Dr. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Published Volumes
Vol. 1
Pages 520, Rs. 40-00 Castes in India.
Annihilation of Caste. Maharashtra as a Linguistic Province.
Need for Checks and Balances. Thoughts on Linguistic States. Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah. Evidence before the Southborough Committee.
Federation versus Freedom. Communal Deadlock and a Way to solve it.
States and Minorities.
Small Holdings in India.
Mr. Russel and the Reconstruction of Society.
Vol. 2
Pages 826, Rs. 80-00
In the Bombay Legislature, with the Simon Commission and at the Round Table Conferences —
1927 to 1939.
Vol. 3
Pages 508, Rs. 40-00
Philosophy of Hinduism.
India and Pre-Requisites of Communism.
Revolution & Counter-Revolution Buddha or Karl Marx.
Vol. 4
Pages 368, Rs. 35-00 Riddles in Hinduism.
Vol. 5
Pages 496, Rs. 40-00
Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability.
Vol. 6
Pages 712, Rs. 55-00 Problem of the Rupee.
Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India.
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
VoL 9
Governing Class and the Servile Class
Nobody Will have any quarrel with the abstract principle that nothing should be done whereby the best shall be superseded by one who is only better and the better by one who is merely good and the good by one who is bad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 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.
- Dr. Ambedkar in "What Congress.... etc.’
BHARAT RATNA
Dr. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR
M.A., Ph.D. (Columbia); D.Sc. (London);
LL.D. (Columbia); D.Litt.(Osmania); Bar-at-Law. (London)
BORN : 14th April 1891
PARINIBBAN : 6th December 1956
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR
WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Vol. 9
Edited
by
Vasant Moon
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA 1991
26th January 1991
©
Secretary
Education Department Government of Maharashtra
First Edition : 15,000 Copies
Price : Rs. 50-00
Publisher
The Education Department Government of Maharashtra Bombay 400 032
for Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Source Material Publication Committee
The object of the present publication is to compile Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar ‘ s writings on a variety of topics. The State Government has broght together these writings in the form of present publication.
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Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Source Material Publication Committee, Maharashtra State
(editorial board)
1. Shri Velasrao Deshmukh Minister for Education
2. Shri Ranjtt Deshmukh Education Minister for State
3. Shri R. S. Gavai
4. Shri Dadasaheb Rupawate
5. Shri N. M. Kamble
6. Shri Ramdas Athavale
7. Shri B. C. Kamble
8. Dr. P. T. Borale
9. Shri Ghanshyam TalvItkar
10. Shri Shankarrao Kharat
11. Siiri matt Shantabai Dani
12. Shri Waman Nimbalkar
13. Shri Prakash Ambedkar
14. Shri R. R. Bhole
15. Shri S. S. Rege
16. Dr. Bhalchandra Phadke
17. Shri Daya Pawar
18. Shri Laxman Mane
19. Prof. N. D. Paul
20. Prof. Moreshwar Vanamaii
21. Prof. Janardan Waghmare
22. Barrister P. G. Paul
23. Dr. M, P. Mangudkar
24. Prof. G. P. Pradhan
25. Shri B. M. Ambhajkar
26. Prof, J. C. Chandurkar
27. Prof. Ashok Godghate
28. Siiri T. S. Shringare
29. Shri T. M. Kamble
30. Secretary, Education Department
31. Director of Education
32. Shri V. W. Moon, O. S. D.
President
Vice-President
Vice-President
Executive President
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member Secretary Member
PREFACE
The Ninth Volume of the speeches and writings of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar consists of reprints of "What Congress and Gandhi have done to die Untouchables ?" and "Mr. Gandhi and the Emancipation of the Untouchables". Both these works now have only academic interest. They highlight the areas of difference of opinion between Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhiji.
The difference could be described as two sides of the same coin. Both recognised and identified the problem of the Untouchables but differed in their methods of solving it. Dr. Ambedkar stressed the role of law and Constitutional safeguards in protecting the interests of the Scheduled Castes. Gandhiji treated the problem as the moral stigma to be removed by acts of atonements.
The Poona Pact signed on September 24, 1932, recognised the social reality and solemnly affirmed that amongst Hindus no one was to be regarded as an Untouchable by reason of his birth. It also recognised the need for certain statutory safeguards. Later events confirmed the need for moral reforms and legal standards.
The. Constitution framed after Independence accepted the principle of reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. There is still the picturesque survival of reservation by nomination of ' a representative of the Anglo-Indian community! There are also adequate constitutional safeguards for linguistic and religious minorities.
The Constitution is designed to promote the welfare of all sections of citizens constituting the pluralistic Indian society. It is a synthesis of the rational view of Dr. Ambedkar and the moral outlook of Gandhiji. Both Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhiji have, thus, contributed to the evolution of the modem Indian polity. Both were agents of change. For Dr. Ambedkar, constitutional and legal safeguards for protection of the interests of the Scheduled Castes were necessary. Reliance on change of heart was not enough. He agreed that law itself
must embody minimum moral contents. Thus, law and morality had to go hand in hand. There is in fact a remarkable compromise and combination of law and morality in the Indian Constitution.
The point Of view Dr. Ambedkar emphasised in "What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables ?" marks- him out as a creative reformer. His was a creative personality. As Jacob Bronowski points out in his "Origins of knowledge and Imagination", "creative personality is always one that looks on the world as fit for change, and on himself as an instrument of change. Otherwise, what are you creating for? If the world is perfectly allright the way it is, you have no place in it. The creative personality thinks of the world as a canvas for change and of himself as a divine agent of change."
A social reformer has to point out faults in the social structure. If he does not speak out, he would not be a social reformer. Creativity also involves an element of controversy arising out of the conflict between the frenzy of a mathematical insight and the decorum of an equaition.
The ceaseless efforts of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar to rouse Indian Society from its deep slumber of prejudice were directed to the creation of new norms within the environment. They were designed to change the environment to create scope for development of the sanctity of the human personality.
The writings and speeches of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar are replete with illustrations of the need for reconciling the claims of the society with the liberty of the individual. It is in this context, that the chapter on fundamental rights in the Indian Constitution has to be viewed. When asked what was the most important Article, in the Indian Constitution, Dr. Ambedkar is reported to have referred to Article 32, which provides for remedies for enforcement of fundamental rights through the Supreme Court. Growth of public interest litigation and the increasing number of Writ Petitions filed in High Courts and in the Supreme Court have emphasised the role of law in social change for redesigning the environment.
Ill
The last 40 years have witnessed the gradual growth of values of equality and justice. The individual has a larger area of freedom and the autonomy of the individual has been enlarged. This is reflected in the development of entrepreneurship and growing pace of industrialisation. Sad to say;, there has been abuse of freedom and insecurity in some areas. However, the values of equality and justice and democratic aspirations have become part of life in the subcontinent.
The Government is being made increasingly aware of its responsibilities in the welfare state by exposure to the electoral processes.- and -to the Courts under the Constitution. The poverty alleviation programmes, slum upgradation schemes, expansion of education,, the role of the Press, discussions on autonomy for the Radio and Television, all these testify to the values now rooted in the social environment and political ethos.
The India of 1947 and the India of 1991 are two different entities. The technologies of freedom have no doubt influenced the course of events. What, however, stands to the credit of Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhiji is that they realised the role of values in life and legal norms to reshape society into a nation by integrating different groups, communities and cultures. The role of values in social enquiry is seldom appreciated. To select proper values as legal norms is a task that calls for deep understanding of human nature, and the vision of the future.
"A value premise should not be chosen arbitrarily," says G. Myrdel in his "Value in Social Theory", "it must be relevant and significant in relation to the society in which we live. It has, therefore, to be ascertained by an examination of which people actually desire.
People’s desires are to some extent regularly founded on erroneous
<*
beliefs about facts and casual relations. To that extent a corrected value premise corresponding to which people would desire, if their knowledge about .the world around them were more perfect can be construed and has relevance."
IV
"The wishes of human beings are relatively stable from age to age in so far as heredity or the physiological foundations are concerned. They acquire different experiences, however, because of the different social conditions in which men live. New inventions start changes in the behaviour of mankind. They are new stimuli to which human beings respond."
Dr. Ambedkar had the courage to differ from Gandhiji and Gandhiji showed the willingness to understand Dr. Ambedkar’s point of view and to stress the need to remove inequality as the basis of social organisation. The great debate between Dr. Ambedkar and! Gandhiji is a landmark in the constitutional history of India. It reveals how ideas change lives. Indeed, ideas rule the world and ideals shape the future. One may quote the words of Roscoe Pound :
"What is an 'ideal' as I am using the term in connection with the theories of nature ,of Law? The term comes from a Greek word meaning basically something one sees. Applied to action, it is a! mental picture of what one is doing or why, to which end or purpose,^ he is doing it." 1
The ideal of justice in social organisation is the theme of these works which point out the inadequacies of moral sentiment as guides to social action. Moral sentiments to be effective need social and legal sanctions for enforcement. As documents of historical importance, it is hoped that research scholars and lay readers will find them useful to know that law without idealism is mechanical and morality without legal sanction is a beautiful but ineffctual angel, "beating In the void his luminous wings in vain," to borrow the words of Matthew Arnold on the poetry of Shelley.
( Sharad Pawar) Chief Minister of Maharashtra
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES
©rtrication
(11) And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters ; why will ye go with me?,.. (12) . . .go your way . . . (14) And they lifted up their voice , and
wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law ; but Ruth clave unto her . (15) And she said , Behold thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people , and unto her gods ; return thou after thy sister-in-law. (16) And Ruth said , Intreat me not to leave them ; or to return from following after thee ; for whither thou goest , I will go ; and where thou lodgest , I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people , and thy God my God. (17) Where thou diest, will I die , and there will be buried ; the LORD do so to me, and more also , if ought but death part thee and me.”
I know how , when we used to read the Bible together , you would be affected by the sweetness and pathos of this passage. While you will be glad to read it again you will , 1 am sure , ask me what made me recall it in this connection. I wonder if you remember the occasion when we fell into discussion about the value of Ruth's statement “ Thy people shall be my people , and thy God my God.” I have a clear memory of it and can well recall our difference of opinion. You maintained that its value lay in giving expression to the true sentiments appropriate to a perfect wife. I pul forth the view that the passage had a sociological value and its true interpretation was the one given by Prof. Smith , namely , that it helped to distinguish modern society from ancient society. Ruth's statement “ Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God” defined ancient society by its most dominant characteristic namely that it was a society of man plus God while modern society is a society of men only (pray remember that in men I include women also). My view was not then acceptable toyou. But you were interested enough to urge me to write a book on this theme. I promised to do so. For as an oriental I belong to a society which is still ancient and in which God is a much more important member than man is. The part of the conversa- tion which is important to me at this stage is the promise I then made to dedicate the book to you if I succeeded in writing one. Prof. Smith's interpretation had opened a new vista before me and I had every hope of carrying out my intention. The chances of developing the theme in a book form are now very remote. As you know, I am drawn in the vortex of politics which leaves no time for literary pursuits. I do not know when I shall be out of it. The feeling of failure to fulfil my promise has haunted me ever since the war started. Equally distressing was the fear that you i might pass away as a ivar casualty and not be there to receive it if 1 were to have time to complete it. But the unexpected has happened. There you are, out of the throes of death. Here is a book ready awaiting dedication. This happy conjunction of two such events has suggested to me the idea that rather than postpone it indefinitely I might redeem my word, by dedicating this book which I have succeeded in bringing to completion. Though different in theme it is not an unworthy substitute. Will you accept it ?
To,
F.
In Thy Presence is the Fulness of Joy.
B. R. A.
WHAT
CONGRESS AND GANDHI
HAVE DONE
TO
THE UNTOUCHABLES
BY
B. R. AMBEDKAR
“ It may be your interest to be our masters, but how can it be ours to be your slaves ? ” — Thucydides.
[Reprint of the Edition of 1945 by the Government of Maharashtra]
Thacker & Co's Editions First Edition June 1945 Second Edition 1946
Government of Maharashtra's First Edition January 1991
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Preface .. .. i
Chapter I.-A strange Event
Congress Takes Cognizance of the Untouchables .. 1
Chapter II -A Shabby Show
Congress Abandons Its Plan .. ..19
Chapter III.-A Mean Deal
Congress Refuses to Part with Power .. .. 40
Chapter IV .-An Abject Surrender
Congress Bets an Inglorious Retreat .. .. 103
Chapter V.-A Political Charity
Congress Plan to Kill by Kindness .. .. 126
Chapter VL-A False Claim
Does Congress Represent All ? .. .. 146
Chapter VIL-A False Charge
Are Untouchables Tools of the British ? .. .. 166
Chapter VIII.-The Real Issue
What the Untouchables Want .. .. 181
Chapter IX.-A Plea to the Foreigners
Let not Tyranny Have Freedom to Enslave .. .. 199
Chapter X.-What do the Untouchables. Say?
Beware of Mr. Gandhi! .. .. 239
Chapter XI.-Gandhism
The Doom of the Untouchables .. .. 274
Appendices .. .. 298
Index .. .. 384
Note on the Annexure (added by the Editor) .. .. 437
Chapter IX (from the second edition of 1946) .. .. 439
Appendices
I. Correspondence between Swami Shradhnand and Pandit Motilal Nehru, Secretary of the Indian National Congress over the former's resignation from the Congress Committee, appointed in 1922 to draw up a Scheme for the Uplift of the Untouchables
n. Supplementary Memorandum submitted to the Second Session of the Round Table Conference on behalf of the Untouchables in 1931.
HI. The Minorities Pact submitted to the Minorities Committee of the Round Table Conference in 1931.
IV. Statement on Mr. Gandhi's Threat to Fast Unto Death against the Prime Minister's Award granting. Separate Electorates to the Untouchables.
V. Temple Entry in Travancore State
VI. Pronouncements by or on behalf of His Majesty's Government relating to the position of the Untouchables in any Scheme for the Constitution of India
VII. Montagu-Chelmsford Report and the Simon
Commssion on the injustice caused by weightage to Muslims .. = o-
VIII. Cripps Proposals of 1942 ..
IX. Objections to Cripps Proposals.
X. Correspondence between Lord Wavell and Mr.- Gandhi in July 1944
XI.. Resolutions passed by the Working Committee of the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation at its Meeting held in Madras on 23rd September 1944.
XII. Population by Minorities in British India.
Xm. Population by Minorities in Indian States.
XIV. Particulars of Scheduled Castes Constituencies in regard to seats and voting strength Province by Province.
XV. Particulars regarding elections to seats reserved for Scheduled Castes Province by Province.
XVT. The Wavell Plan.
Page
298
304
307
311
317
323
332
334
336
343
346
354
355
356
366
376
PREFACE
“In 1892, there took place in England a new election to Par- liament, in which the Conservatives headed by Lord Salisbury lost and the Liberals headed by Mr. Gladstone won. The remarkable thing about this election was that notwithstanding the defeat of his party at the polls, Lord Salisbury — contrary to Parliamentary convention — refused to surrender his office to the leader of the Liberal Party. When Parliament assembled, the Queen delivered the usual gracious speech from the throne containing the legislative programme of Lord Salisbury’s Government and the usual address to Her Majesty was moved from the Government side. Lord Salisbury’s Government was an illegitimate Government. It was a challenge to the funda- mental principle of the British Constitution, which recognised Parliamentary Majority as the only title deed for a Party’s right to form a Government. The Liberals took up the chal- lenge and tabled an amendment to the address. The amend- ment sought to condemn Lord Salisbury’s Government for its insistence on continuing in office, notwithstanding the fact that it had no majority behind it. The task of moving the amend- ment was entrusted to the late Lord (then Mr.) Asquith. In his speech in support of the amendment, Mr. Asquith used the now famous phrase — “ Causa finita est : Roma locuta est .” (Rome has spoken and the dispute must end). The phrase was originally used by St. Augustine but in a different context. It was used in the course of a religious controversy and had come to be used as a foundation for Papal Sovereignty. Mr. Asquith used it as a political maxim embodying the basic principle of Parliamentary Democracy. Today it is accepted as the fundamental principle on which Popular Government rests, namely, the Right of a Political Majority to Rule. It told instantaneously against Salisbury’s Government and must tell against all parties who fail at the polls wherever Parlia- mentary Democracy is in operation.
I was reminded of this maxim when the results of the Elections to the Provincial Legislatures in India, which took place in February 1987 under the Government of India Act, 1985, were announced. Congressmen did not actually say “ Causa finita est : India locuta est.” But so far as the parties, which had opposed the Congress in the Elections, were con-
cerned, that is what the results of the Elections seemed to proclaim. Having led the Untouchables against the Congress for full five years in the Round Table Conference and in the Joint Parliamentary Committee, I could not pretend to be unaffected by the results of the Elections. To me the question was • Had the Untouchables gone over to the Congress ? Such a thing was to me unimaginable. For, I could not believe that the Untouchables— apart from a few agents of the Congress who are always tempted by the Congress gold to play the part of the traitor— could think of going over to the Congress err masse forgetting how Mr. Gandhi and the Congress opposed inch by inch up to the very last moment, every one of their demands for political safeguards. I had therefore decided to study the Returns of the election that took place in 1937.
While I was convinced that such a study was of great necessity from the point of view of the Untouchables, the work proceeded at a snail’s pace. This was due to three causes The work had to be kept aside for some time to give precedence to other literary projects, the urgency of which demanded a degree of priority .which it was not possible to refuse. Secondly the Blue Book on the Election Results of 1937, which was submitted to Parliament soon after the elections had taken place and which is the primary source for figures regarding the elections, proved inadequate and insufficient for my purpose. It does not give separately figures showing how the Scheduled Castes electors voted and how many votes the Scheduled Caste candidates got. It gives figures showing how electors m different constituencies voted, without making any dis- tinction between Hindu voters and the Scheduled Castes voters. Circular letters had therefore to be issued to the various Provincial Governments requesting them to send me the figures showing distribution of voting by Scheduled Caste electors and the number of votes secured by each Scheduled Caste candidate. This inevitably delayed the work. Thirdly the examination of these election returns proved a very laborious task as the statistical tables given in the Appendices to this book will show.
The work thus lingered on. I regret very much this delay. Io,r I know how much mischief has been done by the Congress during the interval. The Congress has advertised the election results to bolster up its claim to represent the Untouchables, the mam point in the advertisement is that out of 151 seats
assigned to the Scheduled Castes the Independent Labour Party which was organized by me got only 12 seats and the rest of the seats were captured by the Congress. This mess is served out from the Congress kitchen as conclusive proof to show that the Congress represents the Untouchables. This false propaganda seems to have gone home in some quarters. Even a man like Mr. H. N. Brailsford has reproduced in his 4 Subject India5 this absurd Congress version, without any attempt at verification and with apparent acceptance of its truth. I am sure that the results of the elections as set out in this book will hit the nail squarely on the head of this false propaganda. For, the Congress version of the results of the election is an, utter perversion. As a matter of fact the results of 1987 Election conclusively disprove the Congress claim to represent the Untouchables. Far from supporting the Congress version, the results of the Election show : (1) that out of 151 the Congress got only 73 seats ; (2) that the Untouchables in almost every constituency fought against the Congress by putting up their own candidates ; (3) that the majority of 73 seats won by the Congress were won with the help of Hindu votes and they do not therefore in any way represent the Scheduled Castes ; and (4.) that of 151 seats those won, by the Congress in the real sense i.e., with the majority of votes of the Scheduled Castes, were only 38. As to the Independent Labour Party it was started in 1937 just a few months before the elections. It functioned only in the Province of Bombay. There was no time to organize branches in other Provinces. Elections on the ticket of the Independent Labour Party were fought only in the Province of Bombay and there the Independent Labour Party far from being a failure obtained an astonishing degree of success. Out of the 15 seats assigned to the Scheduled Castes in Bombay Presidency it captured 13 and in addition it won 2 general seats. I am therefore glad that at long last I have succeeded in completing the work which proves beyond the shadow of doubt that the story that the Congress captured all the seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes and that the Independent Labour Party was a failure, is a wicked lie. . I trust that the book will prove interesting and instructive for all those who are interested in the subject and who desire to know the truth.
