Vol. 5 · pages 431–435

416 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES injustice. Isolation means denial of protection, denial of justice, denial of opportunity. Isolation means want of sympathy, want of fellowship and want of consideration. Nay, isolation means positive hatred and antipathy from the Hindus. By having kinship with other community on the other hand, the Untouchables will have within that community equal position, equal protection and equal justice, will be able to draw upon its sympathy, its good-will. This I venture to say is a complete answer to the question raised by the opponents. It shows what the Untouchables can gain by conversion. It is however desirable to carry the matter further and dispose of another question which has not been raised so far by the opponents of conversion but may be raised. The question is : why is conversion necessary to establish kinship ? The answer to this question will reveal itself if it is borne in mind that there is a difference between a community and a society and between kinship and citizenship. A community in the strict sense of the word is a body of kindred. A society is a collection of many communities or of different bodies of kindreds. The bond which holds a community together is called kinship while the bond which holds a society together is called citizenship. The means of acquiring citizenship in a society are quite different from the means of acquiring kinship in a community. Citizenship is acquired by what is called naturalization. The condition precedent for citizenship is the acceptance of political allegiance to the State. The conditions precedent for acquiring kinship are quite different. At one stage in evolution of man the condition precedent for adoption into the kindred was unity of blood. For the kindred is a body of persons who conceive themselves as spring from one ancestor and as having in their veins one blood. It does not matter whether each group has actually and in fact spring from a single ancestor. As a matter of fact, a group did admit a stranger into the kindred though he did not spring from the same ancestor. It is interesting to note that there was a rule that if a stranger intermarried with a group for seven generations, he became a member of the kindred. The point is that, fiction though it be, admission into the kindred required as a condition precedent unity of blood. At a later stage of Man’s Evolution, common religion in place of unity of blood became a condition precedent to kinship. In this connection it is necessary to bear in mind the important fact pointed out by Prof. Robertson Smith 1 that in a community the social body is 1 The Religion of the Semites. Lecture II. Prof. Smith makes this distinction as though it was a distinction between ancient society and modern society. It is of wider importance. In reality, it is a distinction which marks off a community from a society.

417 AWAY FROM THE HINDUS made not of men only, but of gods and men and therefore any stranger who wants to enter a community and forge the bond of kinship can do so only by accepting the God or Gods of the community. The Statement in the Old Testament such as those of Naomi to Ruth saying : “Thy sister is gone back into her people and unto her gods” and Ruth’s reply “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” or the calling of the Mobites the sons and daughters of Chemosh are all evidences which show that the bond of kinship in a community is the consequence of their allegiance to a common religion. Without common religion there can be no kinship. Where people are waiting to find faults in the argument in favour of conversion it is better to leave no ground for fault-finders to create doubt or misunderstanding. It might therefore be well to explain how and in what manner religion is able to forge the bond of kinship. The answer is simple. It does it through eating and drinking together. 1 The Hindus in defending their caste system ridicule the plea for inter-dining. They ask : What is there in inter-dining ? The answer from a sociological point of view is that is everything in it. Kinship is a social covenant of brotherhood. Like all convenants it required to be signed, sealed and delivered before it can become binding. The mode of signing, sealing and delivery is the mode prescribed by religion and that mode is the participation in a sacrificial meal. As said by Prof. Smith 2 : “What is the ultimate nature of the fellowship which is constituted or declared when men eat and drink together ? In our complicated society fellowship has many types and many degrees; men may be united by bonds of duty and honour for certain purposes, and stand quite apart in all other things. Even in ancient times—for example, in the Old Testament—we find the sacrament of a common meal introduced to seal engagements of various kinds. But in every case the engagement is absolute and inviolable; it constitutes what in the language of ethics is called a duty of perfect obligation. Now in the most primitive society there is only one kind of fellowship which is absolute and inviolable. To the primitive man all other, men fall under two classes, those to whom his life is sacred and those to whom it is not sacred. The former are his fellows; the latter are strangers and potential foemen, with whom it is absurd to think of forming any inviolable tie unless they are first brought into the circle within which each man’s life is sacred to all his comrades.” If for the Untouchables mere citizenship is not enough to put an end to their isolation and the troubles which ensue therefrom, if kinship is 1 On this subject see Smith, The Religion of the Semites, pp. 270-71. 2 Ibid., pp. 271-72.

