• Be Educated, Be Organised and Be Agitated
• If you want success, you must be narrow minded.
• A person with an open mind is always
the subject of congratulations. While this may be so, it must, at the
same time, be realized that an open mind may also be an empty mind and
that such an open mind, if it a happy condition, is also a very
dangerous condition for a man to be in.
• You may abuse me as much as possible, provided you do not take much time. I am concerned more with time than with abuse.
• There will be no difference between
parents and animals if they will not desired to see their children in a
better position than their own.
• The history of India is nothing but a history of a mortal conflict between Buddhism and Brahminism.
• You must abolish your slavery
yourselves. It is disgraceful to live at the cost of one’s self-respect.
Self-respect is a most vital factor in life. Without it man is a mere
cipher. To live worthily with self-respect one has to overcome
difficulties. It is out of hard and ceaseless struggle alone that one
derives strength, confidence and recognition.
• My life is threatened if I came here
to wake you up to the causes of your misery and shame. Man is mortal.
Every one is to die some day or other. But one must resolve to lay down
one’s life in enriching the noble ideals of self-respect and in
bettering human life. We are not slaves. We are a warrior clan. Nothing
is more disgraceful for a brave man than to live a life devoid of
self-respect and without love for the country.
• If you stand by your resolve to
extirpate your slavery root & branch and undergo all trials
& tribulations for it, the credit & success of my being
able to discharge the onerous task will be yours
• At present I am the most hated man in
Hindu India. I am presented as a traitor; I am denounced as an enemy of
the Hindus, I am cursed as a destroyer of Hinduism, and branded as the
greatest enemy of the country. But believe me when I say that when after
some days the dust settles down and a review of the proceedings of the
Round Table Conference is dispassionately taken by future historians,
the future generations of the Hindus will acclaim my services to the
nation. If they do not recognize, well I would not care for their
disapprobation. My great satisfaction is that he Depressed Classes have
implicit faith in my work and undivided devotion to the mission for,
which I stand. It is my solemn vow to die in the service and cause of
those down trodden people among whom I was born, I was brought up and I
am living. I would not budge an inch from my righteous cause, or care
for the violent and disparaging criticism by my detractors.
Educational thoughts of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
• Student should pursue their studies
very sincerely. You have done a good thing , that you came to see me
before leaving Delhi. I do not want victory at the cost of my students.
You should return the ticket and do not come to Bombay for canvassing.
You are conducting research for Ph. D. in Agriculture, which is very
important subject. I wish, you should concentrate on your research. For
your information, I tell you that, we have made good provisions in
constitution for encouraging agricultural developments.
• We must now entirely give up the idea
that parents give birth – janma – to the child and not destiny – karma.
They can mould the destiny of the children and if we but follow this
principle, be sure that we shall soon see better days and our progress
will be greatly accelerated if mail education is persuaded side by side
with the female education the fruits of which you can very well see
verified in your own daughter. Let your mission therefore be to educate
and preach the idea of education to those at least who are near to and
in close contact with you.
• Education is something, which ought to
be brought within the reach of everyone. The policy of the department
therefore, ought to be to make higher education as cheap to the lower
classes as it can possible be made.
Social thoughts of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
• Untouchability is nothing but slavery. Tell a slave, he is a slave he will revolt.
• Lost rights are never regained by
begging, and by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers, but by
relentless struggle. Goats are used for sacrificial offering and not
lions.
• The man who practised what he preached
was worthy of reverence. But a good principle never suffered because
some men holding it did not show the requisite courage to practice it.
Yet there were some who said that inequality would never disappear from
the face of the earth.
• If Tilak had been born amongst the
untouchables, he would not have raised the slogan “Swaraj is my
birthright,” but he would have raised the slogan: “Annihilation of
Untouchability is my birthright”.
• Caste has no scientific origin. it is
the natural outcome of certain religious beliefs which have the sanction
of Shashtras which are believed to certain the command of divinely
inspired sages who were endowed with a supernatural wisdom and whose
commands therefore, cannot be disobeyed without committing sin.
• Brahman and Baniya has never died for
freedom although they are the only fortunate who are deriving benefit
now. Let me now how many of them have died in the last war? How many of
them are in the army? If there is conscription our people will be the
first to go to the army. They will do their duty as they have done
previously.
• If there is one lesson that you must
learn from my life, it is this, that I have never disowned my community.
I have been proud in sharing their happiness and misery, all throughout
my life and will continue to do so.