Before closing this preface, I wish to express my gratitude to those from whom I have received assistance in one form or
IV
another. I am grateful to the Provincial Governments for the troubles they have taken m responding to my circular and sending me additional facts and figures which I had called for My thanks are also due to Mr. Karan Singh Kane, b.a., m.l a ' one time, Parliamentary Secretary in the U. P. Congress Government, for the help he has rendered in the most laborious task of preparing the tables.” nous
The readei- who reads the above preface and compares it
?ble of c°ntents will at once find that the book deals with topics which lie far outside its boundary Se curious may like to know how the foregoing part of the preface is related to the table of contents The explanation
differ* faCt ?at the book in its Present final form is quite different from what it was in its original form. In its original
form it covered in very brief compass matter now dealt with on a vastly bigger scale in Chapters IV, V VI VII and TV * 5
The f rg°ing pak 0f Se
orkii.Sf ,0f thte book “mc to be “ different fromX
original The explanation is quite simple. The proofs of
“h£ * i°T w“e — * » c t
■ ■ p j 4.C1! Was filssatisfied with the scope of the book and
e^e tt Conm1^ T* ^ “ With eIect™ ^ “o
I mmt do more f r t0 represent the Untouchables.
and MrdCandn t expose the efforts of the Congress
nd Mi. Gandhi to improve the lot of the Untouchables for
he information of the Untouchables and also of the foreigners
whom the Congress had deluded into accepting L sTtv
Bf des the ari^J oul
tall order a^d lvasaIready * P™of form, this was a
del aixd aPPeared to be beyond me having regard to
andVhaTtlT ?Y ^ He W°Uld n0t> h°wever, give way
SLh1 would TP f h" Pkn- The 01‘igfiial work
wmcn would have been about 75 vases in ™-i«+ t- u
completely recast and enlarged. The book in the present form is
a complete transformation. It records the deeds of the
Congress and Mr. Gandhi from 1917 to date in so far as thev
touch the probfom of the Untouchables. Much is written
about the Congress, far more about Mr. Gandhi But no one
Soui‘sid EC StOTy L°f 'Vh“‘ they 1“Ve d0"e
Untouchables. Everyone knows that Mr. Gandhi values more
his reputation as the saviour of the Untouchables than his reputation as the champion of Swaraj or as the protagonist of Ahimsa. At the Round Table Conference he claimed to be the sole champion of the Untouchables and wras not even prepared to share the honour with anyone else. I remember what a scene he created when his claim was contested. Mr. Gandhi does not merely claim for himself the championship of the Untouchables. He claims similar championship for the Congress. The Congress, he says, is fully pledged to redress the wrongs done to the Untouchables and argues that any attempt to give political safeguards to the Untouchables is unnecessary and harmful. It is therefore a great pity that no detailed study of thfese claims by Mr. Gandhi and the Congress has been undertaken so far.
With the Hindus who have been blind devotees of Mr. Gandhi this study, although it is the first of its kind, will not find favour: indeed it is sure to provoke their wrath. How can it be other- wise when the conclusion arrived at is “ Bewrare of Mr. Gandhi 55 ? Looking at it from a wider point of view, there is no reason for the Hindus to be enraged about it. The Untouchables are not the only community in India which thinks of Mr. Gandhi in these terms. The same view of Mr. Gandhi is entertained by the Muslims, the Sikhs and the Indian Christians. As a matter of fact, the Hindus should cogitate over the question and ask : why no community trusts Mr. Gandhi although he has been saying that he is the friend of the Muslims, Sikhs and the Scheduled Castes and what is the reason for this distrust ? In my judgment, there cannot be a greater tragedy for a leader to be distrusted by everybody as Mr. Gandhi is today. I am however certain that this is not how the Hindus will react. As usual, they will denounce the book and call me names. Rut as the proverb says: “The caravan must pass on, though the dogs bark.5’ In the same way, I must do my duty, no matter what my adversaries may have to say. For as Voltaire observed : Who writes the history of his own time must expect to be attacked for everything he has said, and for everything he has not said : but these little drawbacks should, not discourage a man who loves truth and liberty, expects nothing, fears nothing, asks nothing and limits his ambition to the cultivation of letters.”
The book has become bulky. It may be said that it suffers by reason of over-elaboration and even by repetition, I am
VI
aware of this. But I have written the book especially for the Untouchables and for the foreigners. On behalf of neither could I presume knowledge of the relevant facts. For the particular audience I have in view, it is necessary for me to state both facts as well as arguments and pay no regard to the artistic sense or the fastidious taste of a cultivated and informed class of readers. cu
AS it is my intention to make the book a complete com- pendium of information regarding the movement of the Untouchables for political safeguards, I have added several appendices other than those of statistical character Thev contain relevant documents both official and non-official which have a bearing upon the movement. Those who are interested m the problem of the Untouchables will, I believe, be glad to have this information ready at hand. The general reader may complain thatthe material in the Appendices is much too much Here again, I must state that the Untouchables are not likely to get the information which to the general reader may be easily accessible The test adopted is the need of the Untouch- ables and not of the general reader.
One last word. The reader will' find that I have used quite promiscuously in the course of this book a variety of nomen- clature such as Depressed Classes, Scheduled Castes, Harijans
m !° desi2nate the Untouchables. I am ware that this is likely to cause confusion especially for those who are not familiar with conditions in India. Nothing could have pleased me better than to have used one uniform nomen-
been Hse/hffifau f “ aItoSether mine. All these names have been used officially and unofficially at one time or other for the
is n SchedidpH ' C ^ the Government of India Act
I eS' BU that Came into use after 1935. Before that they were called ‘Harijans” by Mr. Gandhi and
likeffiaUt ClaS,SeS’ b.y Government. In a flowing situation like that it is not possible to fix upon one name, which may be
ThTr! deSlgnatlon at one stage and -incorrect at another.
ffiat these t °VerCOme a11 difficulties if he will remember that these terms are synonyms and represent the same class.
I am grateful to Professor Manohar Chitnis for the nre- P^ation o the Index and to Mr. S. C. Joshi for help" h correcting the proofs. F
■24th June 1945. R AmBEMAE-
22, Prithviraj Road,
New Delhi.
CHAPTER I
A STRANGE EVENT
I
In the annual session of the Indian National Congress held at Calcutta in the year 1917 a strange event took place. In that session the Congress passed the following resolution : —
“This Congress urges upon the people of India the necessity, justice and righteousness of removing all disabilities imposed by custom upon the Depressed Classes, the disabilities being of a most vexatious and oppressive character, subjecting those classes to considerable hardship and inconvenience.”
The President of the session was Mrs. Annie Besant. The resolution was moved by Mr. G. A. Natesan of Madras and was supported by Mr. Bliulabhai Desai from Bombay, by Mr. Rama Iyer from Malabar and by Mr. Asaf Ali from Delhi. In moving the resolution, Mr. Natesan said : —
“Ladies and Gentlemen, — This question has been receiving great attention for years in other platforms ; but in view of the unique character of this Congress, the Subjects Committee thought it necessary, after having framed a scheme of self- government for India, that we should complete that by asking us to prepare ourselves for the task of self-government. The first great duty is to see that all inequalities and injustices are removed. You will see that this resolution specially asks you to remove disabilities of a most vexatious and oppressive character. Without injuring your religious feelings, without giving up all that is best in your religious tradition, I think the Congress has a right to ask of you and of me and of others else- where that such absurd restrictions as the non-admission of these people to schools should be removed. The Congress has also a claim upon all human beings to see that in some portions of the country where these people are refused even the use of common well, these restrictions should disappear. . .In attempt- ing to elevate ourselves and in trying to remove these galling restrictions we are bub elevating Indian manhood ; and when Responsible Self-Government is to be given to us we shall be in a position to say that Indians of all classes, of all creeds, have thb fullest rights, the commonest social rights, have free access to all schools, to all institutions so that Indian manhood may develop in all its truest, best and noblest traditions.5’
2 OR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR ;
WRITING? * AND SPEECHES
^BhUabhai Desai in supporting the resolution pointed out
are a greaUUow u°f our brethreu suffer
preach. £ '£ ^.?S,?fdtub'0th"hood °f ”>» «« we passed this mornhj with wh^l fte r™ U"t y0“ W
British Democracy of any othlrnnir^1”11 W apProach the
our own brethren ? They will say * WhatT Un.able to upbft power, the obliteration o/the soS **
^youxown peop16, you have been unabg™“ of a
existence of this great bane is ar>^e 1+ ?!? ■ e y°1J The
Therefore, both on ^ Hbd,,i^'
-isSSsp:
demand Self-Government?” what face> will you
Mr. Rama Iyer said :
shall shatter the shaekles^hat bind^ ' fr?edom by wbi'ch we are the foot of the nation Jjff the lower classes. They
of Home Rule, we muS fetS ^ 1 T*m dimb the ^ and then and then only till Ho^ 0n 0Ur feet
cannot be political democmts aS ?t C°“6 to us---You
erats. Remember that a man 4 fame time soclaI auto- cally a free ma^ \yP all u ’ & SGCIaI slave’ cannot be politi-
eniL lS“ n ot S“ the °f
the line... Therefore te<? but UIUted all along
belong to the Mghef’casU f US’ wh° are Brab«dns, wlm shackles of the low castes neonf °Uu vibages and shatter the our own men-the social bureau?™, Jof oS'owSd!”
Mr. Asaf Ali observed that ;
diS STvL t?ESC1“r ™ °»= of the most and autocratic action of thf* ht S^ame uPon the arbitrary it was the turn ofS ““"“t bu”Sler!. b“‘ »«w
S&S
“** “ ^ *» thousan^?^ «Xt
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A STRANGE EVENT
3
from the abyss of degradation into which the cruel and utterly unjustified customs of the country had hurled them. Whether it was the spring-time of hope, or the summer of realisation to others, to these unfortunate creatures it was always the winter of black despair. It seemed a cruel irony of fate that those who were vociferously clamouring for the attainment or preservation of human rights themselves -were so little mindful of the legitimate rights of others under them. Was it just or fair that a mute section of humanity should be left to suffer the very wrongs for whose redress others were shedding their blood in the battlefield ? Why, even the ‘untouchables, 5 in spite of all that cruel custom had subjected them to, were human beings and children of the soil, in whose veins coursed the self-same ‘red-blood’ as in the veins of those who arrogated superiority to themselves. The Depressed Classes were entitled to the same privileges as their betters in worldly circumstances and could not be debarred from the birthright of man. It was a standing reproach to the Indians that they had any Depressed Classes at all, and it was for the extinction of this reproach that they prayed.”
Many people would wonder why I describe the passing of the Resolution by the Congress moved and supported in such eloquent terms, as a strange event. But those who know the antecedents will admit that it is not an improper description. It was strange for many reasons.
In the first place, the President of the Session was the late Mrs. Annie Besant. She was a well-known public figure and had many things for which she will be remembered by the future historian of India. She was the founder of the Theoso- phical Society which has its Home at Adyar. Mrs. Annie Besant was well-known for rearing up Mr. Krishnamurti, the son of a Brahmin retired Registrar for a future Massiah. Mrs. Annie Besant was known as the founder of the Home Rule League. There may be other things for which friends of Mrs. Annie Besant may claim for her a place of honour. But I don’t know, that she was ever a friend of the Untouchables. So far as I know she felt great antipathy towards the Untouch- ables. Expressing her opinion on the question whether the children of the Untouchables should or should not be admitted to the common school, Mrs. Annie Besant in an article headed 4 The Uplift of the Depressed Classes ’ which appeared in the Indian Review for February 1909 said : —
“In every nation we find, as the basis of the social Pyramid,
4
DR. BABASAIEEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
a large class of people, ignorant, degraded, unclean in language and habits, people, who perform many tasks which are necessary for Society, but who are despised and neglected by the very Society to 'whose needs they minister. In England, this class is called the 'submerged tenth,5 forming, as it does, one-tenth of the total population. It is ever on the verge of starvation, and the least extra pressure sends it over the edge. It suffers chronically from under-nutrition, and is a prey to the diseases which spring therefrom. It is prolific, like all creatures in whom the nervous system is of a low type, but its children die off rapidly, ill-nourished, rickety, often malformed. Its better type consists of unskilled labourers, who perform the roughest work, scavengers, sweepers, navvies, casual dock- labourers, costermongers ; and into it, forming its worse type, drift all the wastrels of Society, the drunkards, the loafers, the coarsely dissolute, the tramps, the vagabonds, the clumsily criminal, the ruffians. The first type is, as a rule, honest and industrious ; the second ought to be under continued control, and forced to labour sufficiently to earn its bread. In India, this class forms one-sixth of the total population, and goes by the generic name of the *' Depressed Classes.’ It springs from the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, conquered and enslaved by the Aryan invaders, ... It is drunken and utterly indifferent to cleanliness, whether of food, person or dwelling ; hut marriage is accompanied with some slight formality, children are kindly treated, and there is very little brutality, violence or criminality. Criminal communities, such as hereditary thieves, live apart, and do not mingle with the scavengers, sweepers, husbandmen and the followers of other simple crafts who make up the huge bulk of the depressed. They are gentle, docile, as a rule industrious, pathetically sub- missive, merry enough when not in actual want, with a bright though generally very limited intelligence ; of truth and the civic virtues they are for the most part utterly devoid — how should they be anything else ? — but they are affectionate, grateful for the slightest kindness, and with much 'natural religion.5 In fact, they offer good material for simple and useful though humble civic life, . . .
"What can be done for them by those who feel the barbarity of the treatment meted out to them, by those who feel that the Indians who demand freedoms should show respect to others, and give to others a share of the consideration they claim for themselves ?
"Here, as everywhere, education is the lever by which we may hope to raise them, but a difficulty arises at the outset,
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES ;
A STRANGE EVENT
for one class of the community, moved by a noble feeling of compassion and benevolence, but not adding thereto a careful and detailed consideration of the conditions, demands, for the children of the pariah community admission to the schools frequented by the sons of the higher classes, and charges with lack of brotherhood those who are not in favour of this policy. It becomes, therefore, necessary to ask whether brotherhood is to mean levelling down, and whether it is usual in family to treat the elder children and the babies in exactly the same way. It is a zeal not according to knowledge — and not according to nature — which would substitute equality for brotherhood, and demand from the cultured and refined that they should forfeit the hardly won fruits of the education of generations, in order to create an artificial equality, as disastrous to the progress of the future as it would be useless for the improvement of the present. The children of the depressed classes need, first of all, to be taught cleanliness, outside decency of behaviour, and the earliest rudiments of education, religion and morality. Their bodies, at present, are ill-odorous and foul with the liquor and strong-smelling food out of which for generations they have been built up ; it will need some generations of purer food and living to make their bodies fit to sit in the close neighbourhood of a school-room with children who have received bodies from an ancestry trained in habits of exquisite personal cleanliness, and fed on pure food-stuffs. We have to raise the Depressed Classes to a similar level of physical purity, not to drag down the clean to the level of the dirty, and until this is done, close association is undesirable. We are not blaming these children, nor their parents, for being what they are ; we are stating a mere palpable fact. The first daily lesson in a school for these children should be a bath, and the putting on of a clean cloth ; and the second should be a meal cif clean wholesome food ; those primary needs cannot be supplied in a school intended for children who take their daily bath in the early morning and who come to school well-fed.
“Another difficulty that faces teachers of these children are the contagious diseases that are bred from first ; to take one example, eye-disease, wholly due to neglect, is one of the most common and ‘catching5 complaints among them. In our Panchama schools in Madras, the teachers are ever on the alert to detect and check this, and the children’s eyes are daily washed and disease is thus prevented. But is it to be expected that fathers and mothers, whose daily care protects their children from such dirty diseases should deliberately expose them at school to this infection ?
6 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR :
WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
“Nor are the manner and habits of these forlorn little ones desirable things to be imitated by gently-nurtured children. Good manners, for instance, are the result of continual and ngid self-control, and of consideration for the comfort and convenience of others; children learn manners chiefly by mutation from well-bred parents and teachers and, secondarily by suitable precept and reproof. If, at the school, they are to be made to associate with children not thus trained, they will quickly fall into the ways which they see around them. 7 For until good habits are rendered fixed by long practice it is far
Ouffhttthbe SSh°d t]ff aCCUrate’ t0 be ca«lesS than careful. Ought the children of families in which good manners and
»b£iytrt i'reditary> to be ™
do™ *y r,„tie”nchei r- dng‘ the ",hoIe ■“‘ion
down . Gentle speech, well-modulated voice, pleasant wavs these are the valuable results of long culture, and to -let Them be swamped out is no true brotherhood . . .
prfl^Qn. ®nSland> ft has never been regarded as desirable to educate boys or girls of all classes side by side, and such grotes- que equalising of the unequal would be scouted. Eton and Harrow are admittedly the schools for the higher classes ; Rubgy
sotIwE11?6! arC a S° Sch00ls for gentlemen’s sons, thoufh somewhat less aristocratic. Then come a number of
the provinciaI middle class. Then the Board Schools, where the sons of artisans
and the general manual labour classes are taught ; and below
name nf f°£.tbewaifs and strays» are the ‘ragged schools,’ the ™ ° Which indicates the type of their scholars, and the numerous charitable institutions. A man in England who proposed that ragged school-children should be admitted to Eton and Harrow would not be argued with, but laughed at
S’ neon] a Smi “ Pr°P°f ion is made in the name of brother- ^ askamed to Pomt 'out frankly its absurdity and they do not realise that the proposal is merely a violent reaction against the cruel wrongs which have been inflicted on S®. ? Pressed4 Classes, the outcry of an awakened conscience
emotions It is sometimes said that Government schools pay
are isiSv^for 1 fffer^ces ’ therein they show that they ew“L f?i!gn m th61r Spirit> They ™ild not deal of fh™c f T ^ heir 0Wn peopIe’ thouSh they may be careless aSce °fT/ndianS’ and IumP all together, clean and 1S very easy to see the differences of ‘tone’ in
^,iStwhenK°?ly *5” som °f ,he
dmitted to a school, and it is to the interest of the TndW
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A STRANGE EVENT
7
that they should send their sons where they are guarded from coarse influences as Englishmen guard their own sons in England.”
* * *
The second reason why one is justified in describing the passing of this resolution as a strange event lies in the fact that it was entirely opposed to the declared policy of the Congress. In these days when the “ Constructive Programme” of the Congress is hawked from every street and at all times when the Congress is resting after an active campaign of non- co-operation and civil disobedience, this statement may well cause surprise to present day Congressmen and their friends. The following extracts from the addresses of the Presidents who presided at the Annual Sessions of the Congress wrill suffice to bring home the fact that the Congress policy was to give no place to questions of Social Reform in the aims and objects of the Congress.
