Vol. 9 · pages 446–450

CHAPTER VII PUBLIC SERVICES THE Untouchables demand that a certain proportion of posts in the public services of the country shall be reserved for them, subject to the rule of minimum qualification. The Hindus object to this demand as they do to the other demands of the Untouchables. The stand they take is that the interests of the State require that capacity, efficiency and character should be the only consideration and that caste and creed should have no place in making appointment to public offices. There is no dispute regarding character as a necessary qualification. Nor is there any dispute regarding capacity and efficiency. The only point of dispute, and it is a very important point, is whether caste and creed should form a consideration which must be taken into account in the recruitment for public services. Relying upon the educational qualification as the only test of efficiency, the Hindus insist that public offices should be filled on the basis of competetive examinations open to persons of all Castes and Creeds. They argue that such a system serves both purposes. It serves the purpose of efficiency. Secondly it docs not prohibit the entry of the Untouchables in the Public Services of the country. The Hindus seek to give to their opposition to the demand of the Untouchable an appearance of fairness by relying upon efficiency and competitive examination. Here again the argument is quite beside the point. The question is not whether the competitive system of Examination is or is not the proper method of getting efficient persons in public services. The question is whether the competitive system simply because it is open to all castes and creeds will enable the Untouchables to get a footing in the Public Service. That depends upon the educational system of the State. Is it sufficiently democratic? Are the facilities for education sufficiently widespread and sufficiently used to permit persons from all classes to come forth to compete? Otherwise, even with the system of open competition large classes are sure to be left out in the cold. This basic condition is conspicuous by its absence in India. Higher education in India is the monopoly of Hindus and

418 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES particularly of high Caste Hindus. By reason of Untouchability the Untouchables are denied the opportunity for Education. By reason of their poverty higher education necessary for higher posts in the public service–and higher posts in the public service are the only things that matter becauese they have a strategic value–is not within their reach. The State will not take the financial responsibility of giving them higher education–they are demanding it by their resolution–and the Hindus will not extend the benefit of their charities to the Untouchables–Hindu Charity being shamefully communal–so that to ask the Untouchables to rely upon the results of competitive examination for entry into the public services is to practise a fraud upon them. The position taken up by the Untouchables is in no sense unreasonable. They admit the necessity for maintaining efficiency. That is why in their resolution they themselves say that their demand shall be subject to the rule of miniumum qualification. In other words what the Untouchables demand is that a minimum qualification should be prescribed for every post in the public service and if two persons apply for such a post and the Untouchables has the minimum qualification he should be preferred to a Hindu even though the Hindu may have a qualification higher than the minimum qualification. It, of course, does mean that the basis for appointment should be minimum qualification and not the highest qualification. This may sound queer to those who do not mind if their test of efficiency gives certain communities a monopoly of public service. But did not Campbell-Bannerman say that selfgovernment was better than good government ? What else are the Untouchables demanding? They are prepared to recognize the need of having an efficient Government. That is why they are ready to accept the requirement of minimum qualifications for entry in the public services of the country. What the untouchables are not prepared to do is to forego self-government for good government. Good Government based on highest qualification will be a communal government, for the Hindus alone can claim qualifications higher than minimum qualifications. This is what they do not want. What they say is that minumum qualifications are enough for efficient government and since it makes selfgovernment possible, minimum qualification should be the rule for entry in Public Service. It ensures self-government as well as efficient government. zz

CHAPTER VIII SEPARATE SETTLEMENTS RESOLUTION NO. IV Referred to in the foregoing part of this paper is to my mind quite self-explanatory and not much detailed comment is necessary to explain its purport. Nor is it possible in the compass of this short paper to deal with it in more than general terms. The demand for separate settlements is the result of what might be called “The New Life Movement” among the Untouchables. The object of the movement is to free the Untouchables from the thraldom of the Hindus. So long as the present arrangement continues it is impossible for the Untouchables either to free themselves from the yoke of the Hindus or to get rid of their Untouchability. It is the close-knit association of the Untouchables with the Hindus living in the same villages which marks them out as Untouchables and which enables the Hindus to identify them as being Untouchables. India is admittedly a land of villages and so long as the village system provides an easy method of marking out and identifying the Untouchable, the Untouchable has no escape from Untouchability. It is the village system which perpetuates Untouchability and the Untouchables therefore demand that it should be broken and the Untouchables who are as a matter of fact socially separate should be made separate geographically and territorially also, and be grouped into separate villages exclusively of Untouchables in which the distinction of the high and the low and of Touchable and Untouchable will find no place. The second reason for demanding separate settlements arises out of the economic position of the Untouchables in the village. That their condition is most pitiable no one will deny. They are a body of landless labourers who are entirely dependent upon such employment as the Hindus may choose to give them and on such wages as the Hindus may find it profitable to pay. In the villages in which they live they cannot engage in any trade or occupation, for owing to untouchability no Hindu will deal with them. It is

