Vol. 17, Part III · pages 76–80

47PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT always remain an open market for British goods. It is this policy which has made India the land of chronic poverty. In this progressive impoverishment of the people who are those that suffer most? I am sure that of the half of the agricultural population which is admitted not to know from one half year’s end to another what it is to have a full meal the Depressed Classes must form the largest part. Their abject poverty must make them ready victims of famines to which they must be paying the largest toll. If these are your people, if you are really interested in them you cannot shut your eyes or be indifferent to this heart-rending fact. Gentlemen, you cannot keep on singing the praise of a bureaucracy because it has given improved roads, constructed canals on more scientific principles, effected transportation by rail, contrived to carry letters by penny post and flash messages by lightening, has stabilized currency, regulated weights and measures, corrected the prevalent notions of theology, geography, astronomy and medicine and stopped our internal quarrels. All praise is due to this achievement in the field of law and order. But Gentlemen, we must not forget that people including the Depressed Classes do not live on law and order; what they live on is bread and butter. This inexorable law of life must make even the Depressed Classes demand a government that will help the economic prosperity of the country and thereby effect a betterment in their material life. Some of you may question that the poverty of the people is due to lack of production and may urge that it is due to unequal distribution of wealth. I would be the first to admit that the much talked of “annual tribute” which the people of this country pay to England pales away in magnitude before the heavy exactions by the landlords and capitalists of this country from the paltry and hard-earned wages of the masses who toil for them. But I cannot understand how you can expect the British Government to give relief from the crushing weight of the landlords and the capitalists ? One thing we must remember that every Government however powerful suffers as pointed out by Professor Dicey from two very serious limitations. There is first of all an internal limitation which arises from the character, motives and interests of those who are in power and if the British

48 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Government does not sympathize with the living forces operating in Indian society, is inimical to its aspirations, is apathetic to education and disfavours swadeshi, it is not because it cannot favour these things but because it is against its character, motives and interests to do so. The second consideration that limits the authority of every Government is the possibility of external resistence. Does not the Government of India realize the gravity of removing the social evils which are eating into the vitals of Indian society? Does not the Government of India realize that the landlords are squeezing the masses dry? Does not the Government of India realize that the capitalists are not giving the labourers a living wage and decent conditions of work? It does and yet it has not dared to touch any of these evils. Why? Is it because it has no legal powers to remove them? No. The reason why it does not intervene is because it is afraid that its intervention to amend the existing code of social and economic life will give rise to resistence. Of what good is such a government to anybody? Under a government paralysed between two such limitations much that goes to make life good must remain held up. We must have a government in which the men in power will give their undivided allegiance to the best interest of the country. We must have a government in which men in power knowing where obedience will end and resistence will begin will not be afraid to amend the social and economic code of life which the dictates of justice and expediency so urgently call for. This role the British Government will never be able to play. It is only a Government which is of the people, for the people and by the people, in other words, it is only the Swaraj Government that will make this possible. 26. Consider the question from your own narrow point of view. Before the British you were in the loathsome condition due to your Untouchability. Has the British Government done anything to remove your Untouchability ? Before the British you could not draw water from the village well. Has the British Government secured you the right to the well? Before the British you could not enter the temple. Can you enter now ? Before the British you were denied the entry into the Police force. Does the British Government admit you in the force? Before the British

49PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT you were not allowed to serve in the military. Is that career now open to you? Gentlemen, to none of these questions you can give an affirmative answer. Those who have held so much power over the country for such a long time must have done some good. But there is certainly no fundamental attention in your position. So far as you are concerned the British Government has accepted the arrangements as it found them and has preserved them faithfully in the manner of the Chinese tailor who, when given an old coat as a pattern, produced with pride an exact replica, rents, patches and all. Your wrongs have remained as open sores and they have not been righted and I say that the British Government actuated with the best of motives and principles will always remain powerless to effect any change so far as your particular grievances are concerned. No body can remove your grievances as well as you can and you cannot remove them unless you get political power in your own hands. No share of this political power can come to you so long as the British Government remains as it is. It is only in a Swaraj constitution that you stand any chance of getting the political power into your own hands without which you cannot bring salvation to your people. I know that to the majority of our people Swaraj is a weird apparition. It is very natural that it should be so. It recalls to their mind the tyrannies and oppressions and injustices practised upon them by their fellow countrymen and they fear that under Swaraj these violations may recur. But, Gentlemen, if you will for one moment forget the past and visualize the Swaraj of the future with its wholesome devices to protect masses from Classes you will find that far from being a weird apparition it is going to be a system of government in which you yourselves stand the chance, other things being equal, of being amongst those who will be installed as the political sovereigns of this country. Do not be obsessed by the past. Do not be swayed by fear or favour from any quarters in making your decision. Consult your best interests and I am sure you will accept Swaraj as your goal. 27. If you accept this view then you cannot approve of the recommendations of the Simon Commission with regard to the future government of India. I cannot enter into a detailed