To begin with, Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji who presided at the Second Session of the Indian National Congress held in Calcutta in the year 1886. In this presidential address he referred to the Congress attitude towards Social Reform and said : —
“It has been asserted that this Congress ought to take up questions of social reform (Cheers and cries of ‘Yes, Yes’) and our failure to do this has been urged as a reproach against us. Certainly no member of this National Congress is more alive to the necessity of social reform than I am ; but, Gentlemen, for everything there are proper times, proper circumstances, proper parties and proper places (Cheers) ; we are met together as a political body to represent to our rulers our political aspirations, not to discuss social reforms, and if you blame us for ignoring these, you should equally blame the House of Commons for not discussing the abstruser problems of mathematics or meta- physics. But, besides this, there are here Hindus of every caste, amongst whom, even in the same province, customs and social arrangements differ widely — there are Mahomedans and Christians of various denominations, Parsis, Sikhs, Brahmos and what not — men indeed of each and of all those numerous classes which constitute in the aggregate the people of India. (Loud Cheers). How can this gathering of all classes discuss the social reforms needed* in each individual class .Only the members of that class can effectively deal with the reforms there- in needed. A National Congress must confine itself to questions in which the entire nation has a direct participation, and it
8
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
must leave the adjustment of social reforms and other class questions to Class Congresses ”
The subject was again referred to by the Hon. Mr. JBudruddin Tyabji who presided over the Third Annual Session of the Congress held in 1887. Mr. Tyabji observed
“ - • - It has been urged— solemnly urged — as an objection against our proceedings— that this Congress does not discuss the question of Social Reforms ... I must confess that the objection seems to me strange, seeing that this Congress is com- posed of the representatives, not of any one class or community, not of one part of India, but of all the different parts, and of all the different classes, and of all the different communities of India. Whereas any question of Social Reform must of necessity affect some particular part or some particular com- munity of India only and, therefore, Gentlemen, it seems to me, that although we, Mussulmans, have our own social problems to solve, just as our Hindu and Parsi friends have theirs, yet these questions, can be best dealt with by the leaders of the particular communities to which they relate (Applause). I, therefore, think, Gentlemen, that the only wise and, indeed, the only possible course we can adopt is to confine our discussions to such questions as affect the whole of India at large, and to abstain from the discussion of questions that affect a particular part or a particular community only.”
The third occasion, when the subject was referred to was in 1892, when Mr. W. C. Bannerjee in his Presidential address to the Eighth Session of the Congress gave expression to the following sentiments : —
“Some of our critics have been busy in telling us, thinking they knew our affairs better than we know them ourselves, that we ought not to meddle with political matters, but leaving politics aside devote ourselves to social subjects and so improve the social system of our country ; I am one of those who have very little faith in the public discussion of social matters ; those are things which I think, ought to be left to the individuals of a community who belong to the same social organisation to do what they can for its improvement. We know how excited people become when social subjects are discussed in public. Not long ago we had an instance of this when what was called the Age of Consent Bill was introduced into the Viceregal Legislative Council. I do not propose to say one word as to the merits of the controversy that arose over that measure, but I allude to it to illustrate how apt the public mind is to get
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES :
A STRANGE EVENT’ 9
agitated over these social matters if they are discussed in a hostile and unfriendly spirit in public ... I may point out that we do not all understand in the same sense what is meant by social reform. Some of us are anxious that our daughters should hhve the same education as our sons, that they should go to Universities, that they should adopt learned professions; others who are more timid would be content with seeing that their children are not given in marriage when very young, and that child widows should not remain widows all the days of their lives. Others more timid still would allow social problems to solve themselves . . . the Congress commenced and has since remained, and will, I sincerely trust, always remain as a purely political organization devoting its energies to political matters and political matters only. I am afraid that those whether belonging to our own country or to any other country, who find fault with us for not making social subjects a part of our work, cherish a secret wish that we might all be set by the ears, as we are all set by the- ears by the Age of Consent Bill, and that thus we might come to an ignominious end. They mean us no good, and when we find critics of that description talking of the Congress as only fit to discuss social problems, I think the wider the berth we give them, the better. . .”
“I, for one, have no patience with those who say w’e shall not be fit for political reform until we reform our social system.
I fail to see any connection between the two. Let me take, for instance, one of the political reforms which we have been sug- gesting year after year viz., the separation of judicial from executive functions in the same officer. What possible con- nection can there be between this, which is a purely political reform and social reform ? In the same way, take the Permanent Settlement which we have been advocating, the amendment of the law relating to forests and other such measures ; — and I ask again, what have these to do with social reform ? Are we not fit for them because our widows remain unmarried and our girls are given in marriage earlier than in other countries ? because our wives and daughters do not drive about with us visiting our friends ? because we do not send our daughters to Oxford or Cambridge ? (Cheers.)”
The last occasion when a Congress President is found to refer to this subject was in 1895 when the Congress Session was held in Poona and was presided over by Mr. Surrendranath Bannerjee. Touching upon the subject, in his presidential address, Mr. Bannerjee said : —
uWe cannot afford to have a schism in our camp. Already
10
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
they tell us that it is a Hindu Congress, although the presence ot our Mahomedan friends completely contradicts the state- ment. Let it not be said that this is the Congress of one social party rather than that of another. It is the Congress of United In<ha of Hindus and Mahomedans, of Christians, of Parsis and ot .Sikhs, of those who would reform their social customs and ose w o would not. Here we stand upon a common plat- fonn— here we have all agreed to bury our social and religious differences and recognise the one common fact that being subjects of the same Sovereign and living under the same Government and the same political institutions, we have common rights and common grievances. And we have called forth this Congress into existence with a view to safeguard and extend our rights and redress our grievances. What should we say of a Faculty of Doctors who fell out, because though in perfect accord as to the principles of their science, they could not agree as to the age at which thev should marry their daughters, or whether they should remarry their widowed daughters or not. . .Ours is a political and not a social move- ment; and it cannot be made a matter of complaint against us that we are not a social organization any more than it can be urged against any of my lawyer fri< ids that they are not oc ors. Even in regard to politics,, matters, such is our respect for the opinions of minorities, that so far back as 1887,
1 think it was at the instance of Mr. Bnuruddin Tvabii, who once_was our President and whose elevation to the Bench of the Bombay High Court is a matter of national congratulation, a resolution was passed to the effect that where there is practical unanimity among a class, though in a minority in the Congress,
abandonedS”°n Sh°Uld n0t be discussed> it should forthwith be
There is special danger to which an organization such as ours, is exposed and which must be guarded against,. . .the danger of there being developed from within the seeds of dissension and dispute.”
II
.there are two questions about these statements which, need explanation. First is to know what the Social Reform party was to which the Presidents refer. The second is why Mr Sur- renaranath Banner jee’s address to the Congress in 1895 was the last occasion when a Congress President found it necessary to refer to the relation of the Congress to the problem of Social
Reform and why no president after 1895 thought it necessary to dwell on it. J
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A STRANGE EVENT
11
To understand the first question it is necessary to note that when the Indian National Congress was founded at Bombay in 1885, it was felt by the leaders of the movement that the National movement should not be exclusively political but that side by side with the consideration of political questions, ques- tions affecting Indian social economy should also be discussed and that the best endeavours of all should be put forth for vitalizing Hindu Society by removing all social evils and social wrongs. With this view, Dewan Bahadur R. Raghunath Rao and Mr. Justice (then Rao Bahadur) M. G. Ranade delivered addresses on Social Reform on the occasion of the meeting of the First Congress at Bombay. * In 1886, at Calcutta, nothing further was done. Discussion, however, was going on among the leaders of the Congress movement and other leaders of educated Indian thought whether the Congress as such should concern itself writh social questions or whether a separate body should Be set up for the discussion of social questions. It was at last resolved after mature deliberation by, among others, Dewan Bahadur R. Raghunath Rao, Mr. Mahadco Govind Ranade, Mr. Narendra Nath Sen and Mr. Janakinath Ghosal, that a separate organization called the Indian National Social Conference, should be ‘ started for the consideration of subjects relating to Indian social economy. Madras had the honour of being the birth-place of the Conference, for, the First Indian National Social Conference was held at Madras in December 1887, with no less a man than the late Rajah Sir T. Madhavrao, k.c.s.i., the premier Indian statesman of his time, as the President. The work done at this First Conference, however, was not much. Among other important resolutions members then present recognized the necessity of holding annual National Conferences in different parts of India for considering and adopting measures necessary for the improvement of the status of our society, and of our social usages ; and taking steps to organize and establish Provincial Sub-Committees of the Conferences. It was agreed that among social subjects which the Conference might take up, those relating to the disabilities attendant on distant sea-voyages, the ruinous expenses of marriage, the limitations of age below which marriages should not take place, the remarriages of youthful widows, the evils of the re-marriages of old men with young girls, the forms and evidences of marriages and inter-marriages
12
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
between sub-divisions of the same caste should form the subjects for discussion and determination.
As to sanctions it was thought there should be different Sub-Committees appointed for dealing with different social questions. The Sub-Committees were to be left to evolve certain fundamental principles and penalties for breach of these principles, to be carried out and enforced as regards the members of Social Reform Party who might agree to be bound by such penalties, (1) by the Sub-Committees themselves, or (2) through their spiritual heads, whenever it was possible to do so, or (3) through Civil Courts, or failing all ( 4 ) by application to Government for enabling the Committees to enforce the rules in respect of their own pledged members.
While the Social Reform Party had formed a separate organization of its own to discuss the many social evils which festered Hindu Society, they were not. satisfied with the Congress attitude* of completely dissociating itself from questions of social reform. Some of them were anxious to make it an issue whether Social Reform should not precede Political Reform and press for a decision. In this they had many friends to support them. Among them was to be found the Government of India. Sir Aukland Colvin, a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, very clearly and very emphatically stated that Indians ought to turn their attention to Social Reform in preference to endeavours they were making “ to teach the British what their duties were in regard to the Government of India.”
The reference to Social Reform in the addresses of* the Congress Presidents referred to above can now be easily under- stood. They are a reply to the criticism by the Social Reform Party against the Congress dissociating itself from the problem of removing social evils.
Turning to the second question as to why no Congress President has referred to the question of Social Reform in his presidential address after 1895, the answer is that before 1895 there were two schools among Congressmen on the issue of social reform versus political reform. The viewpoint of one school was that expressed by Mr. Dadabhoy Naoroji, Mr. Budruddin Tyabji and Mr. Surrendranath Banner jee. The viewpoint of the other school was that expressed by Mr. W. C.
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES :
A STRANGE EVENT
Barierjee. The former did recognize the need of social reform but' thought that the Congress Session was not the proper platform for it. The latter denied that there was need for social reform and challenged the view that there cannot be political reform without social reform. Though the two schools within the Congress were fundamentally opposed to each other, they had not upto 1895 developed a spirit of anta- gonism and intolerance towards each other. The former school was in a dominant position and the result was that the Indian National Congress and the Social Conference functioned as two parallel organizations each devoting itself to its own particular aims and objects. So great was the spirit of co-operation and good will between the two that the annual sessions of the National Congress and Social Conference were held in immediate succession in the same pandal and a large majority of those who came to attend the Congress Session also attended the Social Conference. The Social Conference was, however, an eyesore to the Congressmen who belonged to the Anti-social Reform Section. This section was evidently getting restive at the kindly disposition and the accommodating spirit which the dominant section in the Congress was showing to the Social Conference particularly in the matter of allowing it to use the Congress pandal for holding its session. In 1895 when the Congress met in Poona, this Anti-Social Reform section rebelled and threatened to burn the Congress pandal if the Congress allowed it to be used by the Social Conference. This opposition to the Social Conference was headed by no other person than the late Mr. Tilak one of those social tories and political radicals with which India abounds and who was the father of the slogan “Swaraj is my- birthright’5 which is now seen blazoned on Congress banners. The rebellion succeeded largely because the Pro-Social Reform Party in the Congress was not prepared to fight its opponents.1 This rebellion had one effect. It settled that the Congress was not to entertain any question of social reform
1 That the Pro- Social Reform Party in the Congress did not like to take yp the challenge is evident from the letter which Mr. Surrendranath Banner jee wrote to Mr. Ranade over the question raised by Mr. Tilak’ s Party regarding the use of the Congress pandal by the Social Conference in which he said “The raison d'etre for excluding social questions from our deliberations is that were we to take up suclT questions it might lead to serious differences ultimately culminating in a schism, and it is a matter of the first importance that we should prevent a split. The request of the other side is very unreasonable; but we have sometimes to submit to unreasonable demands to avert greater evils.’*
14
. DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
ixo matter how urgent.1 This is the explanation why no Congress President after 1895 has referred to the question of social reform in his presidential address. The Congress by its action in 1895 had become a purely political body with no inllere^t and no concern in the removal or mitigation of social wrongs.
Ill
Against this background the resolution passed by the Congress about *the Depressed Classes in 1917 is obviously a strange event. The Congress had never done such a thing .before although it had functioned for thirty-two years. It was even contrary to its declared policy.
Why did the Congress think it necessary to pass such a resolution in the year 1917 ? What made it take cognizance of the Untouchables ? What did it want to gain ? Whom did it want to deceive? Was it because of a change in its angle of vision or was it because of some ulterior motive ? For an answer to these questions one must turn to the following resolutions passed by the Depressed Classes in the year 1917 at two separate meetings held in the City of Bombay under two different Presidents. The first of these meetings was held on the 11th November 1917 under the Chairmanship of tbte late Sir Narayan Chandavarkar. In that meeting the following resolutions® were passed : —
“First Resolution — Loyalty to British Government and prayer for victory to the Allies.”
“Second Resolution carried at the meeting by an overwhelming majority, the dissentients being about a dozen, expressed approval of the scheme of reform in the administration of India recommended by the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League
“Tldrd Resolution carried unanimously was : ‘As the popu- lation of the Depressed Classes in India considered Untouchable and treated as such, is very large, as their condition is very
1 Soirte-^of the leading Social Reformers welcomed this rebellion by the Anti- social Reform Party in the Congress against the Conference. Dewan Bahadur R. Raghunath Rao wrote to Mr. Ranade that he “was glad that the panda! was not allowed to be used by the Social Conference, for the deception that usod to be practised by the Congress upon the English people that it worked in con- junction with the Social Conference was unveiled, and the English people would now clearly understand that the Congress really did not mean to work with th.e Social Conference.”
a Addresses presented to the Viceroy in India and the Right Hon’ble tli© Secretary of State for India (1918). Parliamentary Paper Cd. 9178 pages 74 -7S,
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A STRANGE EVENT
15
degraded owing to that treatment and as they are behind the rest of the people in point of education, being unable to secure"*' fair opportunities for their improvement, this public meeting of the Depressed Classes strongly feels that in the scheme of reform and reconstitution of the Legislative Councils which Government may be pleased to adopt, due regard* -be paid to the interests of the said classes. This meeting therefore prays the British Government to he so gracious as to protect those interests by granting to those classes the right to elect their own representatives to the said Councils in proportion to their numbers/5
“Fourth Resolution unanimously carried at the meeting was.:. ‘That the Government be prayed for the adoption, with all convenient speed, of a compulsory and free system of education rendered necessary by the fact that the social elevation of any community depends upon the universal spread of education among its members and that degradation of the Depressed Classes is due to their illiteracy and ignorance.55
“ Fifth Resolution carried unanimously was as follows : — ‘That the Chairman of this public meeting be authorised to request the Indian National Congress to pass at its forthcoming session a distinct and independent resolution declaring to the people of India at large the necessity , justice , and righteousness of removing all the disabilities imposed by religion and custom upon the Depressed Classes , those disabilities being of a most vexa- tious and oppressive character, subjecting those classes to considerable hardship and inconvenience by prohibiting them from admission into public schools, hospitals, courts of justice and public offices, and the use of public wells, etc. These dis- abilities social in origin, amount in law and practice to political disabilities and as such fall legitimately within the political mission and propaganda of the Indian National Congress.55
“ Sixth Resolution prays all Hindus of the castes other than the Untouchables and Depressed, especially those of the higher castes, who claim political rights, to take steps for the purpose of removing the blot of degradation from the Depressed Classes, which has subjected those classes to the worsts of treatment in their own country.55
The second meeting was also held in November 1917 a week or so after the first meeting. The Chairman was one Bapuji Namdeo Bagadea leader of the Non-Brahmin Party. At this meeting the following resolutions1 were unanimously adopted : —
“(1) Resolution of loyalty*to the British throne,55 1 Ibid p. 75.
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKA*
10 WRITINGS AND SPEECH^
44 (2) That this meeting cannot give its support to the Congress-League Scheme in spite of its having been declared to have been passed at the meeting of 11th November 1917 by ai\ overwhelming majority.”
“(3) That it is the sense of this meeting that the adminis- tration of India should be largely under the control of the British till all classes and specially the Depressed Classes, rise up to a condition to effectually participate in the adminis- tration of the country.”
“ (4) That if the British Government have decided to give political concession to the Indian Public, this meeting prays that Government should grant the Untouchables their own representatives in the various legislative bodies to ensure to them their civil and political rights.”
“(5) That this 'meeting approves of the objects of the Bahiskrit Bharat Samai (Depressed India Association) and supports the deputation to be sent on its behalf to Mr. Montagu.”
“ (6) That this meeting prays that Government looking to the special needs of the Depressed Classes, should make primary education both free and compulsory. That the meeting also requests the Government to give special facilities by way of scholarships to the students of the Depressed Classes.”
“(7) That the meeting authorises the President to forward the above resolutions to the Viceroy and the Government of Bombay.”
It is obvious that there is a close inter-connection betwee the resolution passed by the Depressed Classes at their meetin in Bombay under the chairmanship of Sir Narayan Chanda vai kar and the Congress resolution of 1917 on the elevation of th Depressed Classes. This interconnection will be easily undei stood by adverting to the political events of the year 191*3 It will be recalled that it was in 1917 or to be precise, on th 20th August 1917 the late Mr. Montagu the then Secretary c State for India announced in the House of Commons the nei policy of His Majesty’s Government towards India, namely, th policy of “gradual development of self-governing institution with a view to progressive realization of responsible govern ment in India as an integral part of the British Empire. Leading Indian politicians were expecting some such declaratio of policy on the part of His Majesty’s Government and wei preparing schemes for changes in the constitutional structure c India in anticipation of such a policy. Of the many scheme
\VHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO HIE UNTOUCHABLES :
A STRANGE EVENT 17
that were formulated, there were two around which public attention was centred. One was called “the Scheme of the Nineteen.” The second was called “the Congress-League Scheme.” The first was put forth by the 19 elected additional Members of the then Imperial Legislative Council. The second was an agreed scheme of political reforms supported by the Congress and the League otherwise known as the Lucknow Pact. Both these schemes had come into existence in 1916, a year before the announcement made by Mr. Montagu.
Of the two schemes, the Congress was interested in seeing that its own scheme was accepted by His Majesty’s Government. The Congress with that purpose in view was keen on giving the Congress-League scheme the status and character of a National Demand. This could happen only if the scheme had the backing of all communities in India. In as much as the Muslim League had accepted the scheme, the problem of securing the backing of the Muslim Community did not arise. Next in numbers came the Depressed Classes. Though not as well organized as the Muslims, they were politically very conscious as their Resolutions show. Not only were they politically conscious but they were all along anti-Congress. Indeed in 1895 when Mr. Tilak’s followers threatened to burn the Congress pandal if its use was allowed to the Social Conference for ventilating social wrongs, the Untouchables organized a demonstration against the Congress and actually burned its effigy. This antipathy to the Congress has continued ever since. The resolutions passed by both the meetings of the Depressed Classes held in Bombay in 1917 give ample testimony to the existence of this antipathy in the minds of the Depressed Classes towards the Congress. The Congress while anxious to get the support of the Depressed Classes to the Congress-League scheme of Reforms knew very well that it had no chance of getting it. As the Congress did not then practise — it had not learned it then — the art of corrupting people as it does now, it enlisted the services of the late Sir Narayan Chanda varkar, an Ex-President of the Congress. As the President of the De- pressed Classes Mission Society he exercised considerable influence over the Depressed Classes. It was as a result of his influence and out of respect for him that a section of the Depressed Classes agreed to give support to the Congress- League Scheme,
DR. BABASAKEB AMBEDKAR : 18 WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
The resolution as its text shows did not give unconditional support to the Congress-League scheme. It agreed to give support on the condition that the Congress passed a resolution for the removal of the social disabilities of the Untouchables. The Congress resolution was a fulfilment of its part of the contract with the Depressed Classes which was negotiated through Sir Narayan Chandavarkar.
