248 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
of our Indian cosmos is its division into two mighty political communities as distant from each other as the poles apart—On the one hand the Hindus—with their elaborate caste distinctions—on the other hand, the Mohammedans—with their social equality. To these must be added a host of minor nationalities most of them numbering millions—almost as widely differentiated from one another by ethnological or political distinctions as are the Hindus from the Mohammedans, such as Sikhs, with their warlike habits and traditions and their enthusiastic religious beliefs, the Rohillas, the Pathans, the Assamese, the Baluchis and other wild and martial tribes on our frontiers, the hillmen dwelling in the folds of the Himalayas, our subjects in Burma, Mongol in race and Buddhist in religion, the Gonds, Mhars, Bheels and other nonAryan people in the centre and south of India, and the enterprising Parsees, with their rapidly developing manufactures and commercial interests. Again, amongst these numerous communities may be found, at one and the same moment, all the various stages of civilization through which mankind has passed from the pre-historic ages to the present days.”
- Englishmen have all along insisted that India is unfit for representative Government because of the division of her population into castes and creeds. This does not carry conviction with the advanced wing of Indian politicians. When they say that there are also social divisions in Europe as there are in India they are amply supported by facts. The social divisions of India are equalled, if not outdone, in a country like the United States of America. Corresponding to those in the former, we have in the latter men bonded together in a criminal conspiracy and trust or combinations that prey upon the public. Not only are there political sub-divisions but also industrial, scientific, and religious associations, differing in their aims and their attitudes towards each other. Apart from political parties with diverse ends, social sets, cliques and gangs we find in the United States of America more permanent divisions of the population such as the Poles, Dutch, Swedes, Germans, Russians, etc., each with its own language, religious and moral codes and traditions. If social divisions unfit a country for representative Government, it should unfit the United States of America as much as India. But if with all the social divisions, the United States of America is fit for representative Government, why not India ? Ask the Indian politicians, so entrenched, it is difficult to dislodge them, and show that the social divisions of India are of a different kind or grant them their contention. Without these two there is no third alternative possible.
4. In my opinion their contention cannot be granted for the social divisions of India do matter in politics. How they matter can be best shown by understanding when they don’t matter. Men live in a community by virtue of the things they have in common. What they must have in common in order to form a community are aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge,