Mr.
Chairman, my purpose in rising to address this conference is principally to
place before it the point of view of the Depressed Classes
regarding the question of constitutional reform. It is a point of view of
one-fifth of the total population of British India. The Depressed Classes form
a group by themselves which is distinct and separate from the Muslims. Although
they are included among the Hindus, they do not form an integral part of that
community in any sense. They have not only a separate existence, but they
have also assigned to them a statute which is invidiously distinct
from the status occupied by any other community in India. There are communities
in India which occupy a lower120
and subordinate position; but the position assigned to the Depressed Classes is
totally different. It is one which is midway140
between that of the serf and the slave, and which may be called servile
with the difference that the serf160
and the slave were permitted to have physical contact, from which the Depressed
Classes are debarred. What is worse is that this enforced servility and bar
to human intercourse involves not merely the possibility of discrimination in
public life, but actually works out as a positive denial of all equality of
opportunity and the denial of those most elementary of civic rights on which
all human existence depends. I am sure that the point of view of such a
community, 240 as large as the
population of England or France, and so heavily handicapped in the struggle for
existence, cannot but have some bearing on the right sort of solution of the
political problem. I am anxious that this conference280 should be placed in possession of
that point of view at the very start.
The point of view I am trying
to put is that the bureaucratic form of Government in India should be replaced
by a Government which will be320
a Government of the people, by the people and for the people. I am sure this
statement of the view of the Depressed Classes will be received with some
surprise in certain quarters. The tie that bounds the Depressed Classes360 to the British has been of a unique
character. The Depressed Classes welcomed the British as their deliverers
from age-long tyranny and oppression by the orthodox
Hindus. They fought their battles against the Hindus, the Muslims and the Sikhs
and won for them this great Empire of India. The British, on their side,
assumed the role of trustees for420
the Depressed Classes. In view of such an intimate relationship between the
parties, this change in the attitude of the Depressed Classes towards British
Rule in India is undoubtedly a most momentous phenomenon.
But the reasons for this change of attitude are not far to seek. We have not
taken this decision simply because we wish to throw in our lot480 with the majority. As you know, there
is not much love lost between the majority and the particular minority I
represent. Ours is an independent decision. We have judged the existing
administration solely in the light of our own circumstances and we
have found it wanting in some of the most essential elements of a good
Government. When we compare our present position with the one we had in Indian
society of the pre-British days, we find that instead560 of marching on, we are only marking
time. Before the British, we were in the hateful condition due to our untouchability.
Has the British Government done anything to remove it? Before the
British, we could not enter the temple. Can we600 enter now? Before the British, we were
denied entry into the Police Force. Does the British Government admit us in the
Force? Before the British, we were not allowed to serve in the Military.
Is that career now open to us? 640
To none of these questions can we give an affirmative answer. We acknowledge that
the British, who have ruled us for such a long time, have done some good. But there
is certainly no fundamental change in our position. So far as we
were concerned, the British Government has accepted the social arrangements
as it found them, and700 has
preserved them faithfully in the manner of the Chinese tailor who, when given
an old coat as a pattern, produced720
with pride an exact replica.
Our
wrongs have remained as open sores and they have not been righted,
although 150 years of British rule have rolled away. We do not accuse the
British of indifference or want of sympathy. What we do find is that
they are quite incompetent to tackle our problems. If the case was one
of indifference only, it would have been a matter of small moment, and it
would not have made such a profound change in800 our attitude. But what we have come to
realize on a deeper analysis of the situation is that it is not merely a
case of indifference, rather it is a case of sheer incompetence
to undertake the task. 840 The
Depressed Classes find that the British Government in India suffers from
two very serious limitations. There is first of all an internal limitation
which arises from the character, motives and interests of those who are
in power. It is not because they cannot help us in these things
but because it is against their character, motives and interests to do
so. The second consideration that limits its authority is the mortal fear it
has of external resistance. The Government of India does realize the
necessity of removing the social evils which are eating into the vitals of
Indian society and which have blighted the lives of the downtrodden classes for
so many years. The Government of India does realize960 that the landlords are squeezing the
masses dry, and the capitalists are not giving the labourers a living wage and980 decent conditions of work. Yet it is
most painful thing that it has not dared to touch any of these evils. Is it
because it has no legal powers to remove them? That is not the
case. The reason why it does not intervene is because it is afraid that
its intervention to amend the existing code of social and economic life, will
give rise to resistance. How good is such a Government to anybody? We must have
a Government in which the men in power will give their undivided allegiance
to the best interest of the country. We must1080 have a Government in which men in
power, knowing where obedience will end and resistance will begin, will not
be afraid to amend the social and economic code of life which the dictates
of justice and expediency so urgently call for.
1120 The British Government will never be able to play
this role. It is only a Government which is of the people, for the
people and by the people that will make this possible.
These
are some of the questions raised by the Depressed Classes who have come to the inevitable
conclusion that the bureaucratic Government of India, with the best of motives,
will remain powerless to effect any change so far as our particular grievances
are concerned. We feel1200
that nobody can remove our grievances as well as we can, and we cannot
remove them unless we get political power in our own hands. No
share of this political power can evidently come to us so long as the
British Government remains as it is. It is only in a Swaraj constitution
that we stand any chance of getting1260
the political power into our own hands, without which we cannot bring salvation
to our people. There is one thing1280
to which I wish to draw your particular attention. I have not used the
expression Dominion Status in placing before you the point of view of the
Depressed Classes. I have avoided using it, not because I do not understand
its implications nor does the omission mean that the Depressed Classes object
to India’s attaining Dominion Status. My chief ground for not using it is that
it does not convey the full content of what the Depressed Classes stand for. While
they stand for Dominion Status with safeguards, the Depressed Classes wish to
lay all the emphasis they can on one question and one question alone. That
question is, how will Dominion India function? Where will the centre of
political1400 power lie? Who
will have it? Will the Depressed Classes be heirs to it? These are the
questions that form their chief concern. The Depressed Classes feel that
they will get no shred of the political power unless the political
machinery1440 for the new
constitution is of a special make. In the construction of that machine, certain
hard facts of Indian social life must not be lost sight of. It must be
recognized that Indian Society is a gradation of castes forming an ascending
scale of reverence and a descending scale of contempt. This is a system which
gives no scope for the growth of that sentiment of equality and fraternity
so essential for a democratic form of Government. It must also be
recognized that while the intelligentsia is a very important part
of Indian society, it is drawn from its upper strata and although it
speaks in the name of the country and leads the political movement, it
has not shed the narrow particularism of the class from which it is drawn. In
other words what the Depressed Classes wish to urge is that the political
mechanism must take account of and must have a definite relation to the
psychology1600 of the society for
which it is devised.
GLOSSARY
Invidiously - In a way that is likely to cause
unhappiness, especially because of being unfair
Serf - A person forced to live and work on land
that belonged to a landowner whom they had to obey
Servile - Slavish;
being obedient to the point of flattery
Blighted - Spoilt
or damaged
Shred - A
very small amount of something