• If I fail to do away with the
abominable (hateful) thralldom (those of noble birth) and inhuman
injustice under which the class, into which I was born, has been goring,
I will put an end to my life with a bullet.
• India is a home of inequality. Hindu
society is just like a tower which had several storeys without a ladder
or an entrance. One was to die in the storey in which one is born. Hindu
society consisted of three parts : the Brahmins, the non-Brahmins and
the untouchables. He pitied the souls of those person who said that
according to their philosophy there existed God in animals as well as in
animate things and yet treated their co-religionist as Untouchables !
He lamented that not the spread of knowledge and literacy but
accumulation and monopoly was the aim of the Brahmins. In his view the
backwardness of the non-Brahmins was due to lack of education and power.
In order to slave the Depressed Classes from perpetual slavery, poverty
and ignorance, herculean efforts must be made, he asserted , to awaken
them to their disabilities.
• The Swaraj wherein there were no
fundamental rights guaranteed for the Depressed Classes, would not be a
Swaraj to them. It would be a new slavery for them.
• Hindu society was just like a tower,
which had several storeys without a ladder or an entrance. One was to
die in the storey in which one was born. Hindu society consisted of
three parts: the Brahmins, the non-Brahmins and the untouchables. He
pitied the souls of those persons who said that according to their
philosophy there existed god in animals as well as in animate things and
yet treated their co-religionists as untouchables! He lamented that not
the spread of the knowledge and literacy but accumulation and monopoly
was the aim of the Brahmins. In his view the backwardness of the
Non-Brahmins was due to lack of education and power. In order it save
the depressed classes from perpetual slavery, poverty and ignorance,
Herculean efforts must be made to awaken them to their disabilities.
• My heart breaks to see the pitiable
sight of your faces and to hear your sad voices. You have been groaning
from time immemorial and yet you are not ashamed to hug your
helplessness as inevitability. Why did you not perish in the prenatal
stage instead? Why do you worsen and sadden the picture of the sorrows,
poverty, slavery and burdens of the world with your deplorable,
despicable and detestable miserable life? You had better die and relieve
this world if you cannot rise to a new life and if you cannot
rejuvenate yourselves. As a matter of fact it is birthright to get food,
shelter and clothing in this land in equal proportion with every
individual high or low. If you believe in living respectable life, you
believe in self-help, which is the best help!
• I think the day will not the distant
when the people, who are placed by the tyranny of the higher classes in
to the lower grade of society, even at the present time, will find
themselves driven to the other religious folds. There will be then no
reason at all for Hindu society to complain that Mohammedan or Christian
missionaries are including members of the depressed classes to change
the religion of their birth.
• No lasting progress can be achieved
unless we put ourselves thought a three-fold process of purification. We
must improve the general tone of our demeanour, re-tone our
pronunciations and revitalize our thoughts. I, therefore, ask you now to
take a vow from this moment to renounce eating carrion. It is high time
that we rooted out from our mind the ideas of highness and lowness
among ourselves. Make an unflinching resolve not to eat the thrown-out
crumbs. We will attain self-elevation only if we learn self-help, regain
our self-respect and gain self-knowledge.
• if you say your religion is our
religion, then your rights and ours must be equal. But is this the case?
If not, on what grounds do you say that we must remain in the fold in
spite of your kicks and rebuffs? The religion which discriminates
between two followers is partial and the religion which treats crores of
its adherents worse than dogs and criminals and inflicts upon them
insufferable disabilities is no religion at all religion is appellation
for such an unjust order. Religion and slavery are incompatible.
• Who has seen the world after death or
salvation? On top of it all, it is mischievous propagated by Hindu
scripture that by serving the upper three classes the Shudras attain
salvation. Untouchability is another appellation of slavery. No race can
be raised by destroying its self-respect. So, if you really want to
uplift the untouchable, you must treat them in the social order as free
citizens, free to carve out their destiny.
• Untouchbility has ruined the
untouchables, the Hindus and ultimately the nation as well. If the
depressed classes gained their self-respect and freedom they would
contribute not only to their progress and prosperity but also by their
industry, intellect and courage would contributes also to the strength
and prosperity of the nation. If the tremendous energy the untouchables
are at present required to fritter away in combating the stigma of
untouchability had been saved them, it would have been applied by them
to the promotion of education and development of economic resources of
the nation as a whole. They would not have been required to embrace
another religion for getting themselves called human being.