This explains the genesis of the Congress Resolution of 1917 on the Depressed Classes and its inter-connection with the Resolutions of the Depressed Classes passed under the Chair- manship of Sir Narayan Chandavarkar. This explanation proves that there was an ulterior motive behind the Congress Resolution. That motive was not a spiritual motive. It was a political motive.
What happened to the Congress Resolution ? The Depressed Classes in their Resolution had called upon the “higher castes, who claim political rights, to take steps for the purpose of removing the blot of degradation from the Depressed Classes, which has subjected these classes to the worst of treatment in their own country.5' What did the Congress do to give effect to this demand of the Depressed Classes ? In return for the support it got, the Congress was bound to organize a drive against uritouchability to give effect to the sentiments expressed in its Resolution. The Congress did nothing. The passing of the ‘Resolution was a heartless transaction* It was a formal fulfilment of a condition which the Depressed Classes had made for giving their support to the Congress-League scheme. Con- gressmen did not appear to be charged with any qualms of conscience or with any sense of righteous indignation against man’s inhumanity to man which is what untouchability is, They forgot the Resolution the very day on which it was passed. The Resolution was a dead letter. Nothing can a out of it.
Thus ended the first chapter in the history of what blit Congress has done to the Untouchables.,
CHAPTER II
A SHABBY SHOW
Congress Abandons Its Plan
I
Mr. Gandhi entered Indian polities in 1919. Very soon thereafter, he captured the Congress, He not only captured it but overhauled it completely and changed it out of recognition. He introduced three main, changes. The Old Congress had no sanctions. It only passed a resolution and left it there, hoping that the British Government will take some action on it. If the British Government did not, it merely repeated the resolution next year and year after it. The old Congress was purely a gathering of intellectuals. It did not go down to the masses to secure their active participation in, the political movement as it did not believe in mass action. The old Congress had no machinery and no funds to carry on, mass agitation. It did not believe in spectacular political demon' stration to impress the British Government of the magnitude of its strength or to attract and interest the masses. The new Congress changed all this. It made the Congress a mass organization by opening its membership to all and sundry. Any one paving four annas a year could be a member of the Congress. It forged sanctions behind its resolutions by adopting the policy of non-.co-operation and civil disobedience. It made it a policy to stage demonstration of non-co-operation and civil disobedience and to court gaol. It launched a country-wide organization and propaganda in favour of the Congress. It put out what is called a Constructive Programme of social amelioration. To finance these activities it started a fund of one crore of rupees. It was called the Tilak Swaraj Fund. Thus by 1922, the Congress was completely trans- formed by Mr. Gandhi. The new Congress was entirely different from the old, except in name.
The Constructive Programme of social amelioration was an important feature of the Congress. It was outlined by the Working Committee of the Congress at its meeting in Bardoli, held in February 1922. It was also known as the Bardoli
- DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : 20 WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
t '
Programme. The resolution setting out the details of the programme ran, as follows : —
“The Working Committee advises all Congress Organisations to be engaged in the following activities : —
(1) To enlist at least one crore members of the Congress.
He * *
(2) To popularize the spinning wheel and to organize the manufacture of hand-spun and handwoven khaddar.
* * *
(3) To organize national schools.
* * *
(4) To organize the Depressed Classes for a better life, to improve their social, mental and moral condition, to induce them to send their children to national schools and to provide for them the ordinary facilities which the other citizens enjoy.
* * *
(5) To organize the temperance campaign amongst the people addicted to the drink habit by house to house visits and to rely more upon appeal to the drinker in his home than upon picketting.
(6) To organize village and town Panchayats for the private settlement of all disputes, reliance being placed solely upon force of public opinion and the truthfulness of Panchayat decisions to ensure obedience to them.
(7) In order to promote and emphasise unity among all classes and races and mutual goodwill, the establishment of which is the aim of the movement of non-co-operation, to organize a social service department that will rendlr help to all,
irrespectives of differences, in times of illness or accident.
* * *
(8) To continue the Tilak Memorial Swaraj Fund collections and call upon every Congress man or Congress sympathiser to pay at least one-hundredth part of his annual income for 1921. Every province to send every month twenty-five per cent of its income from the Tilak Memorial Swaraj Fund to the All-India Congress Committee.”
The resolution was placed before the All-India Congress Committee at its meeting held in Delhi on 20th February 1922 for confirmation, which it did. I am not concerned to set out what happened to the different items in this Programme of constructive work. I am concerned with only one item namely that which relates to the Depressed Classes and it is that part of it which I propose to deal with.
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A SHABBY SHOW
21
I will relate the. story of the fate, which overtook this part of the Bardoli resolution relating to the Untouchables, stage by stage. To begin with the story, after the Bardoli resolution was confirmed by the All- India Congress Committee, the matter was remitted to the Working Committee for action. The Working Committee took up the matter at its meeting held in Lucknow in June 1922. On that part of the Bardoli problem which related to the uplift of the Untouchables, the Working Committee passed the following resolutions : —
“This Committee hereby appoints a Committee consisting of Swami Shradhanandji, Mrs. Sarojini Naidu and Messrs. I. K. Yajnik and G. B. Deshpande to formulate a scheme embodying practical measures to be adopted for bettering the condition of the so-called Untouchables throughout the country and to place it for consideration before the next meeting of this Com- mittee, the amount to be raised for the scheme to belts. 2 lakhs for the present. ”
This resolution of the Working Committee was placed before the All-India Congress Committee at its meeting held in Lucknow in June 1922. It accepted the resolution of the Working Committee after making an amendment to it saying that “the amount to be raised for the scheme should be 5 lakhs for the present 55 instead of 2 lakhs as put forth in, the resolution of the Working Committee.
It seems that before the resolution appointing the Com- mittee was adopted by the Working Committee, one of its Members Swami Shradhanand tendered his resignation of the membership of the Committee. At the very sitting at which the Working Committee passed the resolution appointing a Committee, another resolution on the same subject and to the following effect was passed by it : —
“Read letter from Swami Shradhanandji, dated 8th June 1922 for an advance for drawing up a scheme for Depressed Classes work. Resolved that Mr. Gangadhar Rao B. Deshpande be appointed convener of the Sub-Committee appointed for the purpose and he be requested to convene a meeting 'at an early date, and that Swami Shradhananda’s letter be referred to the Sub-Committee.”
The formation of a Committee marks the second stage in the history of this interesting resolution.
The next reference to the resolution appointing the Com-
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : 22 WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
mittee is found in the proceedings of the Congress Working Committee held in Bombay in July 1922. At that meeting the Committee passed the following resolution,: —
‘ ‘That the General Secretary be asked to request Swami Shradhanand to reconsider his resignation and withdraw it and a sum of Hs. 500 be- remitted to the Convener, Syt. G. B. Deshpande, for the contingent expenses of the Depressed Classes Sub-Committee.”
Here the matter ended, so far as the year 1922 was concerned. Nothing further seems to have been done. The year 1923 came on. Seeing that nothing was done to set going the Scheme for ameliorating the condition of the Untouchables, the Working Committee which met also at Gaya in January, 1923 took up the matter and passed the following resolution
‘*With reference to Swami Shradhanand’s resignation, resolved that the remaining members of the Depressed Classes Sub- Committee do form the Committee and Mr. Yajnik be the convener.55
Thereafter the All-India Congress Committee which met Bombay in May 1923 passed the following resolution —
“Resolved that the question of the condition of the Un- touchables be referred to the Working Committee for necessary action.55
Here ends the second stage in the history of the resolution remitting the question of the Untouchables to a special Com- mittee. The third stage in its history is marked by the re- solution of the Working Committee passed in May 1923 at its meeting held in Bombay. This resolution ran. as follows :~~
‘‘Resolved that while some improvement has been effected in the treatment of the so-called Untouchables in response of the policy of the Congress, this Committee is conscious that much work remained yet to be done in this respect and in as much as this question of untouchability con- cerns the Hindu community particularly, it requests the All- India Hindu Mahasabha also to take up this matter and to make strenuous efforts to remove this evil from amidst the Hindti Community.55
Thus is told the sad tale o l the resolution, and how it began and how it ended. What shameful close to a flaring start !
It will be seen how the Congress washed its hands of the problem of the Untouchables. It need not have added insult
WHAT CONGRESS ANT) GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A SHABBY SHOW
28
-to injury by relegating it to the Hindu Mahasabha. There could not be a body most unsuited to take up the work of the uplift of the Untouchables than the Hindu Mahasabha. If there is any body which is quite unfit for addressing itself to the problem of the Untouchables, it is the Hindu Mahasabha. It is a militant Hindu organization. Its aim and object is to conserve in every way everything that is Hindu, religious and cultural. It is not a social reform association. It is a purely political organization, whose main object and aim are to combat the influence of the Muslims in Indian politics. Just to preserve its political strength, it wants to maintain its social solidarity, and its way to maintain social solidarity is not to talk about caste or untouchability. How could such a body have been selected by the Congress for carrying on the work of the Untouchables passes my comprehension. This shows that the Congress wanted somehow to get rid t>f an inconvenient problem and wash its hands of it. The Hindu Mahasabha of course did not come forth to undertake the work for it had no urge for it and also because the Congress had merely passed a pious resolution, recommending the work to them without making any promise for financial provision. So the project came to an inglorious and an ignominious end:
Before closing this chapter, it would not be unprofitable to ascertain. \vhy did the Congress abandon the work of social amelioration of the Untouchables of which it had made so much show ? Was it because the Congress intended that the scheme should be a modest one not costing more than two to five lakhs of rupees but felt that from that point of view they had made a mistake in including Swami Shradhanand in the Committee and rather than allow the Swami to confront them with a huge scheme which the Congress could neither accept nor reject? The Congress thought it better in the first instance to refuse to make him the convener1 and subsequently to dissolve the Committee and hand over the work to the Hindu Mahasabha. Circumstances are not quite against such a conclusion. The Swami was the greatest and the most sincere champion of the Untouchables. There is not the slightest
1 The faofc that the Congress was keen on having Mr. Deshpande as the convener shows that they did not like to leave matters in the hands of Swami Shradhanand. The choice of Mr. Deshpande also indicates that they did not want anything to be done for the simple reason that Mr. Deshpande was an Orthodox Brahmin who had taken no interest in the welfare of the Untouchables.
24
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES.
doubt that if he had worked on the Committee he would have produced a very big scheme. That the Congress did not want him in the Committee and was afraid that he would make big demand on Congress funds for the cause of the Untouchables is clear from the correspondence1 that passed between him and Pandit Motilal Nehru, the then General Secretary of the Congress, and which is printed in the Appendix. If this con- clusion is right, then it shows how empty of sincerity were the words of the Congress which passed that resolution.
Did the Congress abandon the programme because it was revolutionary ? The resolution was in no sense a revolutionary resolution. This will be clear from the note which the Working Committee had appended to the resolution and which the All- India Congress Committee had approved. The note said : —
“Whilst therefore in places, where the prejudice against the Untouchables is still strong separate schools and separate wells must be maintained out of Congress funds, every effort should be made to draw such children to national schools and to persuade the people to allow the Untouchables to use the common wells.”
Obviously, the Congress was not out for the abolition of Untouchability. It had accepted the policy of separate schools and separate wells. The resolution did no more than to undertake amelioration of the condition of the Untouch- ables. And even such a timid and mild programme the Congress was unable to carry through and which it gave up without remorse or shame.
II
Did the Congress abandon the programme because it had no funds ? Quite the contrary. The Congress had started the Tilak Swaraj Fund in 1921 . How much money did the Congress collect? The following table will give some idea. Rupees one crore and thirty lakhs were contributed by the public to the fund. The fund was collected to carry out Congress propaganda and to finance the constructive programme of the Congress as drafted by the Working Committee at Bardoli. How was this huge amount spent by the Congress ? Some idea as to the purposes on which the money out of this fund was spent can be gathered from the list of grants voted by the Working Committee during the years 1921, 1922 and 1928.
1 Appendix I.
Table 1
TILAK SWARAJ FUND*
RECEIPTS
|
1921 |
1922 |
1923 |
Total |
|
|
Rs. a. p. |
Rs. a. p. |
Rs. a. p. |
Rs. a. p. |
|
|
General Collections Ahnexure No. 1 ... Specific (ear- marked) Donations or |
64,31,779 15 10 |
3,92,430 2 6J |
2,64,288 9 1 |
70,88,498 11 5| |
|
Grants Annexure No. II |
37,32,230 2 10J |
9,45,552 1 4£ |
7,10,801 10 3 |
53,88,583 14 6 |
|
A dd — Miscellaneous Receipts, Interest, Other Funds, Famine, Flood, Pro- vincial Membership, Delegation, Affiliation, etc., for 1921-23 |
1,01,64,010 2 81 |
13,37,982 3 11 |
9,75,090 3 4 t |
1,24,77,082 9 11J 5,42,332 5 7| 1,30,19,415 1,5 7 |
The Indian Annual Register1 — 1923, p. 112.
26
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
1. Grants Voted in 19211
I. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Calcutta on January 31st and February 1st, 2nd and 3rd 1921 : —
1. Rs. 1,00,000* to remain at the disposal of Mahatma Gandhi for the support of lawyers who give up their practice and stand in need of support (iv).
2. Read the following telegram dated the 31st January 1921 from Syt. C. Rajagopalachariar : —
“Regret unable to attend meeting. Selected full time public workers for Tamil, Kerala part Karnatak about hundred, of whom about forty lawyers suspending practice. Pending collection Tilak Fund sanction drawing Rs. 5,600 per month. Students’ movement progressing rapidly though newspapers do not show up news. * Must carry on against parental opposition, least two months. Must draw three thousand per month for this. Committee must immediately wire authority issuing Swaraj ya. Fund receipts in name of Congress for convenient denominations like Khilafat receipts. Confident to make up all advances in three months. Do not hope large sums Madras.’5
Resolved that a sum of Rs. 8,600 be advanced to Tamil, Kerala and the Karnatak parts of the Madras Presidency fop one month for the present, and for future advances the matter be placed before the next meeting of the Working Committee (**)•
IL Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held at Bezwada on the 31st March and 1st April 1921 : —
3. A lump sum of Rs. 6,000 be advanced to Pandit Mohanlal Nehru, Secretary, U.P. Provincial Congress Committee, for carrying on propaganda and collecting funds (v).
6 1 4. Rs. 17,000 be sanctioned for the remainder of the current year for the expenses of the office of the President, the Secre- taries, the Cashier, and that out of the above a sum of Rs. 300 per mensem be assigned to Mr. C. Rajagopalachariar for the expenses of his secretary and the President’s steno-typist (vii).
5. A sum of 1,000 dollars remitted by cable to Mr. D. V. S. Rao of the India Home Rule League of America., 1,400 Broad- way, New York (viii)V
HI. The Working Committee at its resolution No. 18 dated 31st July 1921 appointed a Grants Sub-Committee to
1 Roman figures in the brackets after each grant refer to the resolution of the Working Committee by which the grant was made.
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES A SHABBY SHOW
27
dispose of all applications for grants. The Sub-Committee consisted of Mr. Gandhi, Pandit Motilal Nehru and Seth Jamnalal Bajaj The following grants were voted by the Grants Sub-Committee in the course of several meetings : —
“6. A sum of Rs. 1 laid* be voted as a grant for Swadeshi work in Bihar and a loan of Rs. 4 lakhs recommended for the same purpose (i).
7. A loan of Rs. 35;000 to the C. P. (Hindustani) Pro- vincial Congress Committee for Swadeshi (ii).
8. Rs. 25.000 for famine relief in the U.P. (Hi).
9. Rs. 25,000 to the Punjab Provincial Congress Committee for famine relief, and the Jagraon School (iv).
‘10. Rs. 50,000 on the telegraphic application for the relief of the distressed in Malabar (v). f
11. Rs. 15,000 to the Gandhi Ashram, Benares City (vi).
12. Rs. 10,000 to the Pallipadu Ashram (vii).
13. Rs. 15,000 to the Andhra Jatheeya Kalashala, Masuli- patam (viii).
14. Rs. 10,000 to the Secretary, Taluka Congress Com- mittee, Karjat (Maharashtra) (xx).
15. Rs. 10,000 to the Anatha Vidyarthi Griha, Chinchwad (Maharashtra) ( x ).
16. The applications of (1) Mr. K. G. Patade, Assistant General Secretary of the Depressed Classes Mission Society of India, (2) of the Kulladaikurichi National School, Vidyasangam and (3) of the Rajahmundry Depressed Classes Mission were rejected as unbacked and not in accordance with the instructions issued by the Sub-Committee (xiii).
17. Rs. 10000 to the Kerala Provincial Congress Com- mittee to be principally spent on Swadeshi and the popularising of the hand-spinning and hand-weaving (xx).
18. Rs. 60,000 to the Madras Provincial Congress Com- mittee (xxii).
19. Rs. 1,50,000 set apart for the U. P. Provincial Congress Committee (xxiii).
20. Rs. 63,000 to the Sind Provincial Congress Committee (xxiv).
21. Rs. 25,000 for famine relief in the Ceded Districts in Andhra (xxv).
22. Rs. 20,000 to the Maharashtra Provincial Congress Committee (xxvi).
DR- BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : 28 WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
2&. Rs. 20,000 be granted to the Ganjam District Congress Committee for Swadeshi and for popularising hand-spinning and hand-weaving (xvii).”
The Working Committee dissolved the Sub-Committee by resolution No. 8 dated the 6th November 1921 and took the question of voting grants in its own hands.
IV. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held at Delhi on the 3rd, 5th and 6th November 1921 :
“24. Rs. 25,000 to Mr. Phukan of Assam for the purchase of* cotton to be used in the manufacture of hand-spun yarn and khaddar (ix).
25. Rs. 5,000 to the Krishnapuram, Guntur District Andhra (x).
26. Rs. 10,000 as an additional grant to the Andhra Jateeya Kalashala (xi).
27. Rs. 1,000 to the Rajahmundry Depressed Classes Mission (xii).
28. Rs. 5,000 to the Angalur Jateeya Parishramalayam (xiii).
29. Rs. 3,000 to Kautaram, Andhra (xiv).
30. Rs. 15,000 to the Andhra Provincial Congress Com- mittee for general Swadeshi work (xv).
31. Rs. 3,000 to the Masulipatam District Congress Com- mittee (xvi).
32. Rs. 30,000 to the Utkal Provincial Congress Committee earmarked for the manufacture of handspun yarn and khaddar (xpU).
33. Rs. 3,000 to help the toddy tappers of the Thana District who wanted to give up their profession ( xviii ).
34. Rs. 5,000 to the Nagpur Tilak Vidyalaya (xix).
35. Rs. 5,000 to the Nagpur Asahyogashram (xx).
36. Rs. 25,000 to the Ajmere Provincial Congress Com- mittee for the purpose of increasing the production of kbaddar and charkah yarn (xxi).
