Vol. 9 · pages 196–200

167 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A FALSE CHARGE himself. Even he uses it for a term. These are the four weapons which the Congress forged to give sanction to its demand for India’s freedom. Having forged the sanctions, the Congress has gone on to give demonstrations of the use of these sanctions. Between 1920 and 1942, the country has witnessed demonstrations staged by Congressmen of one form or the other of these sanctions. The din and dust they raised filled the air and drew crowds to witness them. They have come to be described as “Fight for Freedom.” What has been the use of such sanctions is a subject which demands serious consideration. But this is not the place for it. One must remain content with the observation that the old Congress could not have done worse. The use of sanctions has really been a tragedy. Swaraj is as far as it has been, but the reckless use of sanctions has made partition of India starker, surer and nearer. While it is not possible to discuss the gains resulting from the use of sanctions, the fact must be mentioned that this “Fight for Freedom” has been carried on mostly by the Hindus. It is only once that the Musalmans took part in it and that was during the shortlived Khilafat agitation. They soon got out of it. The other communities, particularly the Untouchables, never took part in it. A few stray individuals may have joined it for personal gain. But the community as such has stood out. This was particularly noticeable in the last campaign of the “Fight for Freedom,” which followed the ‘Quit India’ resolution passed by the Congress in August 1942. This is a glaring fact especially to a foreigner who comes to India and witnesses how more than half the population non-co-operates with the Congress in this “Fight for Freedom.” Quite naturally he feels stupefied by this strange phenomenon. He asks : Why are the Muslims, Christians and Untouchables not participating in the “Fight for Freedom ?” and turns to the Congress for an explanation. The Congress has a readymade answer. It is that the Untouchables are the tools of British Imperialism and that is why they do not join the “Fight for Freedom.” The echo of this charge was heard from the mouth of many foreigners whom one came across during the war. What is most disconcerting is the experience that most of these foreigners seemed to have accepted the allegation as being true. The simplicity and plausibility of the argument could be the only reason which can account for

168 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES such an easy conversion. It serves a double purpose. It enables the Congress to account for a strange phenomenon and it gives an explanation to which circumstances lend an apparent plausibility. Had it not been for the fact that even influential foreigners have been infected by this idea, one would hardly bestir himself to take notice of such malicious propaganda. For the explanation given by the Congress for the non-participation by the Untouchables in what is called “the Fight for Freedom” is an absurd explanation. It is an explanation which only a knave can venture to offer and which none but a fool can be expected to accept as satisfactory. But as it is almost certain that in the events that are coming, what foreigners think about India’s problems will be a matter of some moment, I think it necessary to explain the correct situation and allow no room for such erroneous notions about the Untouchables to take roots in their mind especially when there can be no difficulty in proving that it is a false charge against the Untouchables and to prove that if the Untouchables have not joined the “Fight for Freedom” it is not because they are the tools of the British Imperialism but because they fear that freedom of India will establish Hindu domination which is sure to close to them and for ever all prospect of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and that they will be made the hewers of wood and drawers of water. That the Untouchables should have refused to join the Congress in the “Fight for Freedom” is in itself a proof positive that their reason for non-co-operation with the Congress cannot be the puerile one suggested by the Congress. It must be something real and substantial. What is it ? The reason which has led the Untouchables to non-co-operate with the Congress has been popularly expressed by them when they say that they do not wish to be placed under Hindu Raj in which the governing class would be the Bania and the Brahamin with low class Hindus as their policemen, all of whom have been the hereditary enemies of the Untouchables. This language is held to offend against good taste. That may be so. But it must not be supposed that because such slogans are offensive in their tone they are devoid of sense or that the outlook which they typify and the ideals which they embody have no compelling force or that they cannot be made to wear the garb of a true and respectable political philosophy.

