Vol. 9 · pages 261–265

232 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES relation to the servile classes (2) The relation of the governing class to the Congress and (3) The raison d’etre of the political demands of the servile classes for constitutional safeguards. Regarding the first enough has been said to enable the foreigner to form his own opinion. The thesis I have endeavoured to present and to support with facts and arguments may be simply stated. It maintains that the only way to ensure that a sovereign and independent India will be a different India in which there will be no servile class doing duty to the governing class, is to frame a constitution which will by proper safeguards, circumscribe the power of the governing class to capture government and to put a limit upon its predatory powers. This is what the Untouchables are urging and this is what the Congress is opposing. The whole controversy between the Congress and the Untouchables centres round the question of constitutional safeguards. The issue is : Is the constitution of India to be with safeguards or without safeguards for the Scheduled Castes? The foreigner does not realize this to be the issue nor does he realize that the alleged representative character of the Congress is absolutely irrelevant to the issue. The Congress may be a representative body but that has nothing to do with the decision of the issue, whether the constitution of India should or should not contain any safeguards for the Scheduled Castes. For the decision of this issue, the representative character of the Congress is beside the point. The decision can rest only on the basis of needs and the question that will be relevant is: Do the Scheduled Castes need the safeguards they have been asking for? The foreigner is not justified in supporting the Congress as against the Scheduled Castes on the ground that the Congress is a representative body. The foreigner is, of course, justified in asking the Scheduled Castes to prove their case for safeguards. He is even justified in saying that the existence of a governing class is not enough and that they must further prove something that the governing class in India is so vile, so wicked, so entrenched that it will not yield to the forces of adult suffrage. Such a stand it is proper to take and the Scheduled Classes are prepared to face it. For, beyond doubt, the governing class in India does occupy a different position in India than it does in other countries of the world. In other countries, there is, at the most, a hyphen between the governing class and the rest. In India, there is a

233 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS bar between the two. A hyphen is only separation ; but a bar is a severance with interests and sympathies completely divided. In other countries, there is a continuous replenishment of the governing class by the incorporation of others who do not belong to it but who have reached the same elevation as the governing class. In India, the governing class is a close corporation in which nobody, not born in it, is admitted. This distinction is very important. In the case where the governing class is a close corporation, tradition, social philosophy and social outlook remain unbroken and the distinction between masters and slaves, between privileged and unprivileged continues hard in substance and fast in colour. On the other hand, where the governing class is not a close preserve, where there is social endosmosis between it and the rest, there is a mental assimilation which makes the governing class more flexible, its philosophy less anti-social. On realizing the truth behind these distinctions, a foreigner should be able to see that mere adult suffrage while it may suffice to hold the governing class in check in other countries, cannot have, in India, that effect and that consequently those parties in India like the Untouchables who are advocating additional safeguards in the constitution, are more worthy of Support for their anxiety to make free India safe for democracy, than the Congress which opposes such safeguards and which aims to place free India in the hands of a governing class. The facts bearing on the second consideration have also been fully set out. From these facts he should be able to see how intimate is the connection between the Congress and the governing class. They will explain why the governing class in India has placed itself in the vanguard of the Congress movement and why it strives to bring everybody within the Congress fold. To put it briefly the governing class is aware that a political campaign based on class ideology, class interests, class issues and class conflicts will toll its death knell. It knows that the most effective way of sidetracking the servile classes and fooling them is to play upon the sentiment of nationalism and national unity and realizes that the Congress platform is the only platform that can most effectively safeguard the interest of the governing class. For if there is any platform from which all talk of conflict between rich and poor, Brahmin and Non-Brahmin, landlord and tenant, creditor and debtor which does not suit the governing class, can be

234 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES effectually banned it is the Congress platform which is not only bound to preach nationalism and national unity which is what the governing classes want and on which their safety entirely depends, but which prohibits any other ideology inconsistent with nationalism being preached from its platform. If these two considerations are grasped, the foreigner will not find it difficult to understand the third namely the raison d’etre of the political demands of the servile classes. The reservations demanded by the servile classes are really controls over the power of the governing classes. Even in European countries there is a demand for controls over the powers of certain classes of society. There is control on producers, distributors, money-lenders and landlords. If the necessity for controls over the power of certain classes is admitted in countries where there is much greater degree of homogeneity and identity of interests than there exists in India, a foreigner should not find it difficult to appreciate. The reservations do no more than correlate the constitution to the social institutions of the country in order to prevent political power to fall into the hands of the Governing class. After so much of explanation of facts and arguments I do not think it will be difficult for the foreigner at least to believe that there is another side to the Congress propaganda, if he is not prepared to agree with the point of view herein presented. It would indeed be a sad commentary on the character and intelligence of a foreigner who even after his having gone through the facts and figures given above was not able to cultivate a cool and a dispassionate attitude towards those who do not share the Congress point of view. IX There is a tragic side to the foreigner’s view of Indian politics to which it is impossible not to make a reference. The foreigners who take interest in Indian politics fall into three groups. The first group is aware of the social cleavages which rend Indian politics, cleavages of majorities and minorities, Hindus and Untouchables and so on. Their main object is not to solve these cleavages by appropriate constitutional safeguards and to open the way to constitutional advancement of India but to use these cleavages to block constitutional progress. The second group of foreigners are those who pay no attention

