z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 266
266 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
caste-people is out-casted, in which men are planning their second marriages while their first wives are burning on funeral pyres, in which even old fogies of sixty years can marry girls of twelve on the strength of monetary bribes and in which the treatment offered to widows is worse than that given even to the beasts. Western materialism cannot be held responsible for the rotten state of our society discribed above. On the contrary it is those who have come into contact with western materialism who are trying their best to remedy these evils, though their efforts are proving nothing but a cry in the wilderness.”
Further on, in another paragraph, she says :
“The conduct of Indraraj towards Ahilya, of Parashar Rishi towards Satyawati and of Suryadev towards Kunti would make those perpetrators liable for rigorous imprisonment in this age of Kali but that being considered to be Satya Yug, we not only connive at these delinquencies but raise books containing such descriptions to the status of ‘Sacred Books’ and insist that they must be prescribed as test-books in the curriculum for children. How many lessons on continence can pupils find in the Mahabharat, the Bhagwat and the Puranas ? How can an age, that never knew what continence was, inspire us to observe that virtue ? How is it possible to consider that age to have observed continence in which there were incidents like the story of King Dushyanta, who first misled an innocent and guileless girl living in the hermitage of a sage and then discarded her when she was pregnant ? When one considers the number of children born to certain persons mentioned in very ancient narratives, a doubt naturally arises in one’s mind as to whether the people in those days ever dreamt what continence was. How can one believe that continence was observed in those times when one considers that Sagar begot sixty thousand sons and that there were a hundred Kowrawas, twenty-seven daughters of Daksha Prajapati and several other such instances ? Continence was paid scant respect in bygone days. It can actually be seen that in these days it is kept at a distance everywhere. The birth-rate of our country is not falling lower than that of any ‘materialistic’ country. Brahmacharya cannot be observed even where the life of a woman, already the mother of many children, is jeopardised by an additional delivery. It is neglected even in the families of paupers, dying of hunger, where the addition of even a single individual to the family would be nothing short of a calamity. Even in these days of unemployment, when it is practically impossible to find outlets for sons, additional children are born even in middle class families every year or year and a half. In castes, in which the usage of dowry prevails, parents express much grief at the birth of a daughter, kill her at the very outset or bring her up most negligently so that she may die a natural death. They, however, never resort to continence to avoid the chances of girls being born. In spite of all these instances we go on proclaiming that continence alone is the ideal for our country ! Of what