z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-05.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 404
404 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
feudatories and persons in authorities under Native powers, and who may be termed the Soldier class.
2nd. Those who have acquired wealth in trade or commerce or the commercial class.
3rd. The higher employees of Government.
4th. Brahmins, with whom may be associated though at long interval those
of higher castes of writers who live by the pen such as Parbhus and Shenvis
in Bombay, Kayasthas in Bengal, provided they acquire a position either in
learning or station.”
Brahmins the most Influential
“Paragraph 18. Of these four classes incomparably the most influential, the most numerous and on the whole easiest to be worked on by the Government, are the latter. It is a well-recognised fact throughout India that the ancient Jaghirdars or Soldier class are daily deteriorating under our rule. Their old occupation is gone, and they have shown no disposition or capacity to adopt a new one, or to’ cultivate the art of peace. In the Presidency the attempts of Mr. Elphinstone and his successors to bolster up a landed aristocracy have lamentably failed ; and complete discomfiture has hitherto attended all endeavours to open up a path to distinction through civil honours and education to a race to whom nothing appears to excite but vain pomp and extravagance, of the reminiscences of their ancestors’ successful raids in the plains of Hindusthan, nor among the commercial classes, with a few exceptions, is there much greater opening for the influences of superior education. As in all countries, but more in India than in the higher civilized ones of Europe, the young merchants or trader must quit his school at an early period in order to obtain the special education needful for his vocation in the market or the counting house. Lastly the employees of the state, though they possess a great influence over the large numbers who come in contact with Government, have no influence, whatever, with the still larger numbers who are independent of Government; and, indeed, they appear to inspire the same sort of distrust with the public as Government functionaries in England, who are often considered by the vulgar as mere hacks of the state.”
Poverty of Brahmins
“ Paragraph 19. The above analysis, though it may appear lengthy, is nevertheless, indispensable, for certain important conclusions deducible from it. First, it demonstrates that the influential class whom the Government are able to avail themselves of in diffusing the seeds of education are the Brahmins and other high castes Brahmannis proximi. But the Brahmins and these high castes are for the most part wretchedly poor; and in many parts of India the term Brahmin is synonymous with ‘beggar’ ”
Wealthy classes will not at present support superior education
“ Paragraph 20. We may see, then, how hopeless it is to enforce what your Lordship in Council so strongly enjoined upon us in your letter of the
24th April, 1850,— what appears, prima facie, so plausible and proper in