Vol. 8 · pages 271–275

246 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The other feature is the “preparations” which the Muslims and Hindus are making against each other without abatement. It is like a race in armaments between two hostile nations. If the Hindus have the Benares University, the Musalmans must have the Aligarh University. If the Hindus start Shudhi movement, the Muslims must launch the Tablig movement. If the Hindus start Sangathan, the Muslims must meet it by Tanjim. If the Hindus have the R. S. S. S.,* the Muslims must reply by organizing the Khaksars.† This race in social armament and equipment is run with the determination and apprehension characteristic of nations which are on the war path. The Muslims fear that the Hindus are subjugating them. The Hindus feel that the Muslims are engaged in reconquering them. Both appear to be preparing for war and each is watching the “preparations” of the other. Such a state of things cannot but be ominous. It is a vicious circle. If the Hindus make themselves stronger, the Musalmans feel menaced. The Muslims endeavour to increase their forces to meet the menace and the Hindus then do the same to equalize the position. As the preparations proceed, so does the suspicion, the secrecy, and the plotting. The possibilities of peaceful adjustment are poisoned at the source and precisely because everyone is fearing and preparing for it that “war” between the two tends to become inevitable. But in the situation in which they find themselves, for the Hindus and the Muslims not to attend to anything, except to prepare themselves to meet the challenge of each other, is quite natural. It is a struggle for existence and the issue, that counts, is survival and not the quality or the plane of survival. Two things must be said to have emerged from this discussion. One is that the Hindus and the Muslims regard each other as a menace. The second is that to meet this menace, both have suspended the cause of removing the social evils with which they are infested. Is this a desirable state of things ? If it is not how then can it be ended ? * Short for the Rashtriya Swayam Sevaka Sangh which is a Hindu volunteer corps. † Khaksar is a Muslim volunteer corps.

247 PAKISTAN : SOCIAL STAGNATION No one can say that to have the problems of social reform put aside is a desirable state of things. Wherever there are social evils, the health of the body politic requires that they shall be removed before they become the symbols of suffering and injustice. For it is the social and economic evils which everywhere are the parent of revolution or decay. Whether social reform should precede political reform or political reform should precede social reform may be a matter of controversy. But there can be no two opinions on the question that the sole object of political power is the use to which it can be put in the cause of social and economic reform. The whole struggle for political power would be a barren and bootless effort if it was not justified by the feeling that, because of the want of political power, urgent and crying social evils are eating into the vitals of society and are destroying it. But suppose the Hindus and the Muslims somehow come into possession of political power, what hope is there that they will use it for purposes of social reform ? There is hardly any hope in that behalf. So long as the Hindus and the Muslims regard each other as a menace, their attention will be engrossed in preparations for meeting the menace. The exigencies of a common front by Musalmans against Hindus and by Hindus against Musalmans generate— and is bound to generate—a conspiracy of silence over social evils. Neither the Muslims nor the Hindus will attend to them even though the evils may be running sores and requiring immediate attention, for the simple reason that they regard every measure of social reform as bound to create dissension and division and thereby weaken the ranks when they ought to be closed to meet the menace of the other community. It is obvious that so long as one community looks upon the other as a menace there will be no social progress and the spirit of conservatism will continue to dominate the thoughts and actions of both. How long will this menace last ? It is sure to last as long as the Hindus and Muslims are required to live as members of one country under the mantle of a single constitution. For, it is the fear of the single constitution with the possibility of the shifting of the balance—for nothing can keep the belance at the point originally fixed by the constitution—which makes the Hindus a menace to the Muslims and the Muslims a menace to the Hindus. If this is so,

