Vol. 9 · pages 256–260

227 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS length of composing lampoons and parodies in order to make the demand of the servile classes appear absurd and ridiculous. The most colourful of such parodies was the one written by Dr. R. P. Paranjpe, new Indian High Commissioner for Australia. It is difficult to understand how so advanced a Liberal like Dr. Paranjpe should entertain such views. have occurred under the principle of communal reservations. As the magazine is not easily available, I reproduce it below :— ‘A PEEP I NTO THE F UTURE’ The following extracts are taken from reports of Commissions, records of police courts cases, judicial trials, Council Proceedings, Administration Reports, etc., issued between the year 1930-50 and are published for the exclusive benefit of the readers of the Gujarati Punch. I Report of the Royal Commission on the Government of India, 1930 : We have given our closest consideration to the representations made on behalf of several communities in India. Taking the figures of the last Census as our basis we can only give an approximate satisfaction to all the claims made before us, for it is not possible to give an absolutely accurate solution to the problem of constructing a machinery of Government unless every single person in the country is made a member thereof, as the numbers of the several communities do not possess a common measure. We lay down the number 2375 as the fundamental number in the constitution and this number is divided into parts attached to the several communities as shown in the schedule attached to our report. The claims of each community will henceforward be represented by its proper number, and all appointments, memberships of various bodies, and in fact everything in the country will be awarded according to the proportion given in the schedule wherever possible. The Viceroy’s Executive Council will consist of 475 members selected as far as may be according to one-fifth the numbers belonging to each community and three members will hold office for one year so that each community will have attained its exact share of membership in five years. There will be 125 Judges in each High Court, each judge holding office for one year, though according to this arrangement, each section will have obtained its exact share only after the lapse of 19 years. The number of other kinds of appointments will be determined on the same basis for the accurate adjustment of all claims. To allow for the proper functioning of all bodies with these numbers as many existing Government buildings as may be necessary may be pulled down and rebuilt so as to be of the proper size. II (Notification of the Government of India, 1932 ) In accordance with the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1931, His Majesty the King Emperor has been pleased to appoint the following 475 gentlemen as members of the Executive Council of the Governor General: 267. Matadin Bamdin (caste Barber) member in charge of the Surgical Branch of the Medical Department. 372. Allabux Peerbux (Mahomedan Camel driver) in charge of the camel transport division of the Army Department. 433. Bamaswamy (caste, Andhra Sweeper) in charge of the road cleaning branch of the P.W.D. 437. Jagannath Bhattacharya (Kulin Brahmin Priest) in charge of the domestic section of the Registration Department. * * *

228 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES These lampoons and parodies give the impression that the members of the servile classes are perverse if not idiotic in making such demands and the governing classes in opposing the demands of the servile classes are seeking to maintain in India an efficient body politic by insisting that every place of power and authority should be filled by none but the best IV (Letter to all Local Governments, 1934 ) In response to a resolution passed by the Legislative Assembly, with which the Government of India are in full agreement, I am directed to say that henceforward every appointment under Government should go by rotation to each community irrespective of the merits of the applicants. V (Notification in the Bombay Government Gazette, 1934 ) The Government of Bombay will proceed to make the following appointments in December. The applicants for the several appointments should belong to the castes mentioned against each according to the rotation fixed by Government Order No. ... dated November 30th, 1934. 1. Chief Engineer for Irrigation (Sind) : Kunbi from North Kanara. 2. Professor of Sanskrit, Elphinstone College, Bombay : Baluchi Pathan from Sind. 3. Commandant of His Excellency’s Bodyguard: Marwari from North Gujarat. 4. Consulting Architect to Government: Wadari (wandering gypsy) from the Deccan. 5. Director of Islamic culture : Karhada Brahmin. 6. Professor of Anatomy : (Grant Medical College) Mahomedan Butcher. 7. Superintendent of Yeravda Jail: Ghantichor. 8. Two organizers of prohibition : Dharala (Kaira District Bhil) (Panch Mahals). VI (Report of a Case from the High Court, 1935 ) A.B. (caste Teli) was charged with the cold- blooded murder of his father while he was asleep. The judge summing up against the accused, the jury brought in a verdict of guilty. Before passing sentence the judge asked the pleader for the accused if he had to say anything. The pleader, Mr. Bomanji, said he agreed with the verdict but that according to Law the accused could not be sentenced at all, much less sentenced to death, as during the current year seven Telia had already been convicted and sentenced two of them with death, that several other communities had not yet reached their quota of convictions as given in the Government of India Act, while the Telia had already reached theirs. His Lordship accepted the contention of the defence pleader and acquitted the accused. VII (Extract from the ‘Indian Daily Mail’, 1936 ) Annaji Ramchandra (Chitpavan Brahmin) was found wandering in the streets of Poona with a long knife attacking whomsoever he met. When brought up before the Magistrate he was shown by the police to have been recently let off from the Mental Hospital. The Superintendent of the Hospital in his evidence said that Annaji had been in the hospital as a dangerous insane for three years, but as there was the quota for the Chitpavanas and as the inmates belonging to other communities had not finished their year-quotas he could not keep