169 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A FALSE CHARGE Translated in the language of political science, what do these slogans mean ? They mean that the Untouchables are not opposed to freedom from British Imperialism. But they refuse to be content with mere freedom from British Imperialism. What they insist upon is that free India is not enough. Free India should be made safe for democracy. Starting with this aim, they say that on account of the peculiar social formation in India there are minority communities pitted against a Hindu Communal Majority, that if no provisions are made in the constitution to cut the fangs of the Hindu Communal Majority, India will not be safe for democracy. The Untouchables therefore insist on devising a constitution which will take note of the special circumstances of India and contain safeguards which will prevent this Hindu Communal Majority in Indian society from, getting possession of political power to suppress and oppress the Untouchables and which will directly invest the Untouchables with at least a modicum of political power to prevent their suppression and exploitation, and to enable them at least to hold their own, in their struggle for existence against the Communal Majority. In short, what the Untouchables want are safeguards in the constitution itself which will prevent the tyranny of a Hindu Communal Majority from coming into being. The Congress on the other hand regards the freedom of India from British Imperialism to be the be-all and end-all of Indian nationalism. Nothing more, it thinks, is necessary for the welfare of the Indian people in a free India. As to the question of a constitution for a free India, the Congress simply does not look upon it as a problem. Asked, what about the constitution of a free India ? The Congress reply is that it will be a democracy. What sort of democracy would it be ? The Congress answer is that it will be based on adult franchise. Will there be any other safeguard, besides adult suffrage for preventing the tyranny of a Hindu Communal Majority ? The Congress reply is emphatically in the negative. Asked, why this opposition to safeguards ? the Congress says that it is a vivisection of the nation,—an argument the picturesqueness of which is intended to cover its stupidity and which has its origin in the genius of Mr. Gandhi, and for which the high class Hindus, who stand to lose by these safeguards, feel so grateful to him.

170 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The Untouchables refuse to accept this silly sophism. They say that Indian social life has to be reckoned in terms of communities. There is no escape. Communities are such hard facts of Indian social life that it would be wrong to accept that communal impulse and communal prejudice do not dominate the relations of the communities. The social psychology of the Hindu Communal Majority is dominated by the dogma which recognizes not merely inequality but graded inequality as the rule governing the inter-relationship among the various communities. This dogma of graded inequality is absolutely inimical to liberty and fraternity. It cannot be believed that this graded inequality will vanish or that the Hindus will strive to abolish it. That is impossible. This graded inequality is not accidental or incidental. It is the religion of the Hindus. It is the official doctrine of Hinduism. It is sacred and no Hindu can think of doing away with it. The Hindu Communal Majority with its religion of graded inequality is not therefore a passing phase. It is a permanent fact and a menace for ever. In making a constitution for India the existence of a standing Communal Majority cannot be ignored and the problem of devising safeguards so as to reconcile it with political democracy must be faced. That is the reasoning of the Untouchables. The constitutional safeguards which the Untouchables have been demanding are detailed in the Resolutions recently passed by the Working Committee of the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation and which are printed in Appendix XI. For purposes of argument I take three of them, ( i) Guaranteed minimum representation in the Legislature; ( ii) Guaranteed minimum representation in the Executive and ( iii) Guaranteed minimum representation in the Public Services. These demands are ridiculed by the Congress as communalism and the leaders of the Untouchables are represented as job hunters. The Congress places its opposition to these guarantees on the high pedestal of nationalism, of which it holds itself as the guardian angel. The foreigner may find it difficult to see the absurdity of the Congress argument against safeguards. But if he were to take into account the purposes for which these guarantees are sought, he will find that the attempt of the Congress to represent them as a piece of communalism is arrant nonsense. The purpose of these guarantees demanded by the Untouchables is not to fill the Legislature, the Executive and the

171 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A FALSE CHARGE Administration by the representatives of the Untouchables. These guarantees are really floorings below which the Untouchables will not fall under the crushing pressure of the Hindu Communal Majority. They are intended to keep the Hindu Communal Majority within bounds. For, if there were no such guarantees to the Untouchables, the result will be that the Hindu Communal Majority will not only capture the Legislature, the Executive and the Administration, but the Legislature, the Executive and the Administration will be over-run by the Hindu Communal Majority and these powerful organs of the State, instead of protecting the minorities, will become the tools of the Hindu Communal Majority doing its biddings. In the light of this explanation there ought to be no difficulty for any outsider of average intelligence in understanding the issues between the Congress and the Untouchables. In the first place, he ought to be able to realize that the issue between them is created by the former refusing to recognize that in the existence of a Communal Majority the relies a great menace to political democracy and the latter maintaining the contrary and insisting that the constitution should contain positive provisions to curb this menace. In other words, the Untouchables are anxious to make India safe for democracy, while the Congress, if it is not opposed to democracy, is certainly opposed to creating conditions which will make democracy real. In the second place, the foreigner should be able to see that this demand by the Untouchables for safeguards is not a novel demand. His understanding will be facilitated if he were to regard these safeguards as another name for checks and balances and to bear in mind that there is no constitution which does not contain such checks and balances to protect political democracy from being subverted and to note how the constitution of the U.S.A. is full of such checks and balances which are embodied in clauses relating to Fundamental Rights and Separation of Powers. If he does this, he need not feel puzzled if the safeguards demanded by the Untouchables take a different form than they do in other countries. For, the nature of safeguards must differ with the nature of the forces which constitute a menace to political democracy and as these forces in India are of a different character, the safeguards must necessarily take a different form.