• Never regard yourselves as
untouchables. Live a clean life. Dress yourselves like the touchable
ladies. Never mind if your dresses is full of patches, but see that it
is clean. None can restrict your freedom in the choice of your garments
and in the use of the metal for your ornaments. Attend more to the
cultivation of the mind and the spirit of self-help. But do not feed in
any case your spouse and sons if they are drunkards. Send your children
to schools. Education is as necessary for females as it is for males. If
you know how to read and write, there would be much progress. As you
are, so your children will be. Mould their lives in virtuous way, for
sons should be such as would make a mark in this world.
• Personally, myself I say openly that I
do not believe that there is any place in this country for any
particular culture, whether it is Hindu culture or a Mohammedan culture
or a Kanarese culture or a Gujrathi culture.
• Every human being without on his part
but simply in virtue of his birth and upbringing becomes a member of
what we call a natural society. He belongs to a certain family and a
certain nation.
• I am not hopeful of the younger
generation, which seems to be more predisposed to pleasures seeking and
not possessing much of idealism and is not likely to produce men of
ideals, principles and actions like Ranade, Tilak and Gokhale.
• History bears out the proposition that political revolution have always been preceded by social and religious revolution.
If the problem of the Untouchables is a
social problem, is not that of the Muslims also a social problem? The
Muslims too suffer from the consequences of the distorted vision of the
upper castes of the Hindus, in the same manner as do the Untouchable… It
is our firm conviction that the Nehru Committee’s Brahamanical strategy
aims at perpetuating the Hindu social hierarchy in their struggle for
political power. What else could be the reason for its extending certain
facilities to the Muslims, and deny similar facilities to the backward
and untouchables classes of the Hindus? It is evident that the Nehru
Committee intends to perpetuate Brahminism.
Political thoughts of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
• For nationality of flame into
nationalism two conditions must exit. First, there must arise the “will
to live as a nation.” Nationalism is the dynamic expression of that
desire. Secondly, there must be a territory which the nationalism could
occupy and make it a state, as well as a cultural home of the nation.
• Unfortunately for the minorities in
India, Indian Nationalism has developed a new doctrine which may be
called the Divine Right of the majority to rule over the minorities
according to the wishes of the majority. Any claim for the sharing of
power by the minority is called Communalism while the monopolizing of
the whole power by the majority is called Nationalism.
• For words such as society, nation and
country are just amorphous, if not ambiguous, term. There is no gain
saying that ‘Nation’ though one word means many classes. Philosophically
it may be possible to consider a nation as a unit but sociologically it
cannot but be regarded as consisting of many classes and the freedom of
the nation if it is to be reality must vouchsafe the freedom of the
different classes comprised in it, particularly those who are treated as
the servile classes.
• A people who, notwithstanding their
differences accept a common distiny for themselves as well as for their
opponents, are a community. A people who are not only different from the
rest but who refuse to accept for themselves the same destiny which
others do, are a nation.
• In the state of Kashmir the ruler is a
Hindu, but the majority of the subjects are Muslims. The Muslims fought
for representative government in Kashmir, because representative
government in Kashmir meant the transfer of power from a Hindu king to
the Muslim masses. In other Muslims states, the ruler is a Muslim but
the majority of his subjects are Hindus. In such states representative
government means the transfer of power from a Muslim Ruler to the Hindu
masses, and that is why the Muslim support the introduction of
representative government in one case and oppose it, in the other.
• If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it
will no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country. No matter what
the Hindus say, Hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and
fraternity. On that account it is incompatible with democracy. Hindu Raj
must be prevented at any cost.
• There is one thing which I think is
very necessary in the working of democracy and it is this that the name
of democracy there must be no tyranny of the majority over the minority.
The minority must always feel safe that although the majority is
carrying on the government, the morality is not being hurt, or the
minority is not being hit below the belt.
• When I think of our foreign Policy, I
am reminded of what Bismarck and Bernard Shaw have said. Bismarck has
said that, “Politics is not a game of realising the ideal. Politics is a
game of the possible.” Bernard Shaw, not very long ago said that, “Good
ideas are good but one must not forget that it is often dangerous to be
too good.” Our foreign policy is incomplete opposition to those words
of wisdom uttered by two of the world’s greatest men.
• In our foreign policy, we have not
been able to make a distinction between Capitalism and Parliamentary
Democracy. The dislike of Capitalism is understandable. But we take care
that we do not weaker Parliamentary Democracy and help Dictatorship to
grow. It would be like throwing the baby out of the bath but in emptying
it of dirty water.
