330 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
and then we have the record of the whole class of Kshatriyas exterminated by Parashuram acting on behalf of the Brahmanas. The issues that brought them in conflict extended over a wide range and show how bitter and strained must have been the feelings between Brahmins and Kshatriyas. There were conflicts over the question whether the Kshatriya had a right to become a Brahmana. There were conflicts over the question, whether the Brahmins were subject to the authority or not. There were conflicts on the question who should salute first and who should give way to whom. The wars were wars [1] of authority, status and dignity.
The results of these wars could not but be obvious to the Brahmins. Notwithstanding their boastful utterances they must have realized that it was not possible for them to crush the Kshatriyas and that notwithstanding