229 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS man available. Nobody will have any quarrel with the abstract principle that nothing should be done whereby the best shall be superseded by one who is only better and the better by one who is merely good and the good by one who is bad. But the argument completely fails to carry conviction when in practice one finds that having regard to the historical circumstances of India every time the ‘best man’ is chosen he turns out to be a man from the governing class. This may be alright from the point of view of the governing class. But can it be alright from the point of view of the servile class ? Could ‘best’ German be the ‘best’ for the French ? Could the ‘best’ Turk be ‘best’ for the Greeks ? Could the ‘best’ Pole be regarded him any longer and show any special favouritism to the Chitpavans and he had therefore let him off according to Government Order No. ... in the Medical Department. The Magistrate ordered Annaji to be discharged. VIII (Extract from the Report of the Administration of Jails in the Bombay Presidency, 1937) In spite of every precaution the numbers in the jails did not correspond to the quotas fixed for each community. The Superintendent had already asked for instructions from Government with a view to remedying the discrepancy. Resolution of Government: Government view with serious displeasure this grave dereliction of duty on the part of the I.G. of prisons. Immediate steps should be taken to arrest and put in jail as many members of the various communities as are required to bring their quotas up to the proper level. If enough persons required cannot be caught, a sufficient number of inmates should be let off to bring down all to the same level. IX (Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 1940 ) Mr. Chennappa asked: Has the attention of Government been called to the fact that class list of the recent M.A. Examination in Pali do not show the proper quota for mang-garudis ? The Hon. Mr. Damu Shroff (Minister of Education) : The University Registrar reports that no candidate from among Mang-garudis offered himself for examination. Mr. Chennappa : Will Government be pleased to stop this examination until such a candidate offers himself and if the University disobeys the order of Government to take away the University grant and amend the University Act ? The Hon. Member: Government will be pleased to consider the suggestion favourably. (Cheers). X (Extract from ‘The Times of India,’ 1942 ) The Coroner Mr. ..... was suddenly called last evening to inquire into the death of Ramji Sonu at the J.J. Hospital as the result of a surgical operation. Dr. Tanu Pandav (Caste Barber) deposed that he had conducted the operation. He wished to open an abscess in the abdomen but his knife pierced the heart and the patient expired. Asked whether he had ever carried out any operation of this nature before, he said that he was appointed as the principal surgeon to the hospital only one day before as it was then the turn of his community and that he had never held a surgical instrument in his hand before except a razor for shaving. The jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure.

230 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES ‘best’ by the Jews ? There can hardly be any doubt as to the correct answer to these questions. Class qualifications can never be ignored. Man is not a mere machine. He is a human being with feelings of sympathy for some and antipathy for others. This is even true of the ‘best’ man. He too is charged with the feelings of class sympathies and class antipathies. Having regard to these considerations the ‘best’ man from the governing class may well turn out to be the worst from the point of view of the servile classes. The difference between the governing classes and the servile classes in the matter of their attitudes towards each other is the same as the attitude a person of one nation has for that of another nation. Persons of the governing class in parodying the demands of the servile classes seem to forget that the difference between the governing class and the servile class in India is of the same nature as the difference between French and Germans, Turks and Greeks or Poles and Jews and the reasons why one will not tolerate the government of the other although it may be of the ‘best’ men are the same in both cases. The governing class in their attempt to ridicule the demand also forget by what means it has built up their power. Let them refer to their own Manu Smriti and they will find that the ways they got their power were very much the same as the imaginary resolutions suggested by Dr. Paranjpe. A reference to Manu Smriti will show that the view that Brahmins, the chief and the leading element in the governing class, acquired their political power not by force of intellect—intellect is nobody’s monopoly—but by sheer communalism. According to the Laws Manu Smriti the post of the Purohit, King’s Chaplain and Lord Chancellor, the posts of the Chief Justice and Judges of the High Court and the posts of Ministers to the Crown were all reserved for the Brahmins. Even for the post of the Commander-in-Chief the Brahmin was recommended as a fit and a proper person though it was not in terms reserved for him. All the strategic posts having been reserved for the Brahmins it goes without saying that all ministerial posts came to be reserved for the Brahmins. This is not all. The Brahmin was not content with reserving places of profit and power for his class. He knew that mere reservation will not do. He must prevent rivals shooting up from other nonBrahmin communities equally qualified to hold the posts

231 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS and agitate and blow up the system of reservations. In addition to reserving all executive posts in the State for Brahmins a law was made whereby education was made the monopoly and privilege of Brahmins. As has already been pointed out the law made it a crime for the Shudra, i.e. the lower orders of Hindu Society to acquire learning, the infringement of which was followed by not only heavy but cruel and inhuman punishment such as cutting the tongue of the criminal and filling his ear with hot molten lead. Congressmen cannot escape by saying that these privileges no longer exist. They must admit that while the privileges have gone the advantages derived from their continuance over several centuries have remained. Nor can Congressmen honestly turn down the demands of the servile classes as Communalism knowing full well that a worst form of communalism had been the recognized means adopted by the Brahmins for acquiring power and that if the servile classes are to-day driven to ask for safeguards it is because the Brahmins in order to maintain their privileges passed laws which made it a crime for them to acquire learning or property. Surely what the servile classes are demanding is not half so bad as was done by the Brahmins for their own aggrandisement and for the perpetuation of their own domination. In the light of what has been said, it will be found that the Fight for Freedom led by the governing class is, from the point of view of the servile classes, a selfish, if not a sham, struggle. The freedom which the governing class in India is struggling for is freedom to rule the servile classes. What it wants is the freedom for the master race to rule the subject race which is nothing but the Nazi or Nietchian doctrine of freedom for superman to rule the common man. VIII The foreigner who wishes to know the what and wherefor of Indian politics and desires to make a contribution to the solution of the problems arising out of it must know the basic considerations which lie behind Indian politics. If he fails to have a full grasp of them he is bound to be at sea and cannot but be the sport of a party which may happen to capture him or captivate him. These basic considerations of Indian politics are : (1) The philosophy and outlook of the governing class in