• We have told that our foreign policy
is a policy of peace friendship. My Hon. Friend. Diwan Chaman Lal,
called it the Nehru Doctrine. If that is the object of the Nehru
Doctrine, it is a welcome doctrine provided it was observed at all. Now
if the object of the foreign policy of this country is to maintain
friendship and peace throughout the world, I want to know who are our
enemies against whom we want to maintain this huge army at a huge cost
of Rs.197 crores.
• The keynote of our foreign policy is
to solve the problems of other countries, and not to solve the problem s
of our own. We have here the problem of Kashmir. We have succeeded in
solving it. Everybody seems to have forgotten that it is a problem. But I
suppose some day, we may wake up and find that the ghost is there. And I
find that the Prime Minister had launched upon the project of digging a
tunnel connecting Kashmir to India. Sir, I think, it is one of the most
dangerous thing that a Prime Minister could do… That might happen the
Prime Minister in digging the tunnel, thinks that he alone would be able
to use it. He does not realise that a conqueror who comes to the other
side and captures Kashmir, can come away straight to Pathankot and
probably come into the Prime Minister’s House I do not know.
• The Prime Minister has been depending
upon what may be called the Panchasheel taken by Mr. Mao and recorded in
the Tibet Treaty of non-aggression. Well, I am somewhat surprised that.
The Prime Minister should take Panchsheel seriously. The Panchsheel, as
you sir, know it well, is the essential part of the Buddhist religion,
and if Mr. Mao had any faith in the Panchsheel, he certainly would treat
the Buddhists in his own country in a very different way. There is no
room for Panchsheel in politics and secondly not in the politics of a
Communist Country. The Communist Countries have two well known
principles on which they always act. One is that morality is always in a
flux. There is no morality. Today’s morality is not tomorrow’s
morality.
• India’s first duty should be to
herself. Instead of fighting to make Communist China a permanent member
of the UNO. India should fight for getting herself recognised as the
permanent member of the UNO, instead of doing this India is spending
herself in fighting the battle of Mao as against Chiangkai Shek.
• I do not want that our loyalty as
Indians should be in slightest way affected by any competitive loyalty
whether that loyalty arises out of our religion, out of our culture, out
of our language. I want all people to be Indian first, Indian last and
nothing else.
• Kashmir was not a unitary state. It
was a composite state, consisting of Hindus, Buddhist and Muslims. Jammu
and Ladak were non Muslim areas whereas the Kashmir valley was Muslims.
If we cannot save the whole of Kashmir at least let us save our Kith
and Kin.
• The first thing I would like to submit
is that we claim that we must be treated as distinct minority, separate
from the Hindu community… as a matter of fact there is really no link
between the Depressed Classes and Hindu community… Secondly, I should
like submit that the Depressed Classes minority needs far greater
political protection than any other minority in British India, for the
simple reason that it is educationally very backward, that it is
economically very poor, socially enslaved and suffers from certain grave
political disabilities, from which no other community suffers.
• The principle of one language one
province is too large to be given effect to in practice. The number of
provinces that will have to be carved out if the principle is to be
carried to its logical conclusion shows in my opinion its unworkability.
For I am of the opinion that the most vital need of the day is to
create among the mass of the people the sense of a common nationality,
the feeling not that they are Indians first and Hindus, Mohammedan or
Sindhis and Kanarese afterwards, but that they are Indians first and
Indians last. If that be the ideal then it follows that nothing should
be done which will harden local patriotism and group consciousness.
• It does not seem to be sufficiently
known that India is not the only country where the Mohammedans are in a
minority. There are other countries in which they occupy the same
position. Albania, the Mohammedan form a very large community. In
Bulgaria, Greece and Rumania they form a minority and in Yugoslavia and
Russia they form a large majority. Have the Mohammedan communities there
insisted upon the necessity of separate communal electorates? As all
students of political history are aware, the Mohammedan in these
countries have managed without the benefit of separate electorates; nay,
they have managed without any definite ratio of presentation assured to
them. The Mohammedan case in India, therefore, overshoots the mark in
my opinion and fails to carry conviction.
• I know your grievances the Khoti
system is sucking your blood. This system of land tenure must be
abolished. Its abolition will bring you peace & progress. In
order to achieve your goal you must keep the agitation going on. India
is likely to attend full control of its destinies in the coming four or
five years. At the time you must take particular care to sent to the
legislatures the right type of men as your representatives who would
devoutly struggle for the abolition of this Khoti System.
