kindred, which makes them quite unworthy of being entrusted with power to decide the destiny of the masses. Indeed one might go to the length of saying that due to the great social gap that separates it from the masses and the superior isolation in which it lives, it cannot be said to be charged with the wants, the cravings and the desires of the masses; it may even be said that it is quite inimical to their aspirations. What makes me so emphatic in my assertion that the aristorcracy cannot be trusted with political power is because the root notions of democracy on the operation of which alone self-governing India can be safe for the masses run counter to all the ideas which for thousands of years have formed and do form even to-day the common stock of their beliefs. The fundamental principle of the modern democratic state is the recognition of the value of the individual, and the belief that as each individual has but one life, full opportunity should be accorded to each to attain his maximum development in that life. Neither of these propositions be said to form the part of the accepted philosophy of the aristocracy of India. They rather hold that the present life is for each only one of a series of existences, that the position of each individual in this life has been determined for him by his merits or demerits in his previous births, and that therefore no character howsoever high, no ability howsoever great which a man may have to his credit can alter his place in the social strata in which he is born. With the aristocracy the notion that a man born a Brahmin cannot be other than a Brahmin and a man born a Pariah cannot be other than a Pariah, is no idle talk; it is a living and operative faith. To give unrestricted power in the hands of the people of this sort is to arm the hangman with a knife. 6. We, who take this attitude, are mercilessly denounced as communalists and often as the enemies of the country. The Congressman is never tired of reiterating that in every country power always rests in the hands of the intelligentsia and that in the interest of efficient administration it must always be so. Those who will have us leave the coming political power in the hands of the aristocracy seem to think that the social and

30 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the political are two separate compartments of human conduct having no inter-action between them. Gentlemen, you must be on guard against being led away by such a mechanical notion of human conduct. If you will beware of such abstraction you will realize that men cannot be reduced for political purposes any more than for any other, to bare figures, marks to be placed in rows over against one another. A man when he comes to vote-taking that to be the embodiment of politics-does not put off from him, like a suit of old clothes, his outlook, his interests and his opinions and become a naked unit. He carries with him in his voting all that which goes to make his personality and determine his attitude towards life. The talents of the aristocracy are a great asset to the country. But these talents by themselves cannot give it any title to manage the affairs of the country. That title must depend upon its character and the use which it is likely to make of its talents. We must look not to efficiency but to utility before we admit its right to rule over us. For, as Addison has observed, that “There can be no greater injury to human society than that good talents among men should be held honourable to those who are endowed with them without any regard how they are applied. The gifts of nature and the accomplishments of art are valuable but as they are exerted in the interest of virtue or governed by the rules of honour. We ought to abstract our minds from the observation of an excellence in those we converse, with, till we have taken some notice or received some good information of the disposition of their minds; otherwise the beauty of their person or the charms of their wit may make us fond of those who our reason and judgment will tell us we ought to abhor.” I have already dwelt upon the character of the aristocracy which is clamouring for political power and I need say nothing more. But one cannot pass over certain very shameful things for the continuance of which the aristocracy of this country must be held responsible. In this country there are between 50 and 60 millions of people who are suffering from the curse of Untouchability- a curse and a calamity unknown in any other part of the world. They are denied the elementary rights due to every human being and refused the benefits of civilization and culture. Without equality of

31PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT opportunity theirs is the most degraded condition. Besides the Untouchables, there is still in this country an equally huge population of aboriginals and hill tribes who are left to roam about in a nomadic and barbarous state without any attempt to bring them within the pale of civilization and culture. These things bear an eloquent testimony to the spirit of service and the sense of responsibility which the aristocracy has shown in the past. We are asked to believe that the conduct of the aristocracy will be entirely different in the future. I am not sufficiently credulous to accept this. For, I know of no instance of the satans of to-day to have been transformed overnight into angels on the morrow. 7. We are also told that the settlement of the social problem should wait till the political freedom of the country is achieved. A wise man will not fall in with this line of thought. Before one enters into what is called a parlour one must make certain that it is not a trap. Every one of us knows or ought to know that the man in possession is more powerful than the man who is out of possession. Every one of us also knows or ought to know that those in possession of power seldom abdicate in favour of those who are out of it. You cannot therefore hope the effectuation of the settlement of the social problem if you allow power to slip into the hands of those who stand to lose by the settlement unless you are prepared to have another revolution to dethrone those whom you have helped to capture power. Gentlemen, my advice to you is the advice of the great political philosopher Edmund Burke, who said, “Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.” Following that advice I think it would be just and proper for us to insist that the best guarantee for the settlement of social problem is the adjustment of the political machine itself, and not the will of those who are contriving to be left in unfettered control of that machine. III. Safeguards for the Depressed Classes. 8. It must therefore be made clear that while we do not think that the social factors can be a bar to self-government in India we do not admit that the constitution of a self-governing