218 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the political patriot challenges Government he has whole society to support him. He is praised, admired and elevated as the saviour. Who shows more courage—The social reformer who fights alone or the political patriot who fights under the cover of vast mass of supporters ? It would be idle to deny that Ranade showed courage in taking up the cause of social reform. Indeed he showed a high degree of courage. For let it be remembered that he lived in times when social and religious customs however gross and unmoral were regarded as sacrosanct and when any doubt questioning their divine and moral basis was regarded not merely as heterodoxy but as intolerable blasphemy and sacrilege.
V
His path as a reformer was not smooth. It was blocked from many sides. The sentiments of the people whom he wanted to reform were deeply rooted in the ancient past. They held the belief that their ancestors were the wisest and the noblest of men, and the social system which they had devised was of the most ideal character. What appeared to Ranade to be the shames and wrongs of the Hindu society were to them the most sacred injunctions of their religion. This was the attitude of the common man. The intelligentsia was divided into two schools—a school which was orthodox in its belief but unpolitical in its outlook, and a school which was modern in its beliefs but primarily political in its aims and objects. The former was led by Mr. Chiplunkar and the latter by Mr. Tilak. Both combined against Ranade and created as many difficulties for him as they could. They not only did the greatest harm to the cause of social reform, but as experience shows they have done the greatest harm to the cause of political reform in India. The unpolitical or the orthodox school believed in the Hegelian view—it is a puzzle to me—namely to realize the ideal and idealize the real. In this it was egregiously wrong. The Hindu religious and social system is such that you cannot go forward to give its ideal form a reality because the ideal is bad ; nor can you attempt to elevate the real to the status of the ideal because the real, i.e., the existing state of affairs, is worse than worse could be. This is no exaggeration. Take the Hindu religious system or take the Hindu social system, and examine it from the point of social utility and social justice. It is said that religion is good when it is fresh from the mint. But Hindu religion has been a bad coin to start with. The Hindu ideal of society as prescribed by Hindu religion has acted as a most demoralizing and degrading influence on Hindu society. It is Nietzschean in its form and essence. Long before Nietzsche was born Manu had proclaimed the gospel which Nietzsche sought to preach. It is a religion which is not intended to establish liberty, equality and fraternity. It is a gospel which proclaims the worship of the superman— the Brahmin by the rest of the Hindu society. It propounds that the superman and his class alone are born to live and to rule. Others are born to serve