37. Rs. 18,00,000 if possible, and in any case, at least Rs. 10,00,000 for Gujarat (xxii).
38. Rs. 40,000 to be immediately remitted to Sjt. C. Raja- gopalachariar for the relief of the distressed in Malabar (xxiti)”
V. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Bombay on the 22nd and 23rd November 1921
_ *‘^9. Rs. 10,000 to the Jat Anglo Sanskrit High School, Rohtak, Punjab (Hi).
WIIAT CONGRESS AND G ANDIE HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES :
A SHABBY SHOW 29
40, Rs. 25,000 to the Bijapur District Congress Committee for famine relief and Swadeshi work (Hi).
41. Rs. 30,000 to help the dismissed mill-labourers of Madras by giving them Swadeshi work (m).”
II. Grants Voted in 1922.
I. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting lield in Bombay on 17th January 1922 : —
“42. Application by the U. P. Provincial Congress Committee for Rs. 50,000 already sanctioned and for a further grant of one lakh of rupees for Swadeshi work, be referred to Mahatma Gandhi for final disposal (it).
43. The application of the Assam Provincial Congress Committee for a remittance of Rs. 25,000, the balance out of the sanctioned grant of Rs. 50,000 be referred to Mahatma Gandfyi for final disposal (vi).”
II. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Delhi on 26th February 1922 : —
“44. Rs. 10,000 for initial expenditure on foreign scheme prepared by Mahatma Gandhi (i).
45. Rs. 14,000 for the office expenditure for the current year (ivy 9
III. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Ahmedabad on 17th and 18th March 1922 : —
“46. Rs. 3,00,000 for organizing a larger production and marketing of khaddar (i).
47. Rs. 10,000 out of Rs. 50,000 already sanctioned for the U.P. Provincial Congress Committee (ix).
48. Rs. 5,000 to the Kerala Provincial Congress Committee for general Congress work ; amount to be deducted from the sum of Rs. 84,000 sanctioned for relief in Malabar and further Rs. 20,000 out of the above amount of Rs. 84,000 be re- mitted for relief work (x).
49. Rs. 10,000 to the Rohtak Anglo- Vernacular School (xi).
50. Rs. 15,000 out of the amount of Rs. 25,000 sanctioned for famine relief in the Ceded Districts be paid to Sjt. T. Praka- sam representing the Andhra Provincial Congress Committee (xil).”
IV. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held at Calcutta on the 20th, 21st and 22nd April 1922 : —
“51. Rs. 5,000 to the Antyaja Karyalaya, Ahmedabad, tor organizing education amongst Depressed Classes in Gujarat (v).
30
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
52. Rs. 40,000 as loan to Mouivi Badrul Hasan of Hydera- bad Deccan to be exclusively devoted to the Khaddar work (vi).
53. Rs. 25,000 to the Nationalist Journals Ltd., to enable them to re-start the Independent and run it on Congress lines, providing for a lien on properties of the Company lor the amount advanced (xix).”
V. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Bombay on the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th May 1922 : —
“54. Rs. 17,381 to the Antyaja Karyaiaya, Ahmedabad, in addition to Rs. 5,000 already granted (x).
55. Resolved that the Punjab Provincial Congress Com- mittee’s application for Rs. 1,25,000 for Shahadara Depressed Classes settlement cannot be considered unless the Working Committee is satisfied that sufficient funds are raised locally to start the scheme and the scheme so started is in working order (xi).
58. Resolved that Rs. 5,000 be earmarked for Ahmednagar Depressed Classes home and that the amount be recommended to be paid when the Working Committee is satisfied that the home is started by local efforts and is in working order (xii).
57. Rs. 10,000 be earmarked for Depressed Classes work in Madras, a? applied for by Mr. S. Srinivas Iyengar, to be paid when the application is sent to this Committee through the Provincial Congress Committee and on this Committee being satisfied that at least an equal amount is raised by local effort (xiii).
58. Rs. 7,000 to Mr. T. Prakasam for Depressed Classes work in Andhra (xxiv).”
VI. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in, Lucknow on June 6th, 7th and 10th, 1922
“59. Rs. 50,000 for khaddar work in Sind- Province ( vii ).
60. Rs. 1,000 be advanced to Sjt. C. Rajagopalachariar for contingent expenses (viii).”
VII. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Delhi on 30th June 1922 : —
“61. Rs. 180 per mensem for the next three months be sanctioned for the expenses of six workers from Bengal to serve in Assam (vi).”
VIII. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Bombay on 18th and 19th July 1922
“62. Rs. 5,000 to Assam (i).
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A SHABBY SHOW
31
63. Rs. 1,50,000 e^eh as loan for Khaddar work in Andhra and Utkal (x)”
IX. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Calcutta on 18th, 19th and 25th November 1922 : —
“64, Rs. 3,00,000 to Gujarat as grant (xii),
65. Rs. 16,000 for the expenses of the Civil Disobedience Enquiry Committee (%%%).”
Ill . Grants Voted in 1923 .
I. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Gaya on the 1st and 2nd of January 1923 : —
**66. Rs. 3,666 to the Seiteral Secretary, Indian National Social Conference, for the removal of untouchability arnf the promotion of temperance and inter-communal unity (xxii).
67. Rs. 1,200 as aid to the Navayitga , a Hindi daily paper of Allahabad, on condition that it would carry on propaganda in pursuance of the resolutions of the Congress held at Gaya (xxxi).
68. Rs. 10,000 for the Congress Publicity Bureau (xxxii).”
II. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Allahabad on 26th and 28th February 1923
*s69« Rs. 10,066 for the Depressed Classes work by the Tamil Desh Provincial Congress Committee (vi).
70. Loan of Rs, 15,000 be advanced to the U.P. Pro- vincial Congress Committee on the application of Pandit Jawaharlai Nehru (x).
7k A loan of Its. 15,000 be advanced to Tamil Desh • Provincial Congress Committee on the application of Mr. C. Rajagopalachariar (x).
72. Rs. 5,000 granted to the U. P. Provincial Congress Committee for Gandhi Ashram, Benares (xi)”
HI. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held ki Bombay on 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th 27th and 28th May 1923:—
“73. Loan of Rs. 5 lakhs to the Gujarat Provincial Congress Committee to relieve the surplus stock of khadi in various provinces in the country (v).
74. Loan of Rs. 50,000 be advanced to Bengal Provincial Congress Committee for Khadi work (viii).
75. Rs. 15,000 to the Bihar Rashtriya Vidyalaya (xii).
32
DR. BABASAIIEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
76. Rs. 10,000 for the Satyavadi Vidyalaya.
77. Rs. 5,000 Swavalamban Rashtriya Pathshala (xiv).
78. Rs. 5,000 to Dr. Sathaye for carrying on such work as the Congress Labour Committee decides \xxxiv).”
IV. Grants voted by the Working Committee at its meeting held in Nagpur on 7th, 8t.h, 11th and 12th July 1923 : —
“79. Rs. 20,000 to Sjt. Brajaraj, Secretary, Hindi Sahitya Sammelan for the work of teaching Hindustani in the Madras Presidency (ix).
80. Rs. 2,000 to the C. P. Hindustani Provincial Congress Committee to be utilized for general Congress purposes with special regard to rendering help to Satyagraha in Nagpur (xi)."
The reader may not get a precise idea of the management or mismanagement of public funds by the Congress from this itemized account of expenditure. Was this expenditure regulated by any principle ? Was it distributed according to the needs of the provinces? Consider the following table : —
Table 2
|
Provinces |
A mount Granted |
Population f |
Percentage Grant due on the basis of Popula- tion ratio to total Population |
Percentage of Grant actually paid |
|
General — All* India* |
Rs. 4,94,000 |
227,238,000 |
10 |
|
|
Bombay |
26,90,381 |
16,012,623 |
8 |
54.3 |
|
Madras ... |
5,05,000 |
42,319,000 |
18 |
10.1 |
|
Bihar and Orissa |
5,65,000 |
33,820,000 |
15 |
11.3 |
|
U.P. |
3,11,200 |
45,376,000 |
20 |
6.26 |
|
Sind |
1,13,000 |
3,279,377 |
— |
2.2 |
|
Assam ... |
51,080 |
6,735,000 |
3 |
1.1 |
|
Bengal |
50,000 |
46,241,000 |
20 |
1.0 |
|
c.p. | |
47,000 |
12,780,000 |
5 |
.95 |
|
Punjab ... |
45,000 |
20,675,000 |
9 |
.9 |
|
Hyderabad |
40,000 |
— |
— |
.81 |
|
Ajmer |
25,000 |
— |
— |
.5 |
|
Foreign |
14,000 |
— |
— |
.28 |
|
Total |
49,50,661 |
* Excluding Burma and Native States. *
f These figures are taken from the Simon Commission Report, Vol. I and refer to the year 1921.
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES :
A SHABBY SHOW 88
Was it distributed on the basis of cultural units and their relative size ? Compare the following figures : —
Table 3
|
Linguistic Areas |
Total Grant |
Amount of Grant |
Percentage of the Total Grant to the Province |
Percentage of Popula- tion of the Area to the Population of the Province |
|
Bombay Presidency ... |
Rs. ... 26,90,381 |
Rs. |
100 |
|
|
Gujarath |
... — |
26,22,381 |
97.4 |
18 |
|
Maharashtra |
— |
43,000 |
1.6 |
69 |
|
Karnatak |
... — |
25,000 |
0.93 |
13 |
|
Central Provinces ... |
47,000 |
|
— |
100 |
|
Marathi Districts... |
... — |
10,000 |
21.2 |
45 |
|
Hindustani Districts |
... — |
- 37,000 |
78.7 |
55 |
|
Madras Presidency ... |
... 5,05000 |
— |
— |
100 |
|
Tamil Nad ... |
... — |
1,03,000 |
20.4 |
38 |
|
Andhra ... .i. |
... — |
3,02,000 |
60.0 |
52 |
|
Kerala |
... |
1,00,000 |
19.6 |
|
|
Bihar and Orissa ... |
... 5,65,000 |
|
— |
|
|
Bihar |
... |
5,15,000 |
91.0 |
73 |
|
Orissa |
... — |
50,000 |
0.9 |
27 |
From chese figures it is clear that the distribution of these sums was not made on the basis of any intelligible principle. There is no relation between the grants and the population, nor between the grants and the claims of the cultural units. A province like Bombay with a population of one and a half crores gets as much as 27 lakhs while U. P. and Madras with a population of about 4 crores each get no more than about five lakhs severally. Consider the grants in relation to cultural units. Take Bombay Presidency. It. includes three cultural units, Maharashtra, Gujrath and Karnatak. Out of the 26 lakhs and 90 thousand given to the Bombay Presidency Gujrath with only 18 per cent, of the population of the Pro- vince got as much as 26 lakhs and 22 thousand i.e., 97.4 per cent, and Maharashtra with a population of 69 per cent got only Rs. 48,000 or 1 . 6 per cent and Karnatak with a population of 13 per cent got Rs. 25,000 or .9 per cent of the grant. In C. P. out of a total grant of Rs. 47,000 the Hindustani districts having 55 per cent of the population got Rs* 37,000 or 78.7 per cent while the Marathi speaking districts having 45 per cent of the population got only Rs. 10,000 i.e., 21.2 per cent. In
34
DR, BABASAIIEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Bihar and Orissa out of the total grant of 5 lakhs and 65 thousand Bihar got 5 lakhs and 15 thousand or 91 per cent with a population of 73 per cent, and Orissa got only 50 thousand or 9 per cent while its population was as much as 27 per cent. The same inequity is noticeable in the distribution of grants in the three areas of the Madras Presidency.
There was not only no principle, there was shameful favour- itism in the distribution of the fund. Out of the total of 49£ lakhs which was distributed in the three years Gujrath— Mr. Gandhi’s province— got 26 J lakhs while the rest of India got 23 lakhs. This means that a population numbering 29J- lakhs got 26 1 lakhs while the rest of India numbering about 23 crores got 23 lakhs ! ! s
There was no check, no control, no knowing for what purpose money was voted and to whom it was granted. Note the following cases : —
Table 4
|
Moneys allotted but kept at the Disposal of Individuals without Appropriating them to any specified purpose |
Moneys allotted without Appropri- ation to any purpose without naming the guarantee |
|
Moulvi Badrul Hasan 40 000 T. Prakasam ... 7,000 C. Rajagopalachariar ... ToOO 20,000 Mr. Gandhi ... 1,00,000 |
Hs. To Gujrath 3,00,000 To Gujrath . J 8,00,000 To Gujrath 3,00,000 |
It is not known whether these huge sums kept at the disposal of the named payees were accounted for or who received the formidable amounts made payable to the nameless payees, hven if there were satisfactory answers to these questions there can be no doubt that a worse case of frenzied finance of extravagance and waste, it would be very difficult to find. It is a sad episode marked by a reckless plunder committed by the predatory leaders of the Congress of public money for nursing their own constituencies without any qualms of conscience. .
It is unnecessary to pursue the story of the organized and systematic loot by Congressmen of the balance of l crore and
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES A SHABBY SHOW
35
30 lakhs which was spent in subsequent years. It is enough to say that never was there such an organized loot of public money. The point of immediate interest however is that the scrutiny of this list of grants does not show the amelioration, of the Untouchables, which has been one of the purposes for which money has been advanced from the Swaraj Fund. One would have expected the Congress to make the amelioration of the Untouchables as the first charge on the Swaraj Fund. It should have at least made it a charge if not the first charge especially when thousands of rupees were spent on feeding briefless lawyers who were alleged to have given up practice in the cause of the nation without even an inquiry whether they had any, when thousands of rupees were spent to feed toddy drawers who had given up their profession for living on alms from public fund and many other wild cat schemes carrying the marks of dishonesty on their faces. But it did nothing of the kind. Instead, the Congress proposed that a separate fund should be started for the amelioration of the Untouchables. And what was to be the dimension of this separate Untouchable Fund ? The All- India Congress Committee fixed it at five lakhs. The Working Committee felt it was too big an amount for so unimportant and so unprofitable a work as the ameliora- tion of the Untouchables and reduced its total to Rs. two lakhs. Two lakhs for sixty millions Untouchables ! !
This wras the grand sum that was fixed by the Congress for the salvage of the Untouchables. How much of this was actually appropriated ? Here are the figures : —
Table 5
|
Purpose |
A mount Sanctioned |
|
Rajainuhendry Depressed Class Mission ... ... |
Rs. 1,000 |
|
Antyaj Karyalaya, Ahmedabad |
5,000 |
|
4ntyaj Karyalaya, Ahmedabad Depressed Classes Work in Andhra |
17,381 |
|
7,000 |
|
|
National Social Conference for Depressed Classes Work ... |
3,000 |
|
Tamil District P.C.C. for Depressed Classes Work |
10,000 |
|
Total Rs. ... |
43,381 |
36
JJAUASAiiIiB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS "AND SPEECHES
t?elCongresS could find only Rs. 43,881 out of
“hale taoJ^ts' thT VrioTST1 °Ut the Conrtn‘«*i«
gf Z “aWes ™
SO far as it rdated to the Unton^T^ ™ * &“d “
fctoSuSTj’Sf wL"f W-e was
Untouchables in the Congress CwfnT^e the “t'se.of ttle relevant because it was Mr Gandh^whn^n ^Uf?tl0n ls very since he entered the CmereT„nZ J d ^ stress>^<*
a«r t tT?* of Swaraj k JZ S^wSTS^SSC
ofardVembLTmS^tr,- - ^
programme. ^WfthouTSe renjva" “f a™",''""'? ?n tte
consider »*• I
factor in the process of attainSS sl£ P°mrful
to fctaSfc ^tte^e6?0^ *h? U^chables not common cause with the HhiAm Swaraj but to make
addressed the Untouchables in the following terms ^
of * theerltion^ For°UtrrS ^ t0theSe do^n-trodden members
assistanc^of ^he^lave^-owniriT^r^161106 ^ caI1 * the
but they will fall from the f .overnmept. They will get it, they are slaves of slaves 0°*° the fire' Today
will be used for suppressing thXvfkingi?°Vemment aid’ tiley sinned against theTSf. th 1 ^tead of being
Musalmans Xed ft ^ an J failed TW ,*
worse than before THa * ^ley found that they were
Today SeisTmom^ disfln “d
version tTllm A^Tf
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A SHABBY SHOW
Z1
could be justified for worldly betterment I would advise it without hesitation. But religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion. If the inhuman treatment of the Panchamas were a part of Hinduism, its rejection would be a paramount duty both for them and for those like me who would not make a fetish even of religion and condone every evil in its sacred namev But I believe that untouchability is no part of Hinduism. It is rather its excrescence to be removed by every effort. And there is quite an army of Hindu reformers who have set their heart upon ridding Hinduism of this blot. Conversion there- fore, I hold, is not remedy whatsoever.
Then, there remains, finally, self-help and self-dependence, with such aid as the non-Panchama Hindus will render of their own motion, not as a matter of duty. And herein comes the use of Non-co-operation. . .Therefore, by way of protest against Hinduism, the Panchamas can certainly stop all contact and * connection with the other Hindus so long as the special griev- ances are maintained. But this means organised intelligent effort. And so far as I can see, there is no leader among the Panchamas who can lead them to victory through Non-co- operation.
The better way therefore, perhaps, is for the Panchamas heartily to join the great national movement that is now going on for throwing off the slavery of the present Government. It is easy enough for the Panchama friends to see that Non- co-operation against this evil Government pre-supposes co- operation between the different sections forming the Indian nation.”
In the same article Mr. Gandhi told the Hindus : —
“The Hindus must realise that, if they wish to offer successful Non-co-operation against the Government they must make common . cause with the Panchamas, even as they have made common cause with the Musalmans.”
He repeated the warning in the Young India of 29th December
1920 in which he said ; —
“Non-co-operation against the Government means co- * operation among the governed, and if Hindus do not remove the sin of untouchability, there will be no Swaraj whether in one year or in one hundred years. . .Swaraj is as unattainable without the removal of the sins of untouchability as it is with- out Hindu-Muslim unity.”
38
DR. BABASAIIEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
From all this, one would expect Mr. Gandhi to see that the Congress policy of ameliorating the condition of the Untouch- ables as set out in the Bardoli resolution was given, effect to. The fact is that Mr. Gandhi, besides giving utterance to pious platitude, did not take the slightest interest in the programme of the amelioration. If he was so minded, he could have appointed another .Committee.* If he was so minded, he could have saved a large part of the Tilak Swaraj Fund from the organized loot that was being carried on by Congressmen and reserved it for the benefit of the Untouchables. Strange as it may appear, he sat silent and unconcerned. Instead of feeling any remorse, Mr. Gandhi justified his indifference to the cause of the Untouchables by arguments so strange that no one would believe them. They are to be found in the Young India of 20th October 1920 : —
“Should not we the Hindus w'ash our bloodstained hands before we ask the English to wash theirs ? This is a proper question reasonably put. And if a member of a slave, nation could deliver the suppressed classes from their slavery, without freeing myself from my own I would do so today. But it is an impossible task. A slave has not the freedom even to do the right thing.55 <
Mr. Gandhi concluded by saying : —
“That process has commenced and whether the Panchamas deliberately take part in it or not, the rest of the Hindus dare not neglect them without hampering their own progress. Hence though the Panchama problem is as dear to me as life itself,
I rest satisfied with the exclusive attention to national non- co-operation. I feel sure that the greater includes the less.55
Thus ended the second chapter of what the Congress has done to the Untouchables. The regrettable part of this tragedy is the realization of the fact. how Mr. Gandhi has learned to find unction, in illusions. Whether Mr. Gandhi likes to live in a world of illusions may be a matter of doubt. But there is no doubt die likes to create illusions in order to use them as arguments to support his cherished proposition. The reason he has given for not taking personal responsibility for the uplift of the Untouchables furnishes the best evidence of this habit of Mr. Gandhi. To tell the Untouchables that they must not act against the Hindus, because they will be acting against their kith and kin, may be understood. But to assume that the Hindus regard the Untouchables as their
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES :
A SHABBY SHOW . 39
kith and kin is to set up an illusion. To ask the Hindus to undertake the removal of untouchability is good advice. But to go to the length of assuring oneself that the Hindus are so overwhelmed with a sense of shame for the inhuman treatment they have accorded to the Untouchables , that they dare not fail to abolish untouchability and that there is a band of Hindu Reformers pledged to do nothing but remove untouchability is to conjure an illusion to fool the Untouch- bles and to. fool the world at large. It may be sound logic to argue that what benefits the whole also benefits the part and that one need not confine himself to looking after the part. But to assume that a piece, as separate as the Untouchables, is a 'part of the Hindu whole is to deceive oneself. Few know what tragedies the Untouchables as well as the country have had to go through on account of the illusions of Mr. Gandhi.
