Vol. 3 · pages 51–55

38 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The names among Hindus fall into four classes. They are either connected with (i) family deity (ii) the month in which the child is born (iii) with the planets under which a child is born or (iv) are purely temporal i.e. connected with business. According to Manu the temporal name of a Hindu should consist of two parts and Manu gives directions as to what the first and the second part should denote. The second part of a Brahmin’s name shall be a word implying happiness; of a Kshatriya’s a word implying protection; of a Vaishya’s a term expressive of prosperity and of a Shudra’s an expression denoting service. Accordingly the Brahmins have Shatma (happiness) or Deva (God), the Kshatriyas have Raja (authority) or Verma (armour), the Vaishyas have Gupta (gifts) or Datta (Giver) and the Shudras have Das (service) for the second part of their names. As to the first part of their names Manu says that in the case of a Brahmin it should denote something auspicious, in the case of a Kshatriya something connected with power, in the case of a Vaishya something connected with wealth. But in the case of a Shudra Manu says the first part of his name should denote something contemptible!! Those who think that such a philosophy is incredible would like to know the exact reference. For their satisfaction I am reproducing the following texts from Manu. Regarding the naming ceremony Manu says:— II. 30. Let (the father perform or) cause to be performed the namadheya (the rite of naming the child), on the tenth or twelfth (day after birth), or on a lucky lunar day, in a lucky muhurta, under an auspicious constellation. II. 31. Let (the first part of) a Brahman’s name (denote) something auspicious, a Kshatriya’s name be connected with power, and a Vaishya’s with wealth, but a Shudra’s (express something) contemptible. II. 32. (The second part of) a Brahman’s (name) shall be (a word) implying happiness, of a Kshatriya’s (a word) implying protection, of a Vaishya’s (a term) expressive of thriving, and of a Shudra’s (an expression) denoting service. Manu will not tolerate the Shudra to have the comfort of a high sounding name. He must be contemptible both in fact and in name. Enough has been said to show how Hinduism is a denial of equality both social as well as religious and how it is also a degradation of human personality. Does Hinduism recognize liberty? Liberty to be real must be accompanied by certain social conditions. 1 1See Laski—Liberty in the Modern State.

39 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM In the first place there should be social equality. “Privilege tilts the balance of social action in favour of its possessors. The more equal are the social rights of citizens, the more able they are to utilize their freedom……If liberty is to move to its appointed end it is important that there should be equality.” In the second place there must be economic security. “A man may be free to enter any vocation he may choose…….Yet if he is deprived of security in employment he becomes a prey of mental and physical servitude incompatible with the very essence of liberty… The perpetual fear of the morrow, its haunting sense of impending disaster, its fitful search for happiness and beauty which perpetually eludes, shows that without economic security, liberty is not worth having. Men may well be free and yet remain unable to realize the purposes of freedom”. In the third place there must be knowledge made available to all. In the complex world man lives at his peril and he must find his way in it without losing his freedom. “There can, under these conditions, be no freedom that is worthwhile unless the mind is trained to use its freedom. (Given this fact) the right of man to education becomes fundamental to his freedom. Deprive a man of knowledge and you will make him inevitably the slave of those more fortunate than himself…… deprivation of knowledge is a denial of the power to use liberty for great ends. An ignorant man may be free.... (But) he cannot employ his freedom so as to give him assurance of happiness.” Which of these conditions does Hinduism satisfy? How Hinduism is a denial of equality has already been made clear. It upholds privilege and inequality. Thus in Hinduism the very first condition for liberty is conspicuous by its absence. Regarding economic security three things shine out in Hinduism. In the first place Hinduism denies freedom of a vocation. In the Scheme of Manu each man has his avocation preordained for him before he is born. Hinduism allows no choice. The occupation being preordained it has no relation to capacity nor to inclination. In the second place Hinduism compels people to serve ends chosen by others. Manu tells the Shudra that he is born to serve the higher classes. He exhorts him to make that his ideal. Observe the following rules laid down by Manu. X. 121. If a Shudra (unable to subsist by serving Brahmanas) seeks a livelihood, he may serve Kshatriyas, or he may also seek to maintain himself by attending on a wealthy Vaishya. X. 122. But let a Shudra serve Brahmans…..

