Vol. 9 · pages 491–495

462 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES after the event, Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel made a speech in Ahmedabad and said 1 :— “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 indicates the general contempt in which he holds the servile classes of his country. It may be well to know the reactions of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is a Brahmin, but he has the reputation of being non-communal in his outlook and secular in his beliefs. Facts do not seem to justify the reputation he carries. A person cannot be called secular if he, when his father dies, performs the religious ceremonies prescribed by orthodox Hinduism at the hands of Brahmin priests on the banks of the river Ganges as Pandit Jawaharlal did when his father died in 1931. As to his being non-communal it is stated by no less a person than Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya that Pandit Nehru is very conscious of the fact that he is a Brahmin. 2 This must come as a most astonishing fact to those who believe the Pandit to have the reputation of being the most nationally minded Hindu leader in India. But Dr. Sitaramayya must be knowing what he is talking about. More disturbing is the fact that in the United Provinces from which he hails and over which he exercises complete authority the ministers in the cabinet of the province were all Brahmins. Mrs. Vijaya Laxmi Pandit, the well-known sister of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, also seems to be conscious of herself being Brahmin by caste. 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 3 of the idea and said that 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. Who are these men ? What is their status ? Mr. Tilak 1 Quoted by Mr. J. E. Sanjana in Sense and Nonsense in Politics— Serial No. XII in the Rast Rahabar (a Bombay Gujarati Weekly) of 14th January 1945. 2 See his Invitation p. XVI to Jawaharlal Nehru by Y. G. Krishnamurti. 3 Quoted by Sanjann in Sense and Nonsense in Politics —Serial No. XII in the Rast Rahabar, dated 14th January 1945,

463 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNER has the reputation of being the father of the Swaraj movement. Mr. Patel and Pandit Nehru come next in command in the Congress hierarchy after Mr. Gandhi. Some might think that these are the individual and private opinions of the members of the Congress High Command. But that would be an error. Several cases could be pointed out in which such opinions have been acted upon in election campaigns run by the Congress. Ever since 1919 when Mr. Gandhi captured the Congress, Congressmen have looked upon the boycott of legislatures 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 with these significant and telling words: “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 Congress crowd would shout as answer the second part of the slogan. When the 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 to the legislature of the Central Provinces. In the 1930 election, they elected in the Central 1 Fagnwa Rohidas.

464 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Provinces two cobblers, 1 one milkman 2 and one barber, 3 and in the Punjab one sweeper. 4 In 1934, the Congress elected to the Central Legislature a potter. 5 It might be said that this 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 a mentality for a, Governing class ! What a brazenfacedness for a governing class to use the servile class for such an ignominious purpose and yet claim to be fighting for their freedom ! What a tragedy for the servile class to take pride in its own disgrace and join in it voluntarily! The Sinn Fein Party in Ireland also 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 Sitaramayya, 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 conceded before a certain date and on failure by the Viceroy in this behalf, 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 that Gujarat alone would win Swaraj for India, how Mr. Gandhi proclaimed his determination by saying that he would not return to Ahmedabad until he had 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 of and for the masses, on the other 1 Guru Gosain Agamdas and Babraj Jaiwar. 2 Chunnu. 3 Arjun Lal. 4 Bansi Lal Caudhari. 5 Bhagat Chandimal Gola.

465 WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNER 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. VI This mentality of the Congress High Command towards the servile classes is enough to negative the theory that the supremacy of the governing classes in the Congress Provinces was an accident. There are other facts which also go to negative the theory of accident and which are set out in Table 23 (see page 226). They relate to the educational qualifications of the several classes of candidates selected by the Congress for fighting the elections. What does the table show ? It is crystal clear that in the case of the Brahmins the relative proportion of graduates to non-graduates is far higher than what it is in the case of non-Brahmins and the Scheduled Castes. Was this an accident or was this a matter of policy ? This sort of selection is marked by such a state of uniformity that it could hardly be doubted that the Congress High Command in selecting a candidate had a definite policy, namely, in the case of Brahmins, to give preference to a candidate who had the highest educational qualifications and in the case of the non-Brahmins and the Scheduled Castes, to give preference to a candidate who had the lowest educational qualifications. The difference in terms of graduates and non-graduates does not really reveal the real difference between the status and position of the Brahmin candidates and non-Brahmin candidates. The Brahmin candidates were not merely graduates but they were seasoned politicians of high repute, while the non-Brahmin graduates were raw graduates with nothing but the career of second class politicians behind them. Why did the Congress select the best educated Brahmins as its candidates for election ? Why did the Congress select the least educated non-Brahmins and Scheduled Castes as its candidates for election ? To this question I can see only one answer. It was to prevent the non-Brahmins—the representatives of the servile classes—from forming a ministry. It cannot be that better educated non-Brahmins were not available. What the Congress seems to have done is deliberately

466 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Table 23 Classification of Brahmin and Non-Brahmin Congress Partymen by Literacy Provincial Assemblies Castes Total Graduates Non-Graduates Matriculates Illiterates Not stated Assam ... ... Brahmin … … 6 6 1 — — — Non-Brahmin … … 21 15 2 — 1 9 Bengal ... ... Brahmin … … 15 14 1 — — — Non-Brahmin … … 27 21 4 — 1 7 Scheduled Castes … 6 3 — 1 2 — Bihar ... ... Brahmin … … 31 11 5 3 4 3 Non-Brahmin … … 39 23 4 3 8 13 Scheduled Castes … — 1 1 4 10 — Central Province ... Brahmin … … 39 15 — 2 9 2 Non-Brahmin … … 54 15 — 2 17 1 Scheduled Castes … — 1 — — 6 — Madras ... ... Brahmin … … 38 16 2 3 4 13 Non-Brahmin … … 90 31 3 1 7 61 Scheduled Castes … 26 1 1 1 14 — Backward Class … … — 1 — — — Orissa ... ... Brahmin … … 11 6 1 — 3 1 Non-Brahmin … … 20 7 3 2 7 1 Scheduled Castes … 5 — — — 5 —