50 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES examination of the Report of the Commission. Time will not permit me to do that. I will content myself withdrawing your attention to the degree of responsibility that the Commission seeks to introduce in the government of the country. In the Central Government the Commission does not make any fundamental change in the position of the Executive. The Executive there, is to remain as irresponsible as it is. In the Provinces there is an attempt to make the Executive responsible to the Legislature. But this is made subject to the emergency powers of the Governor who by virtue of it may appoint to the Provincial Executive persons who are not responsible to the Provincial Legislature and may take over charge of any department. Gentlemen, I propose to make only one comment upon this scheme of the Simon Commission. It seems to me that there are two ways of approaching the problem. One is how much power to give to the Indian Legislatures, Central and Provincial, over their Executives. The other is how much power the Executive in India, Central or Provincial, must be allowed to retain as against their respective Legislatures. Of the two modes of approach the one adopted by the Simon Commission is the first. It seems to me that when the Legislatures are fully representative of all the interests concerned the right mode of approach is the second and not the first. If I am right then the conclusion is to introduce responsibility in every sphere except where its introduction is not for the present feasible. I know of no reason why the Provincial Executive should not be made fully responsible. Nor does it seem to me difficult to introduce responsibility in the Central Government except in matters pertaining to the Military and Foreign affairs. 28. Some of us may say that Delhi is yet far off and that the Depressed Classes should confine themselves to the question of responsibility in the Provinces. To them I wish to suggest that in formulating their views upon the question of responsibility in the Central or the Provincial Executive they will bear two things in mind. One is that the welfare of the country including that of the Depressed Classes is more intimately and more extensively bound up with the Central Government than it is with the Provincial Government. Therefore to a very

51PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT large extent the prosperity of the people of this country will depend upon how well and how easily the Central mill will grind. How well it will grind will depend upon to what extent it will move in sympathy with the Legislature. From this point of view we cannot be indifferent to the question of responsibility in the Central Government if you are anxious to see a rapid advance in the moral and material condition of the people. But there is another consideration which points in the same direction. The Provincial Executive will always remain an important agent of the Central Government in the maintenance of law and order. The two must have their mandates from the same source if they are to work in harmony. Otherwise there will be serious conflict between the two. A Provincial Executive responsible to the Provincial Legislature cannot possibly take its orders from a Central Government which is subject not to the Central Legislature but to the Secretary of State. And in this conflict the administration of the country may be completely paralysed in times of emergency. You cannot therfore introduce responsibility in the Provincial Executive without at the same time introducing some degree of responsibility in the Central Executive whether you like it or not. VI. Depressed Classes And Civil Disobedience. 29. Gentlemen, even if we support the ideal of Dominion Status with safeguards does it necessarily follow that we must join the Civil Disobedience Movement started in this country by Mahatma Gandhi in March last ? This is a question about which you shall have to make your position plain. The movement is condemned as you are aware by all moderate opinion as being unconstitutional. That argument I must confess does not appeal to me. What would you say if the orthodox classes were to tell you that your temple entry movement is an unconstitutional movement? That instead of direct action your proper method is by petitions to the orthodox classes, suits in Court of Law and attempts to alter the Law ? Would you be satisfied with such limitations upon your resources in your battle for freedom against the orthodoxy ? It seeems to me that you can insist upon the use of constitutional means only if there