40 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Manu does not leave the matter of acting upto the ideal to the Shudra. He goes a step further and provides that the Shudra does not escape or avoid his destined task. For one of the duties enjoined by Manu upon the King is to see that all castes including the Shudra to discharge their appointed tasks. VIII. 410. “The king should order each man of the mercantile class to practice trade, or money lending, or agriculture and attendance on cattle; and each man of the servile class to act in the service of the twice born.” VIII. 418. “With vigilant care should the king exert himself in compelling merchants and mechanics to perform their respective duties; for, when such men swerve from their duty, they throw this world into confusion.” Failure to maintain was made an offence in the King punishable at Law. VIII. 335. “Neither a father, nor a preceptor, nor a friend, nor a mother, nor a wife, nor a son, nor a domestic priest must be left unpunished by the King, if they adhere not with firmness to their duty.” VIII. 336. “Where another man of lower birth would be fined one pana, the king shall be fined a thousand, and he shall give the fine to the priests, or cast it into the river, this is a sacred rule.” These rules have a two-fold significance, spiritual as well as economic. In the spiritual sense they constitute the gospel of slavery. This may not be quite apparent to those who know slavery only by its legal outward form and not by reference to its inner meaning. With reference to its inner meaning a slave as defined by Plato means a person who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct. In this sense a slave is not an end in himself. He is only a means for filling the ends desired by others. Thus understood the Shudra is a slave. In their economic significance the Rules put an interdict on the economic independence of the Shudra. A Shudra, says Manu, must serve. There may not be much in that to complain of. The wrong however consists in that the. rules require him to serve others. He is not to serve himself, which means that he must not strive after economic independence. He must forever remain economically dependent on others. For as Manu says:— I. 91. One occupation only the lord prescribed to the Shudra to serve meekly even these other three castes. In the third place Hinduism leaves no scope for the Shudra to accumulate wealth. Menu’s rules regarding the wages to be paid to the

41 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM Shudra when employed by the three higher classes are very instructive on this point. Dealing with the question of wages to the Shudras, Manu says:— X. 124. “They must allot to him (Shudra) out of their own family property a suitable maintenance, after considering his ability, his industry, and the number of those whom he is bound to support.” X. 125. “The remnants of their food must be given to him, as well as their old clothes, the refuse of their grain, and their old household furniture. This is Manu’s law of wages. It is not a minimum wage law. It is a maximum wage law. It was also an iron law fixed so low that there was no fear of the Shudra accumulating wealth and obtaining economic security. But Manu did not want to take chances and he went to the length of prohibiting the Shudra from accumulating property. He says imperatively:— X. 129. No collection of wealth must be made by a Shudra even though he be able to do it; for a Shudra who has acquired wealth gives pain to Brahmans. Thus in Hinduism, there is no choice of avocation. There is no economic independence and there is no economic security.. Economically, speaking of a Shudra is a precarious thing. In the matter of the spread of knowledge two conditions are prerequisites. There must be formal education. There must be literacy. Without these two, knowledge cannot spread. Without formal education it is not possible to transmit all the resources and achievements of a complex society. Without formal education the accumulated thought and experience relating to a subject cannot be made accessible to the young and which they will never get if they were left to pick up their training in informal association with others. Without formal education he will not get new perceptions. His horizon will not be widened and he will remain an ignorant slave of his routine work. But formal education involves the establishment of special agencies such as schools, books, planned materials such as studies etc. How can any one take advantage of these special agencies of formal education unless he is literate and able to read and write? The spread of the arts of reading and writing i.e. literacy and formal education go hand in hand. Without the existence of two there can be no spread of knowledge. How does Hinduism stand in this matter? The conception of formal education in Hinduism is of a very limited character. Formal education was confined only to the study of the

42 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Vedas. That was only natural. For the Hindus believed that there was no I knowledge outside the Vedas. That being so formal education was confined to the study of the Vedas. Another consequence was that the Hindu recognized that its only duty was to study in the schools established for the study of the Vedas. These schools benefitted only the Brahmins. The State did not hold itself responsible for opening establishments for the study of arts and sciences which concerned the life of the merchant and the artisan. Neglected by the state they had to shift for themselves. Each class managed to transmit to its members the ways of doing things it was traditionally engaged in doing. The duties of the Vaishya class required that a young Vaishya should know the rudiments of commercial geography, arithmetic,, some languages as well as the practical details of trade. This he learned from his father in the course of the business. The Artisan’s class or the Craftsman who sprang out of the ‘Shudra class also taught the arts and crafts to their children in the same way. Education was domestic. Education was practical. It only increased the skill to do a particular thing. It did not lead to new perceptions. It did not widen horizon, with the result that the practical education taught him only an isolated and uniform way of acting so that in a changing environment the skill turned out to be gross ineptitude. Illiteracy became an inherent part of Hinduism by a process which is indirect but integral to Hinduism. To understand this process it is necessary to draw attention to rules framed by Manu in regard to the right to teach and study the Vedas. They are dealt with in the following Rules. I. 88. To the Brahmanas he (the creator) assigned teaching and studying the Veda. I. 89. The Kshatriya he (the creator) commanded to study the Veda. I. 90. The Vaishya he (the creator) commanded ……to study the Veda. II. 116. He who shall acquire knowledge of the Veda without the assent of his preceptor, incurs the guilt of stealing the scripture, .and shall sink to the region of torment.” IV. 99. He (the twice born) must never read (the Veda)….. in the presence of the Shudras. IX. 18. Women have no business with the text of the Veda. XI. 199. A twice born man who has….. (improperly) divulged the Veda (i.e. to Shudras and women) (commits sin), atones for his offence, if he subsists a year on barley. In these texts there are embodied three distinct propositions. The Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya can study the Vedas. Of these the