• This is nothing else than nomination
pure and simple. If he chooses only one candidate in a constituency,
there is no election. Demand the right to elect our own representatives
of our choice, untrammeled by any condition or limitation whatsoever. We
are certainly the best judges of our interests, and we must not allow
even the Governors to assume the authority to determine what is good for
us.
• Supposing an officer was distributing
dole to a farrune stricken people. He would be bound to give greater
dole to a person of high birth than he would be a person of low birth.
• I interpret it to mean that the
scheduled castes are more than a minority and that any protection given
to the citizens and to the other minorities will not be adequate for
scheduled castes.
• The Congress is heterogeneous body
composed of the expliters as well as exploited and it is quit certain,
that the exploiters in the Congress will not allow the organization to
work for the masses. A combination of the expliter and exploited might
be necessary for the purposes of the achieving political freedom, but to
seek to form a common party consisting of exploiters for purposes of
social reconstruction was to deceive the masses.
• The Untouchables are not opposed to
freedom from British Imperialism. But they refuse to be content with
more freedom from British Imperialism. What they insist upon is that
free India is not enough. Free India should have been made safe for
democracy.
• As for myself, I make no mistake about
the fact that the essence of all reforms is to change the balance of
power among the different classes if the lower classes gain some other
class must lose. If each class remains with no more political power than
before then there will have been normal reform.
Religious thoughts of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
• My Philosophy may be said to be
enshrined in these three words: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
Elaborating these principles, my philosophy had its roots in the
teachings of the Buddha. Though in my philosophy Liberty and Equality
have their place, but unlimited Liberty destroyed Equality; and absolute
Equality left no room for Liberty. I give the highest place to
Fraternity, as the only real safeguard against the denial of Liberty or
Equality.
• I did not like Bhishma, Drona and
Krishna. Bhishma and Krishna were hypocrites. They said one thing and
did the opposite. Krishna believed in fraud. An equal dislike, I have
for Rama. Examine his conduct in the Surupanakha episode, in the
Vali-Sugriva episode, and his beastly behaviour toward the Sita…This is
the origin of my interest in the Buddha and His Dhamma.
• What are the ways and means advocated
by Marx? And how do they differ from the ways and means taught by the
Budhha? This the important question. The means that the communists wish
to adopt in order to bring about communism (by which I mean the
recognition of Dukkha, and abolition of property) is violence and
killing of the opposed. There lies the fundamental difference between
the Buddha and Karl Marx. The Buddha’s mean of persuading people to
adopt the principles is by persuasion by moral teaching, by love… the
buddha would not allow violence; and the communists do.
• The most important point we want to
emphasize is not the satisfaction you get from the worship of the image
of god, but the plan fact that a temple is not defiled by the presence
of an untouchable, nor is the purity of the image affected by it that is
why we oppose the idea of separate temples for us and insist on
entering the existing one.
• Hindutva belongs as much to the
untouchable Hindus as to touchable Hindus. To the growth and glory of
this Hindutva contribution had been made by untouchables like Valmiki,
the seer of the Vyadhageeta, Chokhamela and Rohidas as much as by
Brahmins like Vashishta, Shatriyas like Krishna, Vaishyas like Harsha
and Shudras like Tukaram. The heroes like Sidnak Mahar, who fought for
the protection of the Hindus, were innumerable. The temple built in the
name of Hindutva the growth and prosperity of which was achieved
gradually with the sacrifice of touchable and untouchable Hindus, must
be open to all the Hindus irrespective of caste.
• The bonfire of Manusmriti was quite
intentional. It was a very cautious and drastic step, but was taken with
a view to forcing the attention of caste Hindus. At intervals such
drastic remedies are a necessity. If you do not knock at the door, none
opens it. It is not that all the parts of the Manusmriti are
condemnable, that it does not contain good principles and that Manu
himself was not a sociologist and was a mere fool. We made a bonfire of
it because we view it as a symbol of injustice under which we have been
crushed across centuries. Because of its teachings we have been ground
down under the despicable poverty, and so we made the dash, staked all,
took our lives in our hands and performed the deed.
• The struggle of the saints did not
have any effect on society. The value of man is axiomatic, self-evident;
it does not come to him as the result of the gilding of Bhakti. The
saints did not struggle to establish this point. On the contrary, their
struggle had a very unhealthy effect on the depressed classes. It
provided the Brahmins with an excuse to silence them by telling that
they would respected if they also attained the status of Chokhamela.
