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*ON THE BOMBAY UNIVERSITY ACT AMENDMENT BILL : 4

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Sir, I rise to support this amendment. If I had agreed with the views which my honourable friend Mr. Munshi holds on university reforms and the functions of the university, I would certainly not have risen to support this amendment. But I find that both as a person who takes an interest in university reform and as one coming from the backward communities I am in fundamental disagreement with my honourable friend Mr. Munshi. Sir, my honourable friend Mr. Munshi seems to hold that the University is merely a body for the purpose of making statutes and regulations, that it is a body which is merely concerned with holding examinations, and with providing post-graduate courses in University Departments of Education to be started under this Bill. Sir, I think that that is a very narrow view of the University. One of the fundamental functions of the University, as I understand it, is to provide facilities for bringing the highest education to the doors of the needy and the poor. I do not think that any University in any civilised country can justify its existence if it merely deals with the problems of examinations and the granting of degrees. Now, if it is the duly of a modern university to provide facilities for the highest education to the backward communities, I think it will be accepted as a corollary that the backward communities should have some control in the University affairs. Sir, I look upon the University primarily as a machinery, whereby educational facilities are provided to all those who are intellectually capable of using those facilities to the best advantage, but who cannot avail themselves of those facilities for want of funds or for other handicaps in life. Now, Sir, it is said that the University is primarily a concern of the intelligentsia and of the educated classes, and that as the University is to function properly it is necessary that it should be controlled by what are called the educated classes. I would accept that principle, if the educated classes who are going to control the University possessed what we called social virtues. If they, for instance, sympathised with the aspirations of the lower classes, if they

*B.L.C. Debates, Vol. XXI, pp. 414-16, dated 5th October 1927. This speech was in support of the amendment to the Bombay University Bill moved by Mr. Noor Mohmed to raise the number of nominated senators from 40 to 50.