84 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
has to be judged not by its worst specimens but by the best it might have produced. For that and that alone can be used as the standard to aspire to, if not to improve upon.
( Harijan, July 18, 1936)
III
VARNA VERSUS CASTE
Shri Sant Ramji of the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal of Lahore wants me to publish the following :
“I have read your remarks about Dr. Ambedkar and the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal, Lahore. In that connection I beg to submit as follows :
“We did not invite Dr. Ambedkar to preside over our conference because he belonged to the Depressed Classes, for we do not distinguish between a touchable and an untouchable Hindu. On the contrary our choice fell on him simply because his diagnosis of the fatal disease of the Hindu community was the same as ours, i.e. he too was of the opinion that caste system was the root cause of the disruption and downfall of the Hindus. The subject of the Doctor’s thesis for Doctorate being caste system, he has studied the subject thoroughly. Now the object of our conference was to pursuade the Hindus to annihilate castes but the advice of a non-Hindu in social and religious matters can have no effect on them. The Doctor in the supplementary portion of his address insisted on saying that that was his last speech as a Hindu, which was irrelevant as well as pernicious to the interests of the conference. So we requested him to expunge that sentence for he could easily say the same thing on any other occasion. But he refused and we saw no utility in making merely a show of our function. In spite of all this, I cannot help praising his address which is, as far as I know, the most learned thesis on the subject and worth translating into every vernacular of India.
Moreover, I want to bring to your notice that your philosophical difference between Caste and Varna is too subtle to be grasped by people in general, because for all practical purposes in the Hindu society Caste and Varna are one and the same thing, for the function of both of them is one and the same i.e. to restrict inter-caste marriages and inter-dining. Your theory of Varnavyavastha is impracticable in this age and there is no hope of its revival in the near future. But Hindus are slaves of caste and do not want to destroy it. So when you advocate your ideal of imaginary Varnavyavastha they find justification for clinging to caste. Thus you are doing a great disservice to social reform by advocating your imaginary utility of division of Varnas, for it creates hindrance in our way. To try to remove untouchability without striking at the root of Varnavyavastha is simply to treat the outward symptoms of a disease or to draw a line on the surface of water. As in the heart of their hearts