CHAPTER III
A MEAN DEAL
Congress Refuses To Part With Power
I
In the Government of India Act of 1919, there was a provision which had imposed an obligation on His Majesty’s Government to appoint at the end of ten years a Royal Commission to investigate into the working of the Constitution and report upon such changes as may be found necessary. Accordingly, in 1928 a Royal Commission was appointed under the Chairman- ship of Sir John Simon. Indians expected that the Commission would be mixed in its personnel. But Lord Birkenhead who was then the Secretary of State for India was opposed to the inclusion of Indians and insisted on making it a purely Parlia- mentary Commission. At this, the Congress and the Liberals took great offence and treated it as an insult. They boycotted the Commission and carried on a great agitation against it. To assuage this feeling of opposition it' was announced by His Maj- esty’s Government that after the work of the Commission was completed representative Indians would be assembled for a dis- cussion before the new constitution for India is settled. In accordance with this announcement representative Indians were called to London at a Round Table Conference with the Representatives of Parliament and of His Majesty’s Govern- ment. :
On the 12th November 1980, His late Majesty King George V formally inaugurated the Indian Round Table Conference. From the point of view of Indians the Round Table Conference was an event of great- significance. Its significance lay in the recognition by His Majesty’s Government of the right of Indians to be consulted in the matter of framing a constitution for India. For the Untouchables it was a landmark in their history. For, the Untouchables’ were for the first time allowed to be represented separately by two delegates who happened to be myself and Dewan Bahadur R. Srinivasan. This meant that the Untouchables were regarded not merely a separate
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES :
A MEAN DEAL 41
element from the Hindus but also of such importance as to have the right to be consulted in the framing of a cons- titution for India.
The work of the Conference was distributed among nine committees. One of these committees was called the Minorities Committee to which was assigned the most difficult work of finding a solution of the Communal question. Anticipating that this Committee was the most important committee the Prime Minister, the . late Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, hithself assumed its chairmanship. The proceedings of the Minorities Committee are of the greatest importance to the Untouchables. For, much of what happened between the Congress and the Untouchables and which has led. to bitterness between them will be found in the proceedings of that Committee.
When the Round Table Conference met the political demands of communities other than the Untouchables were quite well known. Indeed the Constitution of 1919 had recognized them as statutory minorities and provisions relating to their safety and security were embodied in it. In their case the question was of expanding those provisions or altering their shape. With regard to the Depressed Classes the position was different. The Montagu-Chelmsford Report which preceded the Consti- tution of 1919 had said in quite unmistakable terms that provision must be made in the Constitution for their protection. But unfortunately when the details of the Constitution were framed, the Government of India found it difficult to devise any provisions for their protection except to give them token representation in the legislatures by nomination. The first thing that was required to be done was to formulate the safe- guards deemed necessary by the Untouchables for their protection against the tyranny and oppression of the Hindus. This I did by submitting a Memorandum to the Minorities Committee of the Round Table Conference. To give an idea of the safeguards that were formulated by me, I reproduce below the text of the Memorandum : —
A Scheme of Political Safeguards for the Protection of the depressed Classes in the Future Constitution of a self-governing ■ India, submitted to the Indian Bound Table Conference.
42
DR.- BABASAIIEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
The Mowing are the terms and conditions on which the Depressed Classes will consent to place themselves under a majority rale in a self-governing India.
Condition No. I :
EQUAL CITIZENSHIP
The Depressed Classes cannot consent to subject themselves to majority rule in their present state of hereditary bondsmen. Before majority rule is established theft emancipation from the System of untouchability must be an accomplished fact. It must not be left to the will of the majority. The Depressed Classes must be made free citizens entitled to all the rights of citizenship in common with other citizens of the State.
(A) To secure the abolition of untouchability and to create the equality of citizenship , it is proposed that the following f undamental right shall be made part of .the constitution of India .
U.S.A. Constitution Amendment XIV itnd Government, of Ireland Act 1920, 10 .All, Geo.V.Ch. 67, Sec. 5 (2).
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT
uAll subjects of the State in India are equal before the law and possess equal civic rights . Any existing enact- ment, regulation , order, custom or interpretation of law by which any penalty, disadvantage, dis- ability is imposed upon or any discrimination is made against any subject of the State on account of ■untouchability shall, as from the day on which this Constitution comes into operation , cease to have any effect in India*”
(B) To abolish the immunities and exemptions now enjoyed by executive officers by virtue of Sections 110 and 111 of the Government of India Act 1919 and their liability for executive action be made co- extensive with what it is in the case of a European British Subject .
Tliis is so in all Constitutions.
See Prof. Keith’s remarks in Cmd. 207, p. 56.
Condition No . II :
FREE ENJOYMENT OF EQUAL RIGHTS
' It is no use for the Depressed Classes to have a declaration of equal rights.* There can be no doubt that the Depressed Classes will have to face the whole force of orthodox society if they try to exercise the equal rig] its of citizenship. The Depressed •Classes therefore feel that if these declarations of rights are not to be mere pious pronouncements, but, are to be realities of everyday life, then they should be protected by adequate pains and penalties from interference in the enjoyment of these declared rights.
WIIAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
43
(A) The Depressed Classes therefore propose that the following section should he added to Part XI of the Government of India Act 1919, dealing with Offences , Procedure and Penalties
(i) Offence of Infringement of Citizenship .
“Whoever denies to any person except for reasons by law applicable to persons of all classes and regardless of any previous condition of untouchability the full enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advant- ages, facilities , privileges of inns, educational institutions, roads, paths, streets, tanks, wells and other watering places, public conveyances on land, air or water, theatres or other places of public amusement, resort or convenience whether
U.S. Statutes At Large.
Civil Rights. Protec- tion Acts of April 9, 1866, and of March, 1, 1875 — passed in the interest of the Negroes after their emancipation.
they are dedicated to or maintained or licensed for the use of the public shall be punished with • imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fineP
(B) Obstruction by orthodox individuals is not the only menace to the Depressed Classes in the way of peaceful enjoy- ment of their rights. The commonest form of obstruction is the social boycott. It is the most formidable weapon in the hands of the orthodox classes with which they beat down any attempt on the part of the Depressed Classes to undertake any activity if it happens to be unpalatable to them. The way it works and the occasions on which it is brought into operation are well described in the Report of the Committee appointed by the Government of Bombay in 1928 “to enquire into the edu- cational, economic and social condition of the Depressed Classes (untouchables) and of the Aboriginal Tribes in the Presidency and to recommend measures for their uplift.” The following is an extract from the same
Depressed Classes and Social Boycott
“102. 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.
44
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
4 4 The second difficulty arises from the economic position in which the Depressed Classes are found to-day. 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 aJDepressed 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 bridegroom on the horse through the public street.
“We do not know of any weapon more effective than this social boycott which could have been invented for the suppres- sion of the Depressed Classes. The method of open violence pales away before it, for it has the most far reaching and deadening effects. It is the more dangerous because it passes as a lawful method consistent with the theory of freedom of contact. We agree that this tyranny of the ikiajority must be pytt down with a firm hand, if we are to guarantee the Depressed Classes the freedom of speech and action necessary for their uplift.55
In the opinion of the Depressed Classes the only Way to overcome . this kind of menace to their rights ' and liberties is to make social boycott an offence punishable by law . They are therefore bound to insist that the following sections should be added to those included in Part XI, of the Government of India Act 1919 , dealing with Offences , Procedure and Penalties .
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
45
J. OFFENCE OF BOYCOTT DEFINED
(i) A person shall he deemed to boycott another who —
This and the follow- (a) refu$e$ to let or use or occupy any house ing legal provisions or land , or to deal with, work for hire, or do are bodily taken business with another person , or to render to Boycott^t, 1922* ^itn 0Y rece^e from him any service, or refuses to with a few changes do any of the said things on the terms on which
to suit the necessi- things should commonly be done in the
ties of the case. , . ° . T y
ordinary course of business, or
(b) abstains from such social, professional or business relations as he would , having regard to such existing customs in the com- munity which are not inconsistent with any fundamental right or other rights of citizenship declared in the Constitution ordinarily maintain with such person, or
(c) in any way injures, annoys or interferes with such other person in the exercise of his lawful rights .
II. PUNISHMENT FOR BOYCOTTING
Whoever , in consequence of any person having done any act which he was legally entitled to do or of his having omitted to do any act which he was legally entitled to omit to do, or with intent to cause any person to do any act which he is not legally bound to do or to omit to do any act which he is legally entitled to do, or with intent to cause harm to such person in body, mind, reputation or property, or in his business or means of living, boycotts such person or any person in whom such person is interested, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description which may extend to seven years or with fine or with both.
Provided that no offence shall be deemed to have been committed under this Section, if the Court is satisfied that the accused person has not acted at the instigation of or in collusion with any other person or in pursuance of any conspiracy or of any agreement or combination to boycott.
III. PUNISHMENT FOR INSTIGATING OR PROMOTING A BOYCOTT
Whoever —
(a) publicly makes or publishes or circulates a proposal for, or
(b) makes, publishes or circulates any statement, rumour or report with intent to, or which he has reason to believe to be likely to, cause or
(c) in any other way instigates or promotes the boycotting of any person or class of persons, shall be punished with imprison- ment which may extend to five years, or with fine or with . both.
Vol. IX 3
46
DR. BABASAIEEB AMBBDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Explanation . — An offence under this section shall be deemed to have been committed although the person affected or likely to be affected by any action of the nature referred to herein is not de- signated by name or class but only by his acting or abstaining from acting in some specified manner .
IV. PUNISHMENT FOR THREATENING A BOYCOTT
Whoever , in consequence of any person having done any act which he was legally entitled to do or of his having omitted to do any act which he was legally entitled to omit to do , or with intent to cause any person to do any act which he is not legally hound to do, or to omit to do any act which he is legally entitled to do, threatens to cause such person or any person in whom such person is interested, to be boycotted shall be punished with imprisonment of either des- cription for a term which may extend to five years or with fine or with both .
Exception : — It is not boycott
(i) to do any act in furtherance of a bona fide labour dispute,
(ii) to do any act in the ordinary course of business competition .
N.B. — All these offences shall be deemed to be cognizable offences .
Condition No. III.
PROTECTION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION
The Depressed Classes entertain grave fears of discrimination either by legislation or by executive order being made in the future. They cannot therefore consent to subject themselves to majority rule unless it is rendered impossible in law for the legislature or the executive to make any invidious discrimina- tion against the Depressed Classes.
- It is therefore proposed that the following Statutory provision be made in the constitutional law of India : —
“It shall not be competent for any Legislature or executive in India to pass a law or issue an order, rule or regulation so as* to violate the rights of the Subjects of the State, regardless of any previous condition of untouchability, in all territories subject to the jurisdiction of the dominion of India,
(1) to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell , hold and convey real and personal property,
(2) to be eligible for entry into the civil and military employ and to all educational institutions except for such, conditions and limitations as may be necessary to provide for the due and adequate representation of all classes of the subjects of the State y
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
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(3) to be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accom- modations, advantages , facilities , educational institutions , pri- vileges of inns , rivers , streams , toWs, tanks , roads, paths . streets, public conveyances on land , aiV and water , theatres , o&W places of public resort or amusement except for such conditions and limitations applicable alike to all subjects of every race , c/ass, co/owr or
(4) /o be deemed fit for and capable of sharing without distinc- tion the benefits of any religious or charitable trust dedicated to or created , maintained or licensed for the general public or for persons of the same faith and religion ,
(5) to claim full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by other subjects regardless of any previous condition of untonchabiliiy and be subject to like punishment pains and penalties and to none other .
Condition No. IV
ADEQUATE REPRESENTATION IN THE LEGISLATURES
The Depressed Classes must be given sufficient political power to influence legislative and executive action for the purpose of securing their welfare, hi view of this they demand that the following provisions shall be made in the electoral law so as to give them —
(1) Right to adequate representation in the Legislatures of the Country , Provincial and Central.
(2) Right to elect their own men as their representatives 9
(a) by adult suffrage , and
(b) by separate electorates for the first ten years and there - after by joint electorates and reserved seats , it being under- stood that joint electorates shall not be forced upon the Depressed Classes against their will unless such joint electorates are accompanied by adult suffrage.
N.B. — Adequate Representation for the Depressed Classes cannot be defined in quantitative terms until the extent of representation allowed to other communities is known. But it must be understood that the Depressed Classes will not con- sent to the representation of any other community being settled on better terms than those allowed to them. They will not agree to being placed at a disadvantage in this matter. In any case the Depressed Classes of Bombay and Madras must have weightage over their population ratio of representation^
48
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
irrespective of the extent of representation allowed to other minorities in the Provinces.
Condition No. V •
ADEQUATE REPRESENTATION IN THE SERVICES
The Depressed Classes have suffered enormously at the hands of the high caste officers who have monopolized the Public Services by abusing the law or by misusing the discretion vested in them in administering it to the prejudice of the Depressed Classes and to the advantage of the caste Hindus without any regard to justice, equity or good conscience. This mischief can only be avoided by destroying the monopoly of caste Hindus in the Public Services and by regulating the recruitment to them in such a manner that all communities including the Depressed will have an adequate share in them. For this purpose the Depressed Classes have to make the following proposals for statutory enactment as part of the constitutional law : —
(1) There shall be established in India and in each Province in India a public Services Commission to undertake the recruit- ment and control of the Public Services .
(2) No member of the Public Service Commission shall be removed except by a resolution passed by the Legislature nor shall he be appointed to any office under the Crown after his retirement .
(3) It shall be the duty of the Public Service Commission , subject to the tests of efficiency as may be prescribed ,
(a) to recruit the Services in such a manner as will secure due and adequate representation of all communities9 and
(b) to regulate from time to time priority in employment in accordance with the existing extent of the representation of the various communities in any particular service concerned .
Condition No. VI
REDRESS AGAINST PREJUDICIAL ACTION OR NEGLECT OF INTERESTS
In view of the fact that the Majority Rule of the future will be the rule of the orthodox, the Depressed Classes fear that such a Majority Rule will not be sympathetic to them and that the probability of prejudice to their interests and neglect of their vital needs cannot be overlooked. It must be provided against particularly because, however adequately represented the
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
49
Depressed Classes will be in a minority in all legislatures. The Depressed Classes think it very necessary that they should have the means of redress given to them in the constitution. It is therefore proposed that the following provision should he made in the constitution of India : —
44 In and for each Province and in and for India it shall he the British North Amer- duty and obligation of the Legislature and the icaAct, 1867, Sec. 93 Executive or any other Authority established hy
Law to make adequate provision for the education , sanitation , re- cruitment in Public Services and other matters of social and political . advancement of the Depressed Classes and to do nothing that will prejudicially affect them .
44 (2) Where in any Province or in India the provisions of this section are violated an appeal shall lie to the Governor-General in Council from any act or decision of any Provincial Authority and to the Secretary of State from any act or decisio?i of a Central Authority affecting the matter.
44 (3) In every such case where it appears to the Governor -General in Council or to the Secretary of State that the Provincial Authority or Central Authority does not take steps requisite for the due execu- tion of the provisions of this Section then and in every such case , and as far only as the circumstances of each case require the Governor- General in Council or the Secretary of State acting as an appellate authority may prescribe , for such period as they may deem fit , take remedied- measures for the due execution of the provisions of this Section and of any of its decisions under this Section and which shall be binding upon the authority appealed against .
Condition No. VII
r SPECIAL DEPARTMENTAL CARE
The helpless, hapless and sapless condition of the Depressed Classes must be entirely attributed to the dogged and determined opposition of the whole mass of the orthodox population which will not allow the Depressed Classes to have equality of status or equality of treatment. It is not enough to say of their economic condition that they are poverty-stricken or that they are a class of landless labourers, although both these statements are statements of fact. It has to be noted that the poverty of the Depressed Classes is due largely to the social prejudices in consequence of which 'friany an occupation for earning a living is closed to them. Tins is a fact which differentiates the position of the Depressed Classes from that of the ordinary caste labourer and is often a source of trouble between the two. It has also to be borne in mind that the forms of tyranny and oppression
50
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAS : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
practised against the Depressed Classes are very various and the capacity of the Depressed Classes to protect themselves is extremely limited. The facts, which obtain in this connection and which a.re of common occurrence throughout India, are well described in the Abstracts of Proceedings of the Board of Revenue of the Government of Madras dated 5th Nov., 1892, No. 723, from which the following is an extract : —
“134. There are forms of oppression only hitherto hinted at which must be at least cursorily mentioned. To punish disobedience of Pariahs, their masters —
(a) Bring false cases in the village court or in the criminal courts.
(b) Obtain, on application, from Government waste lands lying all round the paracheri, so as to impound the Pariahs’ cattle or obstruct the way to their temple.
(c) Have mirasi names fraudulently entered in. the Govern- ment account against the paracheri.
(d) Pull down the huts and destroy the growth in the backyards.
(e) Deny occupancy right in immemorial sub-tenancies.
(/) Forcibly cut the Pariahs’ crops, and on being resisted, charge them with theft and rioting.
(g) Under misrepresentations, get them to execute docu- ments by which they are afterwards ruined
(h) Cut off the flow of water from their fields.
M Without legal notice, have the property of sub-tenants attached for the land-lords’ arrears of revenue.
“ 135. It. will be said there are civil and criminal courts for the redress of any of these injuries. There are the courts indeed ; but India does not breed village Hampdens. One must have courage to go to the courts ; money to employ legal knowledge, and meet legal expenses ; and means to live during the case and the appeals. Further most cases depend upon the decision of the first court ; and these courts are presided over by officials who are sometimes corrupt and who generally, for other reasons, sympathize with the wealthy and landed classes to which they belong.
“136. The influence of these classes with the official world can hardly be exaggerated. It is extreme with natives and great even with Europeans. Every office, from the highest to the lowest, is stocked with their representatives, and there is no proposal affecting their interests but they can bring a score of influence to bear upon it in its course from inception to exe- cution.”