• It is only in a Swaraj constitution
that you stand any chance of getting political power in your hands
without which you cannot bring salvation to our people. Do not be
obsessed by the past. Do not be swayed by fear or favour from any
quarter in making your own decision. Consult your best interests and I
am sure you will accept Swaraj as your goal.
• The fundamental characteristics of
positive religions is that they have not grown up like primitive
religions, under the action of conscious forces operating silently from
ago to ago, but tract their origin to the teaching of great religions
innovators, who spoke as the orange of a divine revelation.
• This is the important question. The
means that the Communists wish to adopt in order to bring about
Communism, by which I mean the recognition of Dukkha(misery), and
abolition of property, is violence and killing of the opposed. There
lies the fundamental difference between the Buddha and Karl Marx. The
Buddha’s means of persuading people to adopt the principles is by
persuasion, by moral teaching, by love… the Buddha would not to allow
violence; and the Communists do.
Economical thoughts of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
• Up
to 1833 the Company, by means fair or foul, managed to win over the
English statesmen to continue her monopoly. But in that year the cry
against hr monopoly had gone so loud that both the Company and the
Ministers had to give in and the East India trade was thrown open to all
the English public.
• … mutiny or no mutiny, the British
statesmen were impatient to have direct control over the leaves and the
fishes that came but indirectly from their rule in India by a process of
disgorging a corporation which directly fed them on beef fat.
• It went as a continuous tribute to
England to pay dividends to the Company’s share holders; and as the flow
of the money from India was not sufficient to pay the dividends, there
was an increasing debt called the Public Debt of India.
• It is likely to be a matter of
surprise when one sees the smallness of the Indian Home Bond Debt as
compared with the Indian Debt. But the surprise will no longer exist
when we know that the capacity of the East India Company to borrow in
England was strictly limited by Parliamentary Regulations. The
Parliament was ever eager to obtain the advantages of the rule of the
company without its disadvantages … Company’s raising the loans beyond a
certain limit lest the Company lose its hold upon India and bring ruin
on England by jeopardizing English capital.
• The Land Tax levied by the British
Government is not only excessive, but, what is worse, it is fluctuating
and uncertain in many provinces.
• It is true that the British Government
only followed the precedent of the previous Mohammedan rulers who also
claimed an enormous Land Tax. But the difference was this, that what the
Mohammedan rulers claimed they could never fully realize : what the
British rulers claimed they realized with vigour.
• A Land Tax which now exists in India,
professing to absorb the whole of the landlords rent, was never known
under any government in Europe of Asia.
• India has never had even the shadow of
a constitution, or of a national government, but has been ruled as a
conquered country, according to the views of successive British
Parliaments and the British administrations. The Indian debt has really
been incurred by the Government of this country and how, then, can we
possibly shake ourselves free of Indian liabilities.
• The company though legaly extinct
continues to live for all practical purposes and enjoys her dividends
even to this day in the shape of interest paid out of Indian revenues.
The astounding result of this policy was gains to England and costs to
India.
• The revenues of India shall not,
without the consents of both Houses of Parliament, be applicable to
defray the expenses of any military operations carried on beyond the
external frontiers of such possessions by her Majesty’s forces charged
upon such revenues.
• … by no means salutary in that the
revenues of India have been spent outside India for non-Indian purposes,
even after the Act. The fatal error lay in this, – the excepting
clause… omits the vital word previous.
• The immenseness of India’s
contribution to England is as much astounding as the nothingness of
England’s contribution to India. Both are, however, true statements if
looked at from economics point of view.
• Wisdom therefore requires that those
who are entrusted with the financial management of the State should look
beyond the more immediate object of raising and spending of money, for
the ‘how’s’ of finance are very important and can be seldom neglected in
practice with impunity. The wealth of society is the only patrimony of
which the state can draw, and the state that damages it cannot but end
in damning itself.
• Justice in taxation was conspicuous by
its absence. It was a cruel satire or at best an idle maxim, for the
lancet was directed not where the blood was thickest but to that part of
the body politic which on account of its weakness and poverty most
meekly bore the pang. The landlords who passed their lives in
conspicuous consumption or vicarious leisure on the earnings of poor
tenants, or the many European civil servants who fattened themselves on
pay and pickings, were supremely exempted from any contribution towards
the maintenance of pomp and privilege. On the other hand. the salt tax
and … the other oppressive taxes continued to harass the industrious
poor.
