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110 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the non-Brahmins. They could not get a barber to shave them ; they could not get the village Baniya to sell them provisions ; they could not get people to do any service for them. The Brahmin had either to grow a beard or walk seven miles to Satara to have a shave. So, there are quarrels between the depressed classes and the non-Brahmins.
An Honourable Member: They are over.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Unfortunately, far from being over, they have become the order of the day. Not only are there quarrels amongst the Hindus themselves, but there are quarrels between the Hindus and the Mahomedans, and these quarrels are of no ordinary importance, they are serious. I would like the Honourable Minister and the House to consider whether a panchayat elected in an atmosphere of this sort would be impartial enough to distribute justice between men of different castes and men of different creeds. That is a proposition, I submit, which the House and the Honourable Minister should consider seriously.
The next question I would like to ask is, does the Honourable Minister expect that the judiciary he is bringing into being will be an independent judiciary ? Sir, what is his proposition ? His proposition is that the judiciary shall be elected, because that is what the provisions for a panchayat means. The panchayat which will administer justice will be a panchayat elected by the adult population of the village. I would like to ask him whether he expects that a judge who has to submit himself to the suffrage of the masses will not think twice before doing justice, whether, while giving justice he is offending the sensibility of the voter. Suppose there was a Hindu-Mahomedan riot ; suppose a Mahomedan was brought up before a panchayat for an offence which is triable by the panchayat; suppose one Hindu member of the panchayat thought that there was justice on the side of the Mahomedan. Does the Honourable Minister and does the House think that this gentleman, who may have to submit himself to an election within the course of a few months or a year, will think that he ought to do justice to the Mahomedan rather than keep his seat ? What will he do ?
Dewan Bahadur D. R. Patil: A riot case is not triable by a panchayat.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I am giving it as an example; it may be for some other offence.
Sir, I have never seen anywhere a judiciary that is elected. The only country where we know that the judiciary is elected is America, and you know that it has brought judges into disrepute in all the American Commonwealth and has small justice a by-word for corruption. I am sure my honourable friend does not want us to have that experiment tried on us. In view of this, I must say at once, as I do not wish to trespass too much upon the time of the House, that I cannot accept the principle embodied in the second part of the Bill, that judicial powers, both civil and criminal, should be handed over to a panchayat, which, in substance, is an elective judiciary. Sir, I am bound to say, watching as I have been the affairs that are going on in this presidency and especially what is happening to the depressed