248 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Pakistan is the obvious remedy. It certainly removes the chief condition which makes for the menace. Pakistan liberates both the Hindus and the Muslims from the fear of enslavement of and encroachment against each other. It removes, by providing a separate constitution for each, Pakistan and Hindustan, the very basis which leads to this perpetual struggle for keeping a balance of power in the day-to-day life and frees them to take in hand those vital matters of urgent social importance which they are now forced to put aside in cold storage, and improve the lives of their people, which after all is the main object of this fight for Swaraj. Without some such arrangement, the Hindus and the Muslims will act and react as though they were two nations, one fearing to be conquered by the other. Preparations for aggression will always have precedence over social reform, so that the social stagnation which has set in must continue. This is quite natural and no one need be surprised at it. For, as Bernard Shaw pointed out:— “A conquered nation is like a man with cancer; he can think of nothing else.... A healthy nation is as unconscious of its nationality as a healthy man of his bones. But if you break a nation’s nationality it will think of nothing else but getting it set again. It will listen to no reformer, to no philosopher, to no preacher until the demand of the nationalist is granted. It will attend to no business, however vital, except the business of unification and liberation.” Unless there is unification of the Muslims who wish to separate from the Hindus and unless there is liberation of each from the fear of domination by the other, there can be no doubt that this malaise of social stagnation will not be set right. zz

CHAPTER XI COMMUNAL AGGRESSION Even a superficial observer cannot fail to notice that a spirit of aggression underlies the Hindu attitude towards the Muslim and the Muslim attitude towards the Hindu. The Hindu’s spirit of aggression is a new phase which he has just begun to cultivate. The Muslim’s spirit of aggression is his native endowment and is ancient as compared with that of the Hindu. It is not that the Hindu, if given time, will not pick up and overtake the Muslim. But as matters stand to-day, the Muslim in this exhibition of the spirit of aggression leaves the Hindu far behind. Enough has been said about the social aggression of the Muslims in the chapter dealing with communal riots. It is necessary to speak briefly of the political aggression of the Muslims. For this political aggression has created a malaise which cannot be overlooked. Three things are noticeable about this political aggression of the Muslims. First is the ever-growing catalogue of the Muslim’s political demands. Their origin goes back to the year 1892. In 1885 the Indian National Congress was founded. It began with a demand for good government as distinguished from self-government. In response to this demand the British Government felt the necessity of altering the nature of the Legislative Councils, Provincial and Central, established under the Act of 1861. In that nascent stage of Congress agitation, the British Government did not feel called upon to make them fully popular. It thought it enough to give them a popular colouring. Accordingly the British Parliament passed in 1892 what is called the Indian Councils Act. This Act is memorable for two things. It was in this Act of 1892 that the British Government for the first time accepted the semblance of the principle of popular representation as the basis for the constitution of the Legislatures in India. It was not a

250 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES principle of election. It was a principle of nomination, only it was qualified by the requirement that before nomination a person must be selected by important public bodies such as municipalities, district boards, universities and the associations of merchants, etc. Secondly, it was in the legislatures that were constituted under this Act that the principle of separate representation for Musalmans was for the first time introduced in the political constitution of India. The introduction of this principle is shrouded in mystery. It is a mystery because it was introduced so silently and so stealthily. The principle of separate representation does not find a place in the Act. The Act says nothing about it. It was in the directions—but not in the Act—issued to those charged with the duty of framing regulations as to the classes and interests to whom representation was to be given that the Muslims were named as a class to be provided for. It is a mystery as to who was responsible for its introduction. This scheme of separate representation was not the result of any demand put forth by any organized Muslim association. In whom did it then originate ? It is suggested* that it originated with the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, who, as far back as the year 1888, when dealing with the question of representation in the Legislative Councils, emphasized the necessity that in India representation will have to be, not in the way representation is secured in England, but representation by interests. Curiosity leads to a further question, namely, what could have led Lord Dufferin to propose such a plan ? It is suggested† that the idea was to wean‡ away the Musalmans from the Congress which had already been started three years before. Be that as it may, it is certain that it is by this Act that separate representation for Muslims became, for the first time, a feature of the Indian Constitution. It should, however, be noted that neither the Act nor the Regulations conferred any right of selection upon the Muslim community, * See the speech of Sir Mahomad Shafi in the Minorities Sub-Committee of the first R. T. C. (Indian Edition). p. 57. † See the speech of Raja Narendranalh, Ibid., p. 65. ‡ The Musalmans had already been told by Sir Sayad Ahmad not to join the Congress in the two speeches, one delivered at Lucknow on 28th December 1887, and the other at Meerut on 16th March 1988. Mr. Mahomed Ali in his presidential address speaks of them as historic speeches.