• It ought to serve as an object lesson
to all financiers to show that when their revenue laws are harmful to
the resources of the people they must blame none but themselves for
their empty treasury.
• It may perhaps be argued on the other
hand that much of the military expenditure, large though it was went
back into the coffers of the Indians themselves as they formed the bulk
of the forces employed in the country and goes on to show irrelevance of
such an argument by pointing that one European drew on an average more
than he salaries of four natives put together.
• The agencies of war were cultivated in
the name of peace, and they obserbed so much of the total funds that
nothing practically was left for the agencies of progress. Education
formed no part of the expenditure incurred and useful public works were
lamentably few. Railways, Canals for navigation or irrigation and other
aids to the development of commerce and industry for a long time found
no corner in the Imperial Budget.
• There is a principle well known to
farmers that constant cropping without maturing ends in the exhaustion
of the soil. It is, however, capable of wider application, and had it
been observed in the State economy of India the taxing capacity of the
country would have grown to the benefit of the treasury and the people.
Unfortunately it was lost upon the financiers of India to the detriment
of both.
• If the history of development of
Provincial Finance is to be divided into stages according to the changes
in fundamental basis thereof, then emphasis has to be laid on features
altogether different in character.
• As a matter of justice we should have
expected the continuance of the income tax to the relief of the State…
But justice was for a long time absent from the Financial Secretariat of
the Government of India.
• Prospect of gaining half the excess
over the normal gave a more direct stimulus to the provinces to develop
their resources beyond the normal than would have been the case if the
total excess had been entirely appropriated by the Imperial Government.
On the other hand the consent secured from the provinces to bear half
the burden of a possible deficit in the normal estimate directly put a
premium on economical and judicious administration of the ceded revenues
. The fear that their obligation to bear half the deficit might assume a
large proportion… compelled them to bestow greater vigilance than they
would otherwise have done.
• What was an advantage to the Imperial
treasury was drawback. Owing to the short durations … (the Provincial
Governments) could not adopt a definite financial policy, for they
feared that the new terms on renewal might compel them either to give up
the policy or modify it so seriously as to prejudice its results… this
was just the flaw that deteriorated the sound working of provincial
finance.
• Beneficial as far as it went, this
time-bar was found to exercise a most pernicious influence on Provincial
Finance. Under (the five yearly) system (the Provincial governments) …
were parsimonious in the first few years lest their expenditure should
prove too much for their revenues, and extravagant in the last few years
lest their expenditure should shrink below the standard and leave large
margins to be cancelled by the Government of India.
• Increasing association of Indians in
every branch of the administration and the gradual development of
self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization
of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British
Empire.
• Again under the income tax holders of
income below a certain minimum are exempted from levy. But under the
land revenue the tax is remorselessly collected from everyone, be he
rich or poor.
Constitutional thoughts of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
• It may say so, and I say it with a
certain amount of pride the constitution which has been to this country
is a wonderful document. It has been said so not by myself, but many
people, many other students of the constitution. It is the simplest and
easiest. Many, many publishers have written to me to write a commentary
on this constitution, promising a good sum. But I have always told them
that to write a commentary on this constitution is to admit that the
constitution is bad one and an un-understandable one. It is not so.
anyone who can follow English can understand the constitution. No
commentary is necessary.
• We build a temple for a God to come in
and reside, but before the God could be installed, the devil had taken
possession of it, what else could we do except destroyed the temple? We
do not intend that it should be occupied by the Asuras. We intended it
to be occupied by the Devas. That is the reason why I said I would
rather like to burnt it.
• If every time this parliament is to be
subjected to the vote of the ignorant people outside, who do not know
the ABC of the technicalities of the law, this parliament will have to
be suspended. It would be much better not to have a Parliament at all !
• No constitution will be workable which
is not acceptable to the majority of the people… Let the consent of the
people and not the accident of logic be the touchstone of your new
constitution, if you desire that it should be worked.
• In the Constitution of that machine
certain hard facts of Indian social life must not be lost sight of. It
must be recognised that Indian society is a gradation of castes forming
an ascending scale of reverence and a descending scale of contempt – a
system which gives no scope for the growth of that sentiment of equality
and fraternity so essential for a democratic form of Government.
• The directive principles have a great
value, for they lay down that our ideal is economic democracy. Because
we did not want merely a parliamentary form of Government to be
instituted through the various mechanisms provided in the Constitution,
without any direction as to what our economic ideal, as to what our
social order ought to be, we deliberately included the Directive
Principles in our Constitution.