235 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS to the cleavages, who care a button what happens to the minorities and to the Untouchables. They are out to support the Congress demand and would fulfil it without bothering about safeguards. The third group consists of tourists who come ‘to do’ India and learn about its politics if possible overnight. All three are dangerous people. But the third group is the most dangerous from the point of view of the ultimate interest of the Indian people. That there should be foreigners of the tourist sort who cannot understand the intricacies of Indian politics and who therefore support the Congress on no other ground except that which Mr. Pickwick gave to Sam Weller—to shout with the biggest crowd—is quite understandable. But what annoys most is the attitude of the leaders of the British Labour Party, heads of radical and leftist groups in Europe and America, represented by men like Laski, Kingsley Martin, Brailsford and editors of journals like the Nation in America, and the New Statesman in England championing the cause of the oppressed and the suppressed people. How can these men support the Congress passes one’s comprehension. Do they not know that the Congress means the governing class and that the governing class means the Congress : Do they not know that the governing class in India is a Brahmin-Bania combine ? That masses are drawn in the Congress only to be camp followers with no say in the making of Congress policy ? Do they not realize that for the reasons for which the Sultan could not abolish Islam or the Pope could not repudiate Catholicism, the governing class in India will not decree the destruction of Brahmanism and that so long as the governing class remains what it is, Brahmanism which preaches the supremacy of Brahmans and the allied castes and which recognises the suppression and degradation of the Shudras and the Untouchables as the sacred duty of the State will continue to be the philosophy of the State even if India became free ? Do they not know that this governing class in India is not a part of the Indian people, is not only completely isolated from them, but believes in isolating itself, lest it should be contaminated by them, has implanted in its mind by reason of the Brahmanic philosophy, motives and interests which are hostile to those who are outside its fold and therefore does not sympathise with the living forces operating in the servile masses whom it has trodden down, is not. charged with their wants, their pains, their

236 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES cravings, their desires, is inimical to their aspirations, does not favour any advance in their education, promotion to high office and disfavours every movement calculated to raise their dignity and their self-respect ? Do they not know that in the Swaraj of India is involved the fate of 60 millions of Untouchables ? It would be impossible to say that the leaders of the British Labour Party, that Kingsley Martin, Brailsford and Laski whose writings on liberty and democracy are a source of inspiration to all suppressed people, do not know these facts. Yet if they refer to India, it is always to support the Congress. It is very, very seldom that they are found to discuss the problem of the Untouchables which ought to make the strongest appeal to all radicals and democrats. Their exclusive attention to Congress activities and their utter neglect of other elements in the national life of India shows how misguided they have been. One could well understand their support to the Congress if the Congress was fighting for political democracy. But is it ? As every one knows, the Congress is only fighting for national liberty and is not interested in political democracy. The party in India who is fighting for political democracy is the party of the Untouchables who fear that this Congress fight for liberty, if it succeeds, will mean liberty to the strong and the powerful to suppress the weak and the down-trodden unless they are protected by constitutional safeguards. It is they who ought to receive the help of these radical leaders. But the Untouchables have been waiting in vain for all these years even for a gesture of good-will and support from them. These radicals and leftists in Europe and America have not even cared to know the forces behind the Congress. Ignorant or unmindful one does not know, but the fact remains that these leftists and radical leaders have been giving blind and unquestioning support to the Congress which admittedly is run by capitalists, landlords, moneylenders and reactionaries, only because the Congress calls its activities by the grandiloquent name of “Fight for Freedom.” All battles for freedom are not on equal moral plane for the simple reason that the motives and purposes behind these battles of freedom are not always the same. To take only a few illustrations from English History. The Barons’ Rebellion against John which resulted in the Magna Charta could be called a battle for freedom. But could any democrat in modern times give it the same support which he would give—say to the