” … If one agrees with the definition of slave as given by Plato, who defines him as one who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct, the untouchables are really slaves. The untouchables are so socialized as never to complain of their low caste. Still less do they ever dream of trying to improve their lot, by forcing the other classes to treat them with that common respect which one man owes to another. The idea that they have been born to their lot is so ingrained in their mind that it never occurs to them to think that their fate is anything but irrevocable. Nothing will ever persuade them that men are all made of the same clay, or that they have the right to insist on better treatment than that meted out to them.”
” … We have therefore two possible methods of meeting the situation: either to reserve seats in plural constituencies for those minorities that cannot otherwise secure personal representation or grant communal electorates. Both have their usefulness. So far as the representation of the Mohammedans is concerned, it is highly desirable that they should participate in a general election with seats reserved for them in plural constituencies.”
” … The new consciousness insists on dividing the touchable group into Brahmins and non-Brahmins each with its own separate interests. Separate electorate or reserved seats in mixed electorates are demanded for the three groups in which the Hindus are divided. Before dealing with the problem of the representation of the untouchables something will be said on the question of the Brahmins and non-Brahmins.”
” … That the non-Brahmins are backward in educational matters cannot be said in any way to be their special interest. It is the general interest of all even of those Brahmins who are educationally backward. The intellectual and social domination of the Brahmins’ is not a matter that affects the non-Brahmins alone. It affects all and it is therefore the interest of all. What remains then as a special interest for the non-Brahmins to require their protection?
“The case of separate representation for non-Brahmins fails because they cannot prove to have a common non-Brahmins interest”.
From: Dr. Ambedkar’s Evidence before the Franchise Committee (Southborough, 1919)
(Dr. M.P. Mangudkar, (ed.) Ambedkar and Parliamentary Democracy, pp. 8, 9, 10 & 13).
Evils of Hindu Religion
“(1) It (Hindu religion) tends to deprive moral life of freedom and spontaneity and to reduce it to a more or less anxious and servile conformity to externally imposed rules. (2) There is no loyalty to ideas, there is only conformity to commands. (3) The laws are iniquitous in that they are not the same for one class as for another. The laws are prescribed to be the same for all generations. (4) The laws are not made by certain persons called prophets or law-givers. (5) This code has been invested with the character of finality and fixity.”
He concluded that this religion must be destroyed and there was nothing irreligious in working for the destruction of such a religion.
