Vol. 9 · pages 236–240

207 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS Table 17 Communities Approx- imate Popula- tion in Lakhs Percentage of Popula- tion No. of Posts held out of Total No. Gazetted Posts (2,200) Percentage of Appoint- ments held Non-Gazetted Posts Over Rs. 100 Total No. 7,500 Over Rs. 35 Total No. 20,782 No. held by Percentage of Appoint- ments held No. held by Percentage of Appoint- ments held (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) Brahmins ... ... ... ... 15 3 820 37 3,280 43.73 8,812 42.4 Christians ... ... ... ... 20 4 190 9 750 10 1,655 8.0 Muhammadans ... ... ... 37 7 150 7 497 6.63 1,624 7.8 Depressed Classes ... ... ... 70 14 25 1.5 39 .52 144 .69 NonBrahmine Forward Non-Brahmins ... 113 22 620 27 2,543 33.9 8,440 40.6Backward Class ... 245 50 50 2 Non-Asiatic and Anglo-Indians ... — — — — 372 5.0 83 4 Other Communities ... ... ... — — — — 19 .5 24 .11

208 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES merce money is more important than sword. That is one reason for this change in party alignment. The second reason is the need for money to run the political machine. Money can come only from the Bania. It is the Bania who is financing the Congress largely because Mr. Gandhi is a Bania and also because he has realized that money invested in Politics gives large dividends. Those who have any doubts in the matter might do well to read what Mr. Gandhi told Mr. Louis Fisher on June 6, 1942. Reports Fisher1:— “I said I had several questions to ask him about the Congress Party. Very highly placed Britishers, I recalled, had told me that Congress was in the hands of big business and that Gandhi was supported by the Bombay millowners who gave him as much money as he wanted. ‘What truth is there in these assertions,’ I asked.” “ ‘Unfortunately, they are true,’ he declared simply, ‘Congress hasn’t enough money to conduct its work. We thought in the beginning to collect four annas (about eight cents) from each member per year and operate on that. But it hasn’t worked.’ ” “ ‘What proportion of the Congress budget,’ I asked, ‘is covered by rich Indians ?’ ” “ ‘Practically all of it,’ he stated. ‘In this ashram, for instance, we could live much more poorly than we do and spend less money. But we do not and the money comes from our rich friends.’ ” For this reason, it is impossible for the Brahmin to exclude the Bania from the position of a governing class. In fact, he has established not merely a working but a cordial alliance with the Bania. The result is that the governing class in India today is a Brahmin-Bania instead of Brahmin-Kshatriya combine as it used to be. The existence of the Governing class does not cover the whole story. What is significant is that the members of the governing class in India are quite conscious of the fact that they do belong to the governing class and that they alone are destined to rule. The late Mr. Tilak could never forget that he was a Brahmin and belonged to the governing class. The same is reported to be the case about Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru 2 and his sister 1 ‘A Week with Gandhi (1943), p. 41. 2 Mr. Pattabhi Sitaramaya in his introduction to the Life of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru by Mr. Y.G. Krishnamurti, says Pandit Nehru is very conscious of the fact that he is a Brahmin. This will shock many who are under the impression that Pandit Nehru is a Socialist and does not believe in caste. But Mr. Pattabhi

209 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS Mrs. Vijaya Laxmi Pandit. Nor is Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel free from the feeling that he belongs to the governing class. Mr. Tilak is held out as the father of the Swaraj movement. Pandit Nehru and Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel are the leading members of the Congress High Command. Not only are they conscious of the fact that they belong to the governing class but some of them hold that the servile classes are a contemptible people, who must remain servile and who must never aspire to rule. Indeed, they have felt no shame and no remorse in giving public expression to such views. In 1918, when the NonBrahmins and the Backward Classes had started an agitation for separate representation in the Legislature, Mr. Tilak in a public meeting held in Sholapur said he did not understand why the oil pressers, tobacco shopkeepers, washermen, etc.— that was his description of the Non-Brahmins and the Backward Classes—should want to go into the Legislature. In his opinion, their business was to obey the laws and not to aspire for power to make laws. In 1942, Lord Linlithgow invited 52 important Indians representing different sections of the people to discuss what steps could be taken to make the Central Government more popular with a view to enlist the sympathy and co-operation of all Indians in war effort. Among those that were invited were members belonging to the Scheduled Castes. Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel could not bear the idea that the Viceroy should have invited such a crowd of mean men. Soon after the event, Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel made a speech in Ahmedabad and said 3 :— “The Viceroy sent for the leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha, he sent for the leaders of the Muslim League, and he sent for Ghanchis (oil pressers), Mochis (cobblers) and the rest.” Although Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel in his malicious and stinging words referred only to Ghanchis and Mochis, his speech is indicative of the general contempt in which the governing class and the members of the Congress High Command hold Sitaramaya ought to know what he is saying. Not only is Pandit Nehru conscious of the fact that he is a Brahmin but his sister Mrs. Vijaya Laxmi Pandit, also seems to be conscious that she is a Brahmin. It is said that at the All-India Women’s Conference held in Delhi in December 1940, the question of not declaring one’s caste in the Census Return was discussed. Mrs. Pandit disapproved of the idea and said she did not see any reason why she should not be proud of her Brahmin blood and declare herself as a Brahmin at the Census—See Sense and Nonsense in Politics ” Serial No. XII by Mr. J.E. Sanjana in the Rast Rahabar (a Bombay Gujarathi Weekly), 14th January ‘45. 3 Quoted by Mr. Sanjana in Sense and Nonsense in Politics.

