232 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
have serious results. It matters little what other gifts a people may possess if they are wanting in these which, from this point of view, are of most importance. If, for example, they have no capacity for grading their loyalties as well as for being moved by them ; If they have no natural inclination to liberty and no natural respect for law ; If they lack good humour and tolerate foul play ; If they know not how to compromise or when ; If they have not that distrust of extreme conclusions which is sometimes misdescribed as want of logic ; If corruption does not repel them ; and if their divisions tend to be either too numerous or too profound, the successful working of British Institutions may be difficult or impossible. It may indeed be least possible where the arts of Parliamentary persuasion and the dexterities of party management are brought to their highest perfection.”
Morley has observed :
“To hurry on after logical perfection is to show one’s self-ignorant of the material of that social structure with which the politician has to deal. To disdain anything short of an organic change in thought or institution is infatuation. To be willing to make such changes too frequently, even when they are possible, is fool-hardiness. That fatal French saying about small reforms being the worst enemies of great reforms, is, in the sense in which it is commonly used, a formula of social ruin.”
These are the principles on which success in Politics depends. Are they different from those which Ranade enunciated ? It bespeaks greatness in Ranade that he should have propounded them years before Bismark, Balfour and Morley.
The generation which Ranade served was wise in taking him as its political guide, friend and philosopher. His greatness lies in the fact that he can be a guide, friend and philosopher to this present, nay even to future generations.
There is one charge against Ranade which is frequently made and which I think must be met. It is said of Ranade that he believed that the conquest of India by the British was Providential, that it was in the best interest of India, that she should remain within the British Empire and that therein lay her final destiny. In short Ranade is accused of being opposed to India’s Independence.
The charge is founded on the following utterances of Ranade :
“It cannot be easily assumed that in God’s Providence, such vast multitudes as those who inhabit India were placed centuries together under influences and restraints of alien domination, unless such influences and restraints were calculated to do lasting service in the building up of the strength and character of the people in directions in which the Indian races