• My definition of democracy is ‘A form
and method of Government whereby revolutionary changes in the economic
and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed. If
democracy can enable those who are running it to bring about fundamental
changes in the social and economic life of the people and the people
accept those changes without restoring to bloodshed, then I say, there
is democracy.’
Thoughts of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Labours
• The country needs a lead and the
question who can give this lead. I venture to say that Labour is capable
of giving to the country the lead it needs. Correct leadership apart
from other things, requires idealism and free thought. Idealism is
possible for the Aristocracy, though free thought is not. Idealism and
free thought are both possible for Labour. But neither idealism nor free
thought is possible for the middle-class. The middle class does not
possess the liberality of the aristocracy which is necessary to welcome
and nourish an ideal. It does not possess the hunger for the New Order,
which is the hope on which the labouring classes live. Labour,
therefore, has a very distinct contribution to make in bringing about a
return to the sane and safe ways of the past which Indians had been
pursuing to reach their political destiny. Labour’s lead to India and
Indians is to get into the fight and be united. The fruits of victory
will be Independence and a new Social Order. For such a victory all must
fight. Then the fruits of victory will be the patrimony of all, and
their will be none to deny the rights of a united India to share in that
patrimony.
• Labour’s creed is internationalism.
Labour is interested in nationalism only because the wheels of democracy
such as representative parliaments, responsible Executive,
constitutional conventions, etc.- work better in a community united by
national sentiments. Nationalism to labour is only a means to an end. It
is not an end in itself to which labour can agree to sacrifice what is
regarded as the most essential principal of life.
• I have heard labour leaders speaking
against capitalism. But I never heard any labour leaders speaking
against Brahmanism amongst workers. On the other hand their silence on
this point is quite conspicuous.
Thoughts of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar on M. K. Gandhi
• The Mahatma has been claiming that the
Congress stands for the Depressed Classes and that the Congress
represents the Depressed Classes and that my colleagues 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 person concerned with
regard to those claims have been invariably denying them.
• Gandhi’s voice is only one against
many. They may be small fry and the Mahatma may be speaking on behalf of
a most influential organization. To my mind the Mahatma should have
brought a strong contingent of representatives of the nationalist
sections of the great minorities. Then they would have been able to
speak in reply to such people as are criticizing him today.
• 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 could be very petty-minded. As a result of his successful
compromise with the Government just before he came, Mr. Gandhi treated
the whole non-Congress delegation with contempt. He insulted them
whenever as occasion furnished him with an excuse by openly telling them
that they were nobodies and that he alone, as the delegate of the
Congress, represented the country instead of unifying the 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.
• I am described as a traitor by
Congressmen because I oppose Gandhi. I am not at all perturbed by this
charge. It is baseless, false and malicious. But it was a great shock to
the world that Gandhi himself should have sponsored violent opposition
to the breaking of your shackles. I am confident that the future
generations of Hindus will appreciate my services when they study the
history of the Round Table Conference.
• It would have been justifiable if Mr.
Gandhi had resorted to this extreme step for obtaining independence for
the country on which he was so insistent all through the Round Table
Conference debates. It is also a painful surprise that Mr. Gandhi should
have singled out special representation for the Depressed Classes in
the Communal Award as an excuse for his self-immolation. Separate
electorates are granted not only to the Depressed Classes but to the
Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans as well as to Mohammedan
and Sikhs.
• The Mahatma is not an immortal person,
nor the Congress, assuming that it is not a malevolent force and is not
to have an abiding existence. There have been many Mahatmas in India
whose sole object was to remove Untouchability and to elevate and absorb
the Depressed Classes, but every one of them has failed in his mission.
Mahatmas have come and Mahatmas have gone. But the Untouchables have
remained as Untouchables.
• It has fallen to my lot to be the
villain of the piece. But I tell you I shall not deter from my pious
duty, and betray the just and legitimate interests of my people even if
you hand me on the nearest lamp-post in the street. You better appeal to
Gandhi to postpone his fast about a week and then seek for the solution
of the problem.
• The first source of confusion is the
temperament of the Mahatma. He was almost in everything the simplicity
of the child with the child’s capacity for self-deception like a child
he can believe in anything, he wants to believe… The second source of
confusion is the double role, which Mahatma wants to play of a Mahatma
and a politician. As Mahatma he may be trying to spiritualize politics,
whether he has succeeded in it not. Politics have certainly
commercialized him
