z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-05.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 342
342 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
has no better chance than Falsehood, except with those who read widely and have the capacity of discernment. A party organ, suppressing some facts, misrepresenting some others, is the worst of all guides, because it can by incessantly reiterating untruth produce a greater impression than any man or body of men, save only ecclesiastics clothed with a spiritual authority, could produce before printing was invented. A modern voter so guided by his party newspapers is no better off than his grandfather who eighty years ago voted at the bidding of his landlord or his employer or (in Ireland) of his Priest. The grandfather at least knew whom he was following, while the grandson, who only reads what is printed on one side of a controversy may be the victim of selfish interests who own the organs which his simplicity assumes to express public opinion or to have the public good at heart. So a democracy that has been taught only to read and not also to reflect and judge, will not be better for the ability to read.”
- It seems to me that too much is being made out of the illiteracy of the masses in India. Take the English voter and inquire into his conduct as a voter and what do we find ? This is what the Times Literary Supplement of August 21, 1924, says about him :
“The mass of the people have no serious interest. Their votes decide all political issues, but they know nothing of politics. It is a disquieting, but too well-founded reflection that the decision about tariff reform or taxation or foreign policy is now said by men and women who have never read a dozen columns of serious politics in their lives. Of the old narrow electorate of eight years ago probably at least two-thirds eagerly studied political speeches on the question of the day. Today not five per cent, of the voters read either debates or leading articles. The remnant, however remarkable, is small. Democracy as a whole is as content with gross amusement as Bottles was with vulgar ones, and like him it leases his mind to its newspaper which makes his Sundays much more degrading than those which he spent under his Baptist Minister. This is the atmosphere against whose poisonous gases the schools provide in vain the helmet of their culture.”
- Surely if British Democracy — say the British Empire is content to be ruled by voters such as above, it is arguable that Indians who are opposed to adult suffrage are not only unjust and visionaries but are protesting too much and are laying themselves open to the charge that they are making illiteracy of the masses an excuse to pocket their political power. For, to insist that a thorough appreciation of the niceties of political creeds and the ability to distinguish between them are necessary tests of political intelligence is, to say the least, hypercritical. On small political questions no voter, no matter in what country he is, will ever be accurately informed. Nor is such minute knowledge necessary. The most that can be expected from the elector is the power of understanding broad issues and of choosing the candidate who in his opinion will serve him best. This, I make bold to say, is not beyond the capacity of an average Indian.