418 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the only cure then there is no other way except to embrace the religion of the community whose kinship they seek. The argument so far advanced was directed to show how conversion can end the problem of the isolation of the Untouchables. There remain two other questions to be considered. One is, will conversion remove their inferiority complex ? One cannot of course dogmatize. But one can have no hesitation in answering the question in the affirmative. The inferiority complex of the Untouchables is the result of their isolation, discrimination and the unfriendliness of the social environment. It is these which have created a feeling of helplessness which are responsible for the inferiority complex which cost him the power of self-assertion. Can religion alter this psychology of the Untouchables ? The psychologists are of opinion that religion can effect this cure provided it is a religion of the right type; provided that the religion approaches the individual not as a degraded worthless outcastes but as a fellow human being; provided religion gives him an atmosphere in which he will find that there are possibilities for feeling himself the equal of every other human being there is no reason why conversion to such a religion by the Untouchables should not remove their age-long pessimism which is responsible for their inferiority complex. As pointed out by Prof. Ellwood :1 “Religion is primarily a valuing attitude, universalizing the will and the emotions, rather than the ideas of man. It thus harmonizes men, on the side of will and emotion, with his world. Hence, it is the fee of pessimism and despair. It encourages hope, and gives confidence in the battle of life, to the savage as well as to the civilized man. It does so, as we have said, because it braces vital feeling; and psychologists tell us that the reason why it braces vital feeling is because it is an adaptive process in which all of the lower centres of life are brought to reinforce the higher centres. The universalization of values means, in other words, in psychophysical terms, that the lower nerve centres pour their energies into the higher nerve centres, thus harmonizing and bringing to a maximum of vital efficiency life on its inner side. It is thus that religion taps new levels of energy, for meeting the crisis of life, while at the same time it brings about a deeper harmony between the inner and the outer.” Will conversion raise the general social status of the Untouchables ? It is difficult to see how there can be two opinions on this question. The oft-quoted answer given by Shakespeare to the question what is 1 The Reconstruction of Religion, pp. 40-41.

419 AWAY FROM THE HINDUS in a name hardly shows sufficient understanding of the problem of a name. A rose called by another name would smell as sweet would be true if names served no purpose and if people instead of depending upon names took the trouble of examining each case and formed their opinions and attitudes about it on the basis of their examination. Unfortunately, names serve a very important purpose. They play a great part in social economy. Names are symbols. Each name represents association of certain ideas and notions about a certain object. It is a label. From the label people know what it is. It saves them the trouble of examining each case individually and determine for themselves whether the ideas and notions commonly associated with the object are true. People in society have to deal with so many objects that it would be impossible for them to examine each case. They must go by the name that is why all advertisers are keen in finding a good name. If the name is not attractive the article does not go down with the people. The name ‘Untouchable’ is a bad name. It repels, forbids, and stinks. The social attitude of the Hindu towards the Untouchable is determined by the very name ‘Untouchable’. There is a fixed attitude towards ‘Untouchables’ which is determined by the stink which is imbedded in the name ‘Untouchable’. People have no mind to go into the individual merits of each Untouchable no matter how meritorious he is. All untouchables realize this. There is a general attempt to call themselves by some name other than the ‘Untouchables’. The Chamars call themselves Ravidas or Jatavas. The Doms call themselves Shilpakars. The Pariahs call themselves Adi-Dravidas, the Madigas call themselves Arundhatyas, the Mahars call themselves Chokhamela or Somavamshi and the Bhangis call themselves Balmikis. All of them if away from their localities would call themselves Christians. The Untouchables know that if they call themselves Untouchables they will at once draw the Hindu out and expose themselves to his wrath and his prejudice. That is why they give themselves other names which may be likened to the process of undergoing protective discolouration. It is not seldom that this discolouration completely fails to serve its purpose. For to be a Hindu is for Hindus not an ultimate social category. The ultimate social category is caste, nay sub-caste if there is a sub-caste. When the Hindus meet ‘May I know who are you’ is a question sure to be asked. To this question ‘I am a Hindu’ will not be a satisfactory answer. It will certainly not be accepted as a final answer. The inquiry is bound to be further pursued. The answer

420 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES ‘Hindu’ is bound to be followed by another; ‘What caste ?’. The answer to that is bound to be followed by question : “What sub-caste ?” It is only when the questioner reaches the ultimate social category which is either caste or sub-caste that he will stop his questionings. The Untouchable who adopts the new name is a protective discolouration finds that the new name does not help and that in the course of relentless questionings he is, so to say, run down to earth and made to disclose that he is an Untouchable. The concealment makes him the victim of greater anger than his original voluntary disclosure would have done. From this discussion two things are clear. One is that the low status of the Untouchables is bound upon with a stinking name. Unless the name is changed there is no possibility of a rise in their social status. The other is that a change of name within Hinduism will not do. The Hindu will not fail to penetrate through such a name and make the Untouchable and confer himself as an Untouchable. The name matters and matters a great deal. For, the name can make a revolution in the status of the Untouchables. But the name must be the name of a community outside Hinduism and beyond its power of spoliation and degradation. Such name can be the property of the Untouchable only if they undergo religious conversion. A conversion by change of name within Hinduism is a clandestine conversion which can be of no avail. This discussion on conversion may appear to be somewhat airy. It is bound to be so. It cannot become material unless it is known which religion the Untouchables choose to accept. For what particular advantage would flow from conversion would depend upon the religion selected and the social position of the followers of that religion. One religion may give them all the three benefits, another only two and a third may result in conferring upon them only one of the advantages of conversion. What religion the Untouchables should choose is not the subject matter of this Chapter. The subject matter of this Chapter is whether conversion can solve the problem of untouchability. The answer to that qustion is emphatically in the affirmative. The force of the argument, of course, rests on a view of religion which is somewhat different from the ordinary view according to which religion is concerned with man’s relation to God and all that it means. According to this view, religion exists not for the saving of