420 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES therefore obvious that there is no way of earning a living which is open to the Untouchables so long as they live as a dependent part of the Hindu village. This economic dependence has also other consequences besides the condition of poverty and degradation which proceeds from it. The Hindu has a code of life, which is part of his religion. This code of life gives him many privileges and heaps upon the Untouchable many indignities which are incompatible with the sanctity of human life. By the New Life Movement which has taken hold of the Untouchables, the Untouchables all over India are fighting against the indignities and injustices which the Hindus in the name of their religion have heaped upon them. A perpetual war is going on every day in every village between the Hindus and the Untouchables. It does not see the light of the day. The Hindu Press is not prepared to advertise it lest it should injure the cause of their freedom in the eyes of the world. The silent struggle is however a fact. Under the village system the Untouchable has found himself greatly handicapped in his struggle for free and honourable life. It is a contest between the economically and socially strong Hindus and an economically poor and socially small group of Untouchables. That the Hindus most often succeed in pulling down Untouchables is largly due to many causes. The Hindu has the Police and the Magistracy on his side. In a quarrel between the Untouchables and the Hindus the Untouchables will never get protection from the Police or justice from the Magistrate. The Police and the Magistracy are Hindus, and they love their class more than their duty. But the chief weapon in the armoury of the Hindus is economic power which they possess over the poor Untouchables living in the village. The economic processes by which the Hindus can hold down the Untouchables in their struggle for equality are well described in the Report made by a Committee appointed by the Government of Bombay in 1928 to investigate into the grievances of the Depressed Classes* and from which the following extracts are made. It illuminates the situation in a manner so simple that even foreigners who do not know the mysteries of the Hindu social system may understand what tyranny the Hindus can practise upon the *Before The Government of India Act 1935 the Untouchables were generally described as the Depressed Classes. The Act calls them Scheduled Castes.

421 MR. GANDHI AND THE EMANCIPATION OF THE UNTOUCHABLES : CASTE AND CONSTITUTION Untouchables. The committee said :- “Although we have recommended various remedies to secure to the Depressed Classes their rights to all public utilities we fear that there will be difficulties in the way of their exercising them for a long time to come. The first difficulty is the fear of open violence against them by the orthodox classes. It must be noted that the Depressed Classes form a small minority in every village, opposed to which is a great majority of the orthodox who are bent on protecting their interests and dignity from any supposed invasion by the Depressed Classes at any cost. The danger of prosecution by the Police has put a limitation upon the use of violence by the orthodox classes and consequently such cases are rare. “The second difficulty arises from the economic position in which the Depressed Classes are found today. The Depressed Classes have no economic independence in most parts of the Presidency. Some cultivate the lands of the orthodox classes as their tenants at will. Others live on their earnings as farm labourers employed by the orthodox classes and the rest subsist on the food or grain given to them by the orthodox classes in lieu of service rendered to them as village servants. We have heard of numerous instances where the orthodox classes have used their economic power as a weapon against those Depressed Classes in their villages, when the latter have dared to exercise their rights, and have evicted them from their land, and stopped their employment and discontinued their remuneration as village servants. This boycott is often planned on such an extensive scale as to include the prevention of the Depressed Classes from using the commonly used paths and the stoppage of sale of the necessaries of life by the village Bania. According to the evidence, sometimes small causes suffice for the proclamation of a social boycott against the Depressed Classes. Frequently it follows on the exercise by the Depressed Classes of their right to the use of the common well, but cases have been by no means rare where a stringent boycott has been proclaimed simply because a Depressed Class man has put on the sacred thread, has bought a piece of land, has put on good clothes or ornaments, or has carried a marriage procession with the bride-groom on the horse through the public street.” This demand for separate settlements is a new demand which has been put forth by the Untouchables for the first time. It is not possible to say as yet as to what attitude the Hindus will take to this demand. But there is no doubt that this is the most vital demand made by the Untouchables, and I am sure that whatever may happen with regard to the other demands they are not likely to