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE DNTOUCHABIJES : A MEAN DEAL
51
There can he no doubt that in view of these circumstances the uplift of the Depressed Classes will remain a pious hope unless the task is placed in the forefront of all governmental activities and unless equalisation of opportunities is realized in practice by a definite policy and determined effort on the part of Government. To secure this end the proposal of the Depressed Classes is that the Constitutional Law should impose upon the Government of India a statutory obligation to maintain at all times a department to deal with their problems by the addition of a section in the Government of India Act to the following effect
<6-J. Simultaneously with the introduction of this Constitution and as part thereof there shall be created in the Government of India a Department to be in charge of a Minister for the purpose of watching the interests of the Depressed Classes and promoting their welfare .
66 2. The Minister shall hold office so long as he retains the confidence of the Central Legislature .
“3. It shall be the duty of the Minister in the exercise of any powers and duties conferred upon him or transferred to him. by law , to take all such steps as may be desirable to secure the pre - paratiqn , effective carrying out and co-ordination of measures preventative of acts of social injustice , tyranny or oppression against the Depressed Classes and conducive to their welfare through- out India .
u4. It shall bd lawful for the Governor -General —
(a) 'to transfer to the Minister all or any powers or duties in respect of the welfare of the Depressed Classes arising from any enactment relating to education , sanitation, etc.
(b) to appoint • Depressed Classes welfare bureaus in each province to work under the authority of and an co-operation with the Minister .
Condition No. VIII
DEPRESSED CLASSES AND THE CABINET
Just as it is necessary that the Depressed Classes should have the power to influence governmental action by seats in the Legislature so also it is desirable that the Depressed Classes should have the opportunity to frame the general policy of the Government. This they can do only if they can find a seat in the Cabinet. The Depressed Classes therefore claim that in common with other minorities, their moral rights to be repre- sented in the Cabinet should be recognized. With this purpose in view the Depressed Classes propose :
52
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
that in the Instrument of Instructions an obligation shall be placed upon the Governor and the Governor-General to endeavour to secure the representation of the Depressed Classes in his Cabinet .
II
What happened to these demands of the Untonchables and how the members of the Minorities Committee reacted to them can be well understood by a perusal of the Report made by the Minorities Committee to the Round Table Con- ference. I give below a few extracts from that Report : —
“5. Claims were therefore advanced by various com- mittees that arrangements should be made for communal representation and for fixed proportions of seats. It was also urged that the number of seats reserved for a minority com- munity should in no case be less than its proportion in the population. The methods by which this could be secured were mainly three: (1) nomination, (2) electorates and (3) separate electorates.
u6. Nomination was unanimously deprecated.
“7. Joint electorates were proposed with the proviso that a proportion of seats should be reserved to the communities. Thus a more democratic form would be given to the elections whilst the purpose of the electorate system would be secured. Doubts were expressed that, whilst such a system of election might secure the representation of minorities, it provided no guarantee that the representation would be genuine, but that it might, in its working, mean the nomination or, in any event, the election of minority representatives by the majority com- munities.
It was pointed out that this was in fact only a form of com- munity representation and had* in practice all the objections to the more direct form of community electorates.
“8. The discussion made it evident that the demand which remained as the only one which would be generally acceptable was separate electorates. The general objection to this scheme has been subject to much previous discussion in India. It in- volves what is a very difficult problem for solution, viz., what should be the amount of communal representation in the various provinces and in the Centre ; that, if the whole, or practi- cally the whole, of the seats in a legislature are to be assigned to. communities, there will be no room for the growth of inde- pendent political opinion or of true political parties, and this problem received a serious complication by the demand of the
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
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representative of the Depressed Classes that they should be deducted from the Hindu population and be regarded, for elec- toral purposes, as a separate community.
“9. It was suggested that, in order to meet the most obvious objection to the ear-marking of seats to communities, only a proportion should be so assigned — say 80 per cent, or 90 per cent. — and that the rest should be filled by open election. This, however, was not regarded by some of the communities as giving them the guarantees they required.
“10. The scheme proposed by Maulana Muhammad Ali, a member of the Sub-Committee, whose death we deplore, that, as far as possible no communal candidate should be elected unless he secured at least 40 per cent, according to arrangement, of the votes of the other community, was also considered. It was, however, pointed out that such a scheme necessarily involved the maintenance of communal registers and so was open to objections similar to those urged against separate electorates.
“11. No claim for separate electorate or for the reservation of seats in joint electorates was made on behalf of women who should continue to be eligible for election on the same footing as men. But, in order to familiarize the public mind with the idea of women taking an active part in political life and to secure their interim representation on the legislature, it was urged that 5 per cent, of the seats in the first three Councils should be reserved for women and it was suggested that they should be filled by co-option by the elected members voting by proportional representation.
“12. There was general agreement with the recommenda- tion of Sub-Committee No. II (Provincial Constitution) that the representation on the Provincial Executive of important minority communities was a matter of the greatest practical importance for the successful working of the new constitution, and it was also agreed that, on the same grounds, Muhammadans should be represented on the Federal Executive. On behalf of the smaller minorities a claim was put forward for their representation, either individually or collectively, on the Pro- vincial and Federal Executives or that, if this should be found impossible, in each Cabinet there should be a Minister specially charged with the duty of protecting minority interests.
(Dr. Ambedkar and Sardar Ujjal Singh would add the words “ and other important minorities 55 after the word Muhammadans in line 6).
The difficulty of working jointly responsible Executives under such a scheme as this was pointed out.
o4
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
“ 13. As regards the administration, it was agreed that recruit- ment to both Provincial and Central Services should be entrusted to Public Service Commissions, with instructions to reconcile the claims of the various communities to fair and adequate representation in the Public Services, whilst providing for the maintenance of a proper standard of efficiency.
* * *
u 16. It has also been made clear that the British Govern- ment cannot, with any chance of agreement, impose upon the communities an electoral principle which, in some feature or other, would be met by their opposition. It was therefore plain that, failing an agreement, separate electorates, with all their drawbacks and difficulties, would have to be retained as the basis of the electoral arrangements under the new constitution. From this the question of proportions would arise. Under these circumstances, the claims of the Depressed Classes will have to be considered adequately.
* * *
“ 18. The Minorities and Depressed Classes were definite in theh assertion that they could not consent to any self-governing constitution for India unless their demands were met in a reasonable manner.”
The Federal Structure Committee, another Committee appointed by the Round Table Conference to discuss the form and functions of the Central Government, had also to consider the question of the Untouchables in connection with the composition of the Federal Legislatures. In the report it made to the Conference it said : —
“Opinion was unanimous in the sub-committee that, subject to any report of the Minorities Sub-Committee, provision should be made for the representation, possibly in both Chambers and certainly in the Lower Chamber, of certain special interests, namely, the Depressed Classes, Indian Christians, Europeans, Anglo-Indians, Landlords, Commerce (European and Indian) and Labour.”
Ill
Before the first session of the Round Table Conference was concluded the reports of both the Committees were placed before the Conference and were passed by the Conference. It will be noticed that although agreement on details was lacking it was unanimously accepted that the Untouchables were entitled to recognition as a separate entity for political and constitutional purposes.
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
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The only party in the country whose attitude to this decision of the Round Table Conference was not known when the First Session of the Round Table Conference was closed, was the Congress. This was because the Congress had boycotted the Round Table Conference and was busy in carrying on civil disobedience against the Government. By the time the Second Session of the Round Table Conference became due, a compromise between His Majesty’s Government and the Congress was reached as a result of which the Congress agreed to participate in it and make its contribution to the solution of the many problems confronting the Conference. Everybody, who had witnessed the good temper, happy relationship and the spirit of give and take shown by the delegates at the first session of the Round Table Conference, hoped that the progress made would be maintained from session to. session. Indeed the rate of progress in forging an agreement was expected to be much more rapid as a result of the advent of the Congress. In fact, friends of Congress were alleging that if the session did not produce an agreement it was because of the absence of the Congress.
Everybody was therefore looking forward to the Congress to lead the Conference to success. Unfortunately, the Congress chose Mr. Gandhi as its representative. A worse person could not have been chosen to guide India’s destiny. As a unifying force he was a failure. Mr. Gandhi presents himself as a man- full of humility. But his behaviour at the Round Table Conference showed that in the flush of victory Mr. Gandhi can be very petty-minded. As a result of his successful com- promise with the Government just before he came, Mr. Gandhi treated the whole Non-Congress delegation with contempt. He insulted them whenever an occasion furnished him with an excuse by openly telling them that they were nobodies and that he alone, as the delegate of the Congress, repre- sented the country. Instead of unifying the Indian delegation, Mr. Gandhi widened the breach. From the point of view of knowledge, Mr. Gandhi proved himself to be a very ill-equipped person. On the many constitutional and communal questions with which the Conference was confronted, Mr. Gandhi had many platitudes to utter but no views or suggestions of a constructive character to offer. He presented a curious com- plex of a man who in some eases would threaten to resist in every possible way any compromise on what he regarded as a
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
56
principle though others regarded it as a pure prejudice but in other cases would not mind making the worst compromises on issues which appeared to others as matters of fundamental principle on which no compromise should be made.
Mr. Gandhi’s attitude to the demands of the Untouchables at the second session of the Round Table Conference furnishes the best illustration of this rather queer trait in his character. When the delegates assembled for the second session of the Round Table Conference the Federal Structure Committee met' first. In the very first speech which he made in the Federal Structure Committee on 15th September 1931, Mr. Gandhi referred to the question of the Untouchables. Mr. Gandhi said : —
“The Congress has, from its very commencement, taken up the cause of the so-called c Untouchables.’ There was a time when the Congress had at every annual session as its adjunct the Social Conference, to which the late Ranade dedicated his energies, among his many other activities. Headed by him you will find, in the programme of the Social Conference, reform in connection with the ‘ Untouchables ’ taking a prominent place. But, in 1920, the Congress took a large step and brought in the question of the removal of untouchability as a plank on the political platform, making it an important item of the political programme. Just as the Congress considered the Hindu-Muslim unity— thereby meaning unity amongst all the classes — to be indispensable for the attainment of Swaraj, so also did the Congress consider the removal of the curse of untouchability as an indispensable condition for the attainment of full freedom. The position the Congress took up in 1920 remains the same today ; and so you will see the Congress has attempted' from its very beginning to be what it described itself to be, namely, national in every sense of the term.”
Anyone, who has perused how the Congress failed to carry out the 1922 programme for the uplift of the Untouchables which was included in the Bardoli programme and how it left it to the Hindu Maha Sabha, could have no hesitation in saying that what Mr. Gandhi said was untrue. The speech however gave no indication as to what line Mr. Gandhi was going to take on the demands presented by the Untouchables, although I could see the drift of it.1 But he did not leave people long in
1 Before going to the First Session of the Round Table Conference I had an interview with Mr. Gandhi in Bombay in which he had told me that he was not m favour of regarding the Untouchables as a separate entity for political purposes.
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
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imagining what his position was going to be. The meeting of the Federal Structure Committee held on the 17th of September 1931 provided him the necessary occasion. The agenda for the meeting included the question of election of members of the Federal Legislatures. Expressing his views on the subject, Mr. Gandhi made the following statement : —
“I come to sub-head (v) — representation by special con- stituencies of special interests. I here speak for the Congress. The Congress has reconciled itself to special treatment of the Hindu-Muslim-Sikh tangle. There are sound historical reasons for it 'but the Congress will not extend that doctrine in any shape or form. I listened to the list of special interests. So far as the Untouchables are concerned, I have not yet quite grasped what Dr. Ambedkar has to say : but of course the Congress will share the honour with Dr. Ambedkar of representing the interests of the Untouchables. They are as clear to the Congress as the interests of any other body or of any other individual through- out the length and breadth of India. Therefore I would most strongly resist any further special representation.”
This was nothing but a declaration of War by Mr. Gandhi and the Congress against the Untouchables. In any case it resulted in a war between the two. With this declaration by Mr. Gandhi, I knew what Mr. Gandhi would do in the Minorities Committee wrhich v*as the main forum for the discussion of this question.
Mr. Gandhi was making his plans to bypass the Untouchables and to close the communal problem by bringing about a settle- ment between the three parties, the Hindus, the Muslims and the Sikhs. He had been carrying on negotiations privately with the Muslims before the Minorities Committee met, but evidently they had not been concluded. Consequently, when the Minorities Committee met on 28th September 1931, Sir Ali Imam representing the Nationalist Muslim point of view started the debate. He began by saying : —
CCI am personally not aware if there are any negotiations going on so far as the Muslim Delegation is concerned. I have had no opportunity of knowing that there are, any proposals at present that are under consideration. It may be, as I have heard generally, that some kind of understanding may be arrived at.
I do not vouch for it ; I know nothing about it. If you desire, Sir, that I should put before you the Muslim Nationalists’ point of view, I shall be ready to do so ; but. of course, I must have
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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS, AND SPEECHES
your permission, because it may take a little time and economy of time in a meeting like this is one’s principal aim.
“Chairman: The point is that this Committee’s business is very strictly limited to a consolidation of the Minorities problem.
Sir Ali Imam : It is from that point of view that I shall approach the subject.
Chairman : If there is no other official intervention shall I call on Sir Ali Imam ? ”
Then followed His Highness the Aga Khan who said
* ke^eve that Mahatma Gandhi is going to see the Muslim Delegation to-night. We hope to-night to have a friendly talk with our friend. That is all that I can tell you as far as any possible negotiation is concerned.”
Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya also suggested that a short adjournment may be fruitful of results. Knowing that this was a mischievous move I got up and spoke as follows
I should like to say one word before we adjourn As regards your suggestion— that while these negotiations are ■ going on members of the other minority communities should prepare their case— I should like to say that so far as the Depressed Classes are concerned, we have already presented our case to the Minorities Sub-Committee last time.
‘ Ihe oMy thing which remains for me to do is to put before this Committee a short statement * suggesting the quantum of representation which we want in the different Legislatures Beyond that I do not think I arn called upon to do anything ; but the point I am anxious to make at the very outset is this I have heard with great pleasure that further negotiations are going to take place for the settlement of the communal issue, but I would like to make our position clear at the very start.
I do not wish any doubt should be left on this question. Those who are negotiating ought to understand that they are not p empotentiaries appointed by the Committee to negotiate a
S<f ;.nhat whatever ™ay be the representative character
o Mr. Gandhi or of the other parties with whom he wishes to negotiate, they certainly are not in a position to bind us— certainly not. I say that most emphatically in this meeting.
er \ want to say is this — that the claims put iorward by the various minorities are claims put forward by
+WffreSiPeCtlVe °f the consideration as to whether the claims mat they have put forward are consistent with the claims of the other minorities. Consequently, any settlement which takes
Appendix II.<lld bj PUtUug iu auother memorandum which is included as
WIIAT CONGRESS AND G ANDIE 'HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES •
A MEAN DEAL ‘ 59
place between one minority on the one hand and the Congress or any other party for the matter of that on the other hand, without taking into consideration the claims which have been put forward by other minorities, can have no binding force’ as far as I am concerned. I have no quarrel with the question whether any particular community should get weightage or not, but I do want to say most emphatically that whoever claims weightage and whoever is willing to give that weightage he must not give it — he cannot give it — out of my share. I want to make that absolutely plain.”
What followed will be clear from the extract from the pro- ceedings given below : —
“ Chairman : Do not let there be any misunderstanding. This is the body before which the -final settlement must come, and the suggestion is merely that if there are minorities or com- munities that hitherto have been in conflict with each other they should use a short time for the purpose of trying to over- come their difficulties. That will be a step and a very important and essential step, towards a general agreement, but the agree- ment is going to be a general one.
Dr. Ambedkar : I have made my position absolutely clear.
u Chairman : Dr. Ainbedkar’s position has been made absolutely clear ; in his usual splendid way he has left no doubt at all about it, and that will come up when this body resumes its discussion. What I would like to do is to get you all to feel that we are co-operating together for a general settlement ; not for a settlement’ between any two or any three, but a com- plete settlement.
u Chairman : The position is this. We will adjourn now, I think, and later continue our meetings. Pending any negotia- tions that may be going on between any two or any, three of you, we can take up the time in listening to a statement of the claims of the other minorities. I think that would be very useful. It would save time, and it would not mar the possi- bility of any harmony that may be reached between, say, our Sikh friends — who, we know, can look after themselves with a great deal of persistence — Mr. Gandhi and his friends and the Aga Khan and his.
u Dr. Ambedkar : I should like to Suggest whether it would not be possible for you to appoint a small Committee consisting of members drawn from the various minority communities, along with the Congress representatives, to sit in an informal nlarmer and discuss this problem during the period of the adjournment.
60
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR: WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
“Chairman : I was going to make this suggestion. Do not ask me to appoint that Committee ; do it yourselves. I have invited you to get together. Could not you manage to hold an informal meeting amongst yourselves and talk the matter over, and then when you speak here you will speak with some sort of knowledge of the effect of what you are saying on others ? Could we leave it in that way ?
“Dr. Anibedkar : As you like.
“ Chairman : That would be far better.”
No settlement was evidently arrived at between the three parties during the adjournment. Consequently when the Minorities Committee met again on 1st October 1931, Mr. Gandhi said : —
“Prime Minister, after consultation with His Highness the Aga Khan and other Muslim friends last night, we came to the conclusion that the purpose for which we meet here would be better served if a week’s adjournment was asked for. I have not had the opportunity of consulting my other colleagues, but I have no doubt that they will also agree in the proposal I am making.”
The proposal was seconded by the Aga Khan. I got up to oppose the motion. What I said will be clear from the follow- ing extract from the proceedings : —
“Dr. Ambedkar : I do not wish to create any difficulty in our making every possible attempt to arrive at some solution of the problem with which this Committee has to deal, and if a solution can be arrived at by the means suggested by Mahatma Gandhi, I, for one, will have no objection to that proposal.
“ But there is just this one difficulty with which I, as repre- senting the Depressed Classes, am faced. I do not know what sort of committee Mahatma Gandhi proposes to appoint to consider this question during the period of adjournment, but I suppose that the Depressed Classes will be represented on this Committee.
“Mr. Gandhi : Without doubt.
“Dr. Ambedkar : Thank you. But I do not know whether in the position in which I am today it would be of any use for me to work on the proposed Committee. And for this reason. Mahatma Gandhi told us on the first day that he spoke in the Federal Structure Committee that as a representative of the Indian National Congress he was not prepared to give political recognition to any community other than the Muhammadans and the Sikhs. He was not prepared to recognize the Anglo- Indians, the Depressed Classes, and the Indian Christians.
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDIII HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
61
I do not think that I am doing any violence to etiquette by stating in this Committee that when I had the pleasure of meeting Mahatma Gandhi a week ago and discussing the question of the Depressed Classes with him, and when we, as members of the other minorities, had the chance of talking with him yester- day in his office, he told us in quite plain terms that the attitude that he had taken in the Federal Structure Committee was a firm and well considered attitude. What I would like to say is that unless at the outset I know that the Depressed Classes are going to be recognised as a community entitled to political recognition in the future Constitution of India, I do not know whether it will serve any purpose for me to join the committee that is proposed by Mahatma Gandhi to be constituted to go into this matter. Unless, therefore, I have an assurance that tliis Committee will start with the assumption that all those communities which the Minorities Sub-Committee last year recommended as fit for recognition in the future constitution of India will be included, I do not know that I can whole-heartedly support the proposition for adjournment, or that I can whole- heartedly co-operate with the Committee that is going to be nominated. That is what I wish to be clear about.
* * *
“Dr. Ambedkar : I should like to make my position further clear. It seems that there has been a certain misunderstanding regarding what I said. It is not that I object to adjournment ; it is not that I object to serving on any Committee that might be appointed to consider the question. What I would like to know before I enter upon this committee, if they give me the privilege of serving on it, is : What is the thing that this Com- mittee is going to consider ? Is it only going to consider the question of the Muhammadans vis-a-vis the Hindus ? Is it going to consider the question of the Muhammadans vis-a-vis the Sikhs in the Punjab ? Or is it going to consider the question of the Christians, the Anglo-Indians and the Depressed Classes ?