210 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the servile classes of this country. Further illustrations of this attitude of the governing class and the Congress High Command can be found from incidents that have taken place in the election campaigns. They are so relevant and so revealing that a special mention must be made of them. Ever since 1919 when Mr. Gandhi captured the Congress, Congressmen have looked upon the boycott of Legislature as one of the sanctions for making the British Government concede the demand for Swaraj. Under this policy, every time there was an election in which the Congress decided not to take part, the Congress would not only refuse to put candidates on the Congress ticket but would carry on propaganda against any Hindu proposing to stand for election as an independent candidate. One need not quarrel over the merits of such a policy. But what were the means adopted, by the Congress to prevent Hindus standing on an independent ticket? The means adopted were to make the legislatures objects of contempt. Accordingly, the Congress in various Provinces started processions carrying placards saying “who will go in the Legislatures ? Only barbers, cobblers, potters and sweepers.” In the processions one man would utter the question as part of the slogan and the whole crowd would repeat as answer the second part of the slogan. When Congressmen found that this was not enough to deter persons from standing for the elections, they decided to adopt sterner measures. Believing that respectable people would not be prepared to stand for election if they felt certain that they would have to sit with barbers, potters and sweepers, etc. in the legislatures, the Congress actually went to the extent of putting up candidates from these despised communities on the Congress ticket and got them elected. A few illustrations of this outrageous conduct of the Congress may be mentioned. In the 1920 election, the Congress elected a cobbler 1 in the Central Provinces Legislature. In the 1930 election, they elected in the Central Provinces two cobblers 2, one milkman 3 and one barber 4 and in the Punjab one sweeper 5. In 1934, the Congress elected a potter6 to the Central Legislature. It might be said that this 1 Faguwa Rohidas. 2 Guru Gosain Agamdas and Balaraj Jaiswar. 3 Chunnu. 4 Arjunlal 5 Bansi Lal Chaudhari. 6 Bhagat Chandi Mal Gola.

211 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS is old history. Let me correct such an impression by referring to what happened in 1943, in the Municipal Elections in Andheri—a suburb of Bombay. The Congress put up a barber to bring the Municipality in contempt. What an enormity ? The Sinn Fein in Ireland boycotted the British Parliament. But did they make such hideous use of their own countrymen for effecting their purposes ? The campaign of boycott of legislature which took place in 1930 is of particular interest. The elections to the Provincial Legislatures in 1930 in which these instances occurred coincided with Mr. Gandhi’s Salt satyagraha campaign of 1930!! I hope that the future (the official historian Dr. Pattabhi Sitamayya has failed to do so) historian of Congress while recording how Mr. Gandhi decided to serve notice on the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, presenting him with a list of demands to be con ceded before a certain date and on failure by the Viceroy in this behalf, how Mr. Gandhi decided to launch a campaign of civil disobedience, how Mr. Gandhi elected an Englishman to carry his notice, how Mr. Gandhi selected Salt Act as a target for attack, how he selected Dandi as a scene of battle, how he decided to put himself at the head of the campaign, how he marched out from his Ashram in Ahmedabad with all pomp and ceremony, how the women of Ahmedabad came out with Arthi and applied tilak (saffron mark) to his forehead wishing him victory, how Mr. Gandhi assured them by saying that Gujarat alone will win Swaraj for India, how Mr. Gandhi proclaimed his determination by saying that he will not return to Ahmedabad until he has won Swaraj, will not fail to record that while on the one hand Congressmen were engaged in fighting for Swaraj which they said they wanted to win in the name and for the masses, on the other hand and in the very year they were committing the worst outrages, upon the very masses by exhibiting them publicly as objects of contempt to be shunned and avoided. Such is the mentality of the governing classes in India towards the servile classes. IV What is to be the fate of the servile classes of India under this governing class ?