z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-06.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 413
EDUCATION OF DEPRESSED CLASSES 413
consist of. Here it is absolutely necessary for the European inquirer to divest his mind of European analogies which so often insinuate themselves almost involuntarily into Anglo-Indian speculations. Circumstances in Europe, especially in England have drawn a marked line, perceptible in manners, wealth, political and social influence, between the upper and lower classes. No such line is to be found in India, where, as under all despotisms, the Will of the Prince was all that was requisite to raise men from the humblest condition in life to the highest station and where, consequently great uniformity in manners has always prevailed. A beggar, according to English notions, is fit only for the stocks or compulsory labour in the work-house ; in India he is a respectable character and worthy indeed of veneration according to the Brahminical theory, which considers him as one who has renounced all the pleasures and temptations of life for the cultivation of learning and undisturbed meditation on the Deity.
“Paragraph 17th. The classes who may be deemed to be influential and Upper classes in in so far the upper classes in India, may be ranked India. as follows :
1st. The landowners and jaghirdars, representatives of the former 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.
“Paragraph 18th. Of these four classes incomparably the most influential, the most numerous, and on the whole easiest to be Brahmins the worked on by the Government, are the latter. It is a most influential. well-recognized fact throughout India that the ancient Jaghirdars or Soldiers class are daily deteriorating under our rule. Their old occupation is gone, and they have shown no disposition or capacity to adopt 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