Vol. 17, Part III · pages 86–90

57PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT force that will be counted by all others, so that their views and their interests will prevail on all occasions. The Depressed Classes movement seems to me to suffer from two grave lacunae. First of all, there is no such thing as a public opinion of the Depressed Classes and secondly, there is no means for a concerted action by the Depressed Classes as a whole. It seems to me that the real reason why our grievances have remained unredressed is because we have remained dumb for ages and have not cared to ventilate them. We cannot with justice blame the Government or the reformers for our condition. We must admit that the voiceless state in which we have chosen to remain imposes its responsibility upon them without giving them a clear guidance or a strong backing. I have been anxiously considering as to why the resolutions that we pass at our meetings, the representations that we make to Government, and the demands that we make on our behalf do not receive the same serious consideration at the hands of the powers that be as they do in the case of other communities. And it has been borne in upon me that we are ineffective because we are still provincial in our actions. The demands made in any one Province do not receive the support and backing of other Provinces when they certainly would if they were putforth by a central organization. I think it is high time that the Depressed Classes be stirred themselves and formed an All-India Organisation which would give voice to their opinions and provide them with the machinery for concerted action. There has come into existence for the last two or three years a body known as the “All-India Depressed Classes Association”. It is an open secret that the Association is a body which has only office-bearers but no members. That is certainly the case of its branch in my Province. Such a bogus, make-believe organisation cannot be of any service to the Depressed Classes. You must have an organisation which will be a live institution, which will express the true sentiments of the Depressed Classes and will gather in its fold the true workers of the community with its net-work spread over the whole of the country. It will be a great service, if this meeting were to appoint a small committee to draft the constitution of such an organisation as I have referred to. It is great consideration and it should be made good without delay.

58 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES VIII. Uplift of the Depressed Classes. 35. Gentlemen, I have insisted, at more length than perhaps I need have done, upon the necessity of our securing political power. But I must now take this opportunity to emphasize that political power cannot be a panacea for the ills of the Depressed Classes. Their salvation lies in their social elevation. The Depressed Classes must be cleansed of their evil habits. They must be improved of their bad ways of living. By a change in their mode of life they must be made fit for respect and friendship. They must be educated. Mere knowledge of the three “R”s will be quite insufficient for the great heights that many of them must reach in order that the whole community may along with them rise in the general estimation. There is great necessity to disturb their pathetic contentment and to instil into them that divine discontent which is the spring of all self-elevation. And last but by no means least in importance, is the necessity to encourage and energize the Depressed Classes so that they will shed all their fears and begin to exercise their rights of humanity in common with the rest. These results will not follow the advent of political power in our hands. We must recognize that, that is only a means to an end. I am uttering this warning because I wish to avoid the fatal mistake involved in the supposition that because a few from amongst the Depressed Classes will be taking their seats as members of the Legislatures, that thereby the Depressed Classes will cease to be depressed. All this, is the work of social uplift. It must be undertaken by organisations of Depressed Classes modelled on the Servants of India Society of the late Mr. Gokhale or the Servants of the People Society of the late Lala Lajpatrai. Conclusion. 36. Gentlemen, I regret I have worried you with a speech which I must admit is inordinately long. But I have felt that though brevity should always be the aim, yet on occasions of this sort where people unaccustomed to politics meet for the first time to decide most fateful issues it would be desirable to place before them all sides of the question. My excuse for

59PEOPLE CEMENTED............INDEPENDENT this long speech lies in my desire to give you the fullest guidance I can. I hope that this meeting of ours will not be the last and that it will mark the beginning of a great movement which will result in the emancipation of our people and the establishment of such a state of society in this country of ours in which one man will have one value in all domains of life political, social and economic. I thank you once more, both for the honour and the hearing you have bestowed upon me.” 1 zz 1 : Printed and Published by the Bharat Bhushan Press; Kamathipura, 3rd Lane, Bombay No. 8.

6 SECURE CONSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARDS AND GUARANTEES “A very largely attended meeting of the members of the Bombay Depressed Classes, both Gujrathis and Maharattas, was held during the week-end* in the Town Hall, Bombay, Dr. P. G. Solanki presiding. The meeting was called to explain the demands formulated at the Congress of the Depressed Classes held at Nagpur recently. The principal speaker was Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, president of the Congress. Dr. Ambedkar dwelt upon the necessity for securing constitutional safeguards and guarantees for the Depressed Classes. He exhorted them to keep aloof from the Civil Disobedience Movement.”1 zz *The date of meeting was not mentioned—Editors. 1 : The Times of India, dated 2nd September 1930.

7 AGITATE MUCH MORE, ORGANISE BETTER, THAN AT PRESENT “The 36th Anniversary of the Sant Samaj Sangh, a spiritual association of the Depressed Classes, was celebrated at Poona on Thursday the September 27, 1930 when, in the absence of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar for a time owing to a previous engagement. Mr. B. G. Jagtap, Principal of the Shivaji Maratha High School. presided. In addressing the gathering Mr. K. G. Patade, the Secretary of the Depressed Classes Mission Society, Poona, gave a short history of the Sangh, the special feature of which, he pointed out, was the spreading of the gospel of social equality among the Depressed Classes. The Sant Samaj Sangh organisation was a moral force for uniting the masses and the Depressed Classes. He paid glowing tributes to the work of Dr. Ambedkar and Subhedar Ghatge and thought that the nomination of the latter to the Bombay Legislative Council on behalf of the Depressed Classes would be for their good. Dr. Ambedkar, who had arrived by this time and taken the chair, was given an ovation when he rose to address the meeting. In the course of his address he pointed out that his personal activities were not sufficient to bring about the redress of the grievances of the Depressed Classes who, he said, must agitate much more and orgainse themselves better than they were at present organised. Dr. Ambedkar emphasised that he would do his best to bring home to the British at the Round Table Conference the grievances of the Depressed Classes and secure as many rights for them as possible” 1 zz 1 : The Times of India, dated 29th September 1930.