“If we understand perfectly well before we start that this committee will not merely concern itself with the question of the Hindus and the Muhammadans, of the Hindus and the Sikhs, but, will also take upon itself the responsibility of con- sidering the case of the Depressed Classes, the; Anglo-Indians and the Christians, I am perfectly willing to allow this adjourn- ment resolution to be passed without any objection. But I do want to say this, that if I am to be left out in the cold and if this interval is going to be utilised for the purposes of solving the Hindu-Muslim question, I would press that the Minorities
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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Committee should itself grapple with the question and consider it rather than allow the question to be dealt with by some other informal Committee for arriving at a solution of the communal question in respect of some minorities only.
‘ Mr. Gandhi .- Prime Minister and friends, I see that there is some kind of misunderstanding with reference to the scope of the work that some of us have set before ourselves. I fear that Dr. Ambedkar, Colonel Gidney and other friends Se um neeessanly nervous about what is going to happen. Who am I to deny political status to any single interest or class or even nidividual m India ? As a representative of the Congress I should be unworthy of the trust that has been reposed in me by the Congress if I were guilty of sacrificing a single national interest I have undoubtedly given expression to my own views
akr* R tP?intS' 1 mUSt COnfess that 1 hold to those views also. But there are ways and ways of guaranteeing protection
to every single interest. It will be for those of us who S be putting our heads together to try to evolve a scheme. Nobodv would be hampered in pressing his own views on the member! of this very informal conference or meeting.
hZdrPVmk’ thfefore> that anybody need be afraid as to emto able to express his opinion or carrying his opinion also Mine will be there equal to that of every one of us ft wTl carrv no greater weight; I have no authority behind me to Zl my opinion against the opinion of anybody. I have simolv
f1V?1])eXpreSSlon t0 my views in the national interest and I shall give expression to these views whenever they are fortune. It will be for you, it is for you to reject or aceef t these opinions. Therefore please disburse your „
srs f&s*' idea «« » **« to be .ry
adumbrated. ButTv“„“lw£r‘ *“ 1 , 4. 7 *• ou tlimlc tliat this is one wav of comino-
by sitting stiffly at this table, you wil!
co-opSation m rtUmment bUt give your whole-hearted
“ Pt0 thf Proposal that I have made in connection with these informal meetings. connection
rW ?en 1 sha11 Proceed to put it. I put it on the
friends’ that time is not gZg tl . n &tfd ai*d tllat tllese conferences-— as Mr. Gandhi has said Wfi?1 C°fferences’ but nevertheless I hope very valuable and
mSCOfhorS~Wi; Pkce beween «d our next in that way.!^ PC 7°U Wd a pledge y°lirselves to use the time
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
03
It is unnecessary for me to recite what happened at the informal meeting held after the adjournment* It was a com- plete failure if not a fiasco. The meeting was presided over by Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Gandhi began with the most difficult part of the Communal question namely the dispute between the Sikhs and the Muslims in the Punjab. This problem at- one stage appeared to be nearer solution when the parties agreed to abide by the decision of an Arbitrator. The Sikl\$, however, refused to proceed further in the matter until they knew who the Arbitrator was. As the Musalmans were not prepared to have the name of the Arbitrator disclosed the matter fell through. Mr. Gandhi was not interested in, the problem of the other minorities, - such as the Untouchables although he enacted the farce of calling upon the representatives of the other minorities to present a catalogue of their demands. He heard them but took no notice of them much. Did he place them before the meeting for its consideration ? As soon as the Sikh-Muslim settlement broke up, Mr. Gandhi dissolved the meeting. The Minorities Committee met on 8th October 1931. The Prime Minister having called upon Mr. Gandhi to speak first, the latter said : —
“Prime Minister and friends, it is with deep sorrow and deeper humiliation that I have to announce utter failure on my part to secure an agreed solution of the communal question through informal conversations among and with the repre- sentatives of different groups. I apologise to you, Mr. Prime Minister, and the other colleagues for the waste of a precious week. My only consolation lies in the fact that when I accepted the burden of carrying on these talks I knew that there was much hope of success and still more in the fact that I am not aware of having spared any effort to reach a solution.
“But to say that the conversations have to our utter shame failed is not to say the wrhole truth. Causes of failure were inherent in the composition of the Indian Delegation. We are almost all not elected representatives of the parties or groups whom we are presumed to represent ; we are here by nomination of the Government. Nor are those whose presence was absolutely necessary for an agreed solution to be found here. Further, you will allow me to say that this was hardly the time to summon the Minorities Committee. It lacks the sense of reality in that we do not know what it is that we are going to get. If we knew in a definite manner that we were going to get the thing we want, we should hesitate fifty times before we
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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
threw it away in a sinful wrangle as it would be if we are told that the getting of it would depend upon the ability of the present Delegation to produce an agreed solution of the com- munal tangle. The solution can be the crown of the Swaraj constitution, not its foundation — if only because our differences have hardened, if they have not arisen, by reason of the foreign domination. I have not a shadow of a doubt that the icebag of communal differences will melt under the warmth of the sun of freedom.
“I, therefore, venture to suggest that the Minorities Com- mittee be adjourned sine. die and that the fundamentals of the constitution be hammered into shape as quickly as may be. Meanwhile, the informal work of discovering a true solution of the communal problem will and must continue ; only it must not baulk or be allowed to block the progress of constitution- building. Attention must be diverted from it and concentrated on the main part of the structure.
“I hardly need point out to the Committee that my failure does not mean the end of all hope of arriving at an agreed solution. My failure does not even mean my utter defeat ; there is no such word in the dictionary. My confession merely means failure of special effort for which I presumed to ask for a week’s indulgence, which you so generously gave.
“I propose to use the failure as a stepping-stone to success, and I invite you all to do likewise ; but, should all effort at agreement fail, even when the Round Table Conference reaches the end of its labours, I would suggest the addition of a clause to the expected constitution appointing a judicial tribunal that would examine all claims and give its final decision on all the points that may be left unsettled.”
In the discussion that followed everybody refuted Mr. Gandhi’s allegation that the delegates were nominated by Government and did not represent the people. Getting up to make my position clear, I said : —
“Mr. Prime Minister, last night when we parted at the conclusion of the meeting of the informal Committee, we parted, although with a sense of failure, at least with one common under- standing, and that was that when we met here today none of us should make any speech or any comment that would cause exasperation. I am sorry to see. that Mr. Gandhi should have been guilty of a breach of this understanding. Excuse me,
I must have the opportunity to speak. He started by giving what were, according to him, the causes of the failure of the informal Committee. Now, I have my own view of the causes
WIIAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
65
which I think were responsible for the failure of the informal Committee to reach an agreement, but I do not propose to discuss them now. What disturbs me after hearing Mr. Gandhi is that instead of confining himself to his proposition, namely, that the Minorities Committee should adjourn sine die , he started casting certain reflections upon the representatives of the different communities who are sitting round this table. He said that the Delegates were nominees of the Government, and that they did not represent the views of their respective communities for whom they stood. We cannot deny the allegation that we are nominees of the Government, but, speaking for myself, I have not the slightest doubt that even if the Depressed Classes of India were given the chance of electing their representatives to this Conference, I would, all the same, find a place here. I say therefore that whether I am a nominee or not, I fully represent the claims of my community. Let no man be under the mistaken impression as regards that.
‘'The Mahatma has been always claiming that the Congress stands for the Depressed Classes, and that the Congress repre- sents the Depressed Classes more than I or my colleague can do. To that claim I can only say that it is one of the many false claims which irresponsible people keep on making, although the persons concerned with regard to those claims have been invariably denying them.
“I have here a telegram which I have just received from a place which I have never visited and from a man whom I have never seen — from the President of the Depressed Classes Union, Kumaun, Almora, which I believe is in the United Provinces, and which contains the following resolution :
“This Meeting declares its non-confidence in the Congress
movement which has been carried on in and outside the
country, and condemns the methods adopted by the
Congress workers.”
I do not care to read further, but I can say this (and I think if Mr. Gandhi will examine his position he will find out the truth), that although there may be people in the Congress who may be showing sympathy towards the Depressed Classes, the Depressed Classes are not in the Congress. That is a proposition which I propose to substantiate. I do not wish to enter into- these points of controversy. They seem to be somewhat outside the main proposition. The main proposition which Mr. Gandhi has made is that this Committee should be adjourned sine die. With regard to that proposition, I entirely agree with the attitude taken up by Sir Muhammad Shah. I, for one, cannot
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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
consent to this proposition. It seems to me that there are only two alternatives — either that this Minorities Committee should go on tackling the problem and trying to arrive at some satisfactory solution, if that is possible, and then, if that is not possible, the British Government should undertake the solution of that problem. We cannot consent to leave this to the arbitration of third parties whose sense of responsibility may not be the same as must be the sense of responsibility of the British Government.
“ Prime Minister, permit me to make one thing clear. The Depressed Classes are not anxious, they are not clamorous, they have not started any movement for claiming that there shall be an immediate transfer of power from the British to the Indian people. They have their particular grievances against the British people and I think I have voiced them sufficiently to make it clear that we feel those grievances most acutely. But, to be true to facts, the position is that the. Depressed Classes are not clamouring for transfer of political power. Their position,* to put it plainly, is that we are not anxious for the transfer of power ; but if the British Government is unable to resist the forces that have been set up in the country which do clamour for transference of political power — and we know the Depressed Classes in their present circumstances are not in a position to resist that — then our submission is that if you make that transfer, that transfer will be accompanied by such conditions and by such provisions that the .power shall not fall into the hands of a clique, into the hands of an oligarchy, or into the hands of a group of people, whether Muhammadans or Hindus ; but that that solution shall be such that the power shall be shared by all communities in their respective propor- tions. Taking that view, I do not see how I, for one, can take any serious part in the deliberation of the Federal Structure Committee unless I know where I and my community stand.”
The Prime Minister in his concluding observations said: —
“Let us adjourn, and I will call you together again. In the meantime what I would like would be if those of you are sitting opposite me, the representatives of the small minorities, would also try your hands.
“If there are any common agreements among yourselves, I would suggest that you circulate them. . .It is not the British Government that is going to stand in the way of any agreement . . .Therefore what I would like you to have in your minds after the rather depressing statements to which we have listened, is this : That the British Government wants to go on ; the
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A MEAN DEAL
67
British Government wants you to go on. The British Govern- ment will take its action if you cannot go on to an end, because we are determined to make such improvements in the Govern- ment of India as will make the Government of India consistent with our own ideas, as will make the Government of India something that is capable of greater and greater expansion towards liberty. That is what we want. I appeal to the Delegates here today — Delegates representing all communities — Do not stand in our way ; because that is what is happening.’5
IV
Acting on the suggestion, of the Prime Minister the minorities met to consider if they could produce a settlement. They tried and produced a settlement which was submitted to the Prime Minister in the evening before the next meeting of the Minorities Committee which took place on 13th November 1931. In his opening remarks the Prime Minister said : —
“The work of this Committee, therefore, was from the very beginning of supreme importance, and I am sorry that you have been unable to present to us an agreed plan.
“Last night, however, I received a deputation representing the Muhammadans, the Depressed Classes, at any rate a section of the Indian Christians, the Anglo-Indians and the British Community. I think that is the complete range. They came and saw me in my room in the House of Commons last night with a document which embodied an agreement that they had come to amongst themselves. They informed me, in presenting the document to me, that it covered something in the region of 46 per cent, of the population of British India.
“I think the best thing would be, as we have had no time to consider this, to treat this document as a document which is official to the records of this Committee and in order that that may be done I shall ask His Highness The Aga Khan formally to present it here, so that it may be entered in our official record.”
His Highness The Aga Khan then got up and said : —
“Mr. Prime Minister, on behalf of the Muhammadans, the Depressed Classes, the Anglo-Indians, the Europeans and a considerable section of the Indian Christian groups, I present the document embodying the agreement which has been arrived at between them with regard to the intercommunal problem with which the Round Table Conference in general and the Minorities Committee in particular are concerned. We desire
68
DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
to make it clear that this agreement has been arrived at after careful and anxious consideration of this difficult and compli- cated problem and must be taken as a whole. All parts of the agreement are interdependent and agreements stand or fall as a whole.”
This document was known as the Minorities Pact.1 In the general discussion that followed Mr. Gandhi’s speech no doubt attracted the greatest attention. Mr. Gandhi was furious. He attacked everybody who had taken part in producing the Minorities Pact. He was particularly furious for the recognition given to the Untouchables as a separate political entity. This is what Mr. Gandhi said : —
“I would like to repeat what I have said before, that, while the Congress will always accept any solution that may be acceptable to the Hindus, the Muhammadans and the Sikhs, Congress will be no party to the special electorates for any other minorities. . .One word more as to the so-called Untouchables.
I can understand the claims advanced by other minorities, but the claims advanced on behalf of the Untouchables, that time is the ‘unkindest cut of all.5 It means the perpetual bar-sinister. I would not sell the vital interests of the Un- touchables even for the sake of winning the freedom of India.
I claim myself in my own person to represent the vast mass of the Untouchables. Here I speak not merely on behalf of the Congress, but I speak on my own behalf, and I claim that I would get, if there was a referendum of the Untouchables, their vote, and that. I would top the poll. And I would work from one end of India to the other to tell the Untouchables that separate electorates, and separate reservation is not the way to remove this bar-sinister, which is the shame, not of them, but of orthodox Hinduism.
“Let this Committee and let the whole world know that today there is a body of Hindu reformers who are pledged to remove this blot of untouchability. We do not want on our register and on our census Untouchables classified as a separate class. Sikhs may remain as such in perpetuity, so may Muhammadans so may Europeans. Will Untouchables remain Untouchables in perpetuity ? I would far rather .that Hinduism died than that Untouchability lived. Therefore, with all my regard for Dr. Ambedkar, and for his desire to see the Untouchables up-' lifted, with all my regard for his ability, I must say in all
1 It is reproduced as Appendix III.
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES :
A MEAN DEAL °9
humility that here the great wrong under which he has laboured and perhaps the bitter experiences that he has undergone have for the moment warped his judgment. It hurts me to have to say this, but I would be untrue to the cause of the Untouch- ables, which is as dear to me as life itself, if I did not say it. I will not bargain away their rights for the kingdom of the whole world. I am speaking with a due sense of responsibility, and I say that it is not a proper claim which is registered by Dr. Ambedkar when he seeks to speak for the whole of the Un- touchables of India. It will create a division in Hinduism which I cannot possibly look forward to with any satisfaction whatsoever. I do not mind Untouchables, if they so desire, being converted to Islam or Christianity. I should tolerate that, but I cannot possibly tolerate what is in store for Hinduism if there are two divisions set forth in the villages. Those who speak of the political right of Untouchables do not know their India, do not know how Indian Society is today constructed, and therefore I want to say with all the emphasis that I can command that if I was the only person to resist this thing I would resist it with my life.”
The Chairman knowing that there was no hope of getting an agreed solution before adjourning the Minorities Committee sine die made a suggestion to the delegates. He said
“Will you, each of you, every member of this Committee, sign a request to me to settle the community question and pledge yourselves to accept my decision ? That, I think, is a very fair offer. . .1 do want any section, or any one man. Will the members of this Committee sign a declaration asking me to give a decision, even a temporary one, on the community question, and say that you will agree ? I do not want it now.
I say, will you put your names to it and give that to me, with the assurance that the decision come to will be accepted by you and will be worked by you to the best of your ability in the course of the working of the new constitution ? I have asked several sections — at least, individuals — from time to time for that, and I have never got it. That would certainly straighten out the position, but apart from that, do, please, not forget what I said in opening this meeting — that the Government will not allow community differences to prevent it from carrying out its pledges and producing a constitution. Therefore do not make the community difference more important than it is.”
70
V
DR. BABASAIIEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Thus ended the efforts by the Minorities Committee to bring about a solution of the communal problem. The dis- cussion in the Committee threw Mr. Gandhi’s attitude to the Untouchables in relief. Everybody felt that Mr. Gandhi was the most determined enemy of the Untouchables. So much of his energy and attention did Mr. Gandhi concentrate on the question of the Untouchables that it would not be unfair if it was said that the main purpose for which Mr. Gandhi came to the Round Table Conference was to oppose the demands of the Untouchables.
Those, who were friends of Mr. Gandhi, could not understand Mr. Gandhi’s attitude to the demands of the Untouchables. To give recognition to the Muslims and the Sikhs and to refuse it to the Untouchables came to them as a surprise and a puzzle. Whenever they asked for an explanation, Mr. Gandhi did nothing except to get angry. Mr. Gandhi himself could not give a logical and consistent defence of his opposition to the Untouchables. Inside the Round Table Conference his defence was that the Hindus had seriously taken up the cause of the Untouchables and that therefore there was no reason to give them political safeguards. Outside the Round Table Con- ference he gave totally different reasons. In a speech in defence of his position Mr. Gandhi said : —
“Muslims and Sikhs arc all well organized. The ‘Untouch- ables ’ are not. There is very little political consciousness among them and they are so horribly treated that I want to save them against themselves. If they had separate electorates their lives would be miserable in villages which are the strongholds of Hindu orthodoxy. It is the superior class of Hindus who have to do penance for having neglected the ‘Untouchables’ for ages. That penance can be done by active social reform and by making the lot of the ‘Untouchables’ more bearable by acts of service, but not by asking for separate electorates for them. By giving them separate electorates you will throw the apple of discord between the ‘Untouchables’ and the orthodox. You must understand I can tolerate the proposal for special representation of the Musalmans and the Sikhs only as a necessary evil. It would be a positive danger for the ‘Untouchables.’ I am certain that the question of separate electorates for the ‘Untouchables’ is a modem manufacture’ of Government. The only thing needed is to put them on the
71
WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES :
A MEAN DEAL
voters’ list, and provide for fundamental rights for them in the constitution. In cases they are unjustly treated and their representative is deliberately excluded they would have the right to special election tribunal which would give them complete protection. It should be open to these tribunals to order the unseating of an elected candidate and the election of the excluded men.
“ Separate electorates to the ‘Untouchables’ will ensure them bondage in perpetuity. The Musalmans will never cease to be Musalmans by having separate electorates. Do you want the ‘Untouchables’ to remain c Untouchables ’ for ever ? Well, the separate electorates would perpetuate the stigma. What is needed is destruction of untouchability, and when you have done it, the bar-sinister which has been imposed by an insolent ‘superior’ class upon an ‘inferior’ class will be destroyed. When you have destroyed the bar-sinister, to whom will you give the separate electorates ? Look at the history of Europe. Have you got separate electorates for the working classes or women ? With adult franchise, you give the ‘ Un- touchables 5 complete security. Even the orthodox would have to approach them for votes.
“Now then you ask, does Dr. Ambedkar, their representative, insist on separate electorates for them ? I have the highest regard for Dr. Ambedkar. He has every right to be bitter. That he does not break our heads is an act of self-restraint on his part. He is today so much saturated with suspicion that he cannot see anything else. He sees in every Hindu a deter- mined opponent of the ‘Untouchables’ and it is quite natural. The same thing happened to me in my early days in South Africa, where I was hounded out by Europeans wherever I went.
It is quite natural for him to vent his wrath. But the separate electorates that he seeks will not give him social reform. He may himself mount to power and position but nothing good will accrue to the ‘Untouchables.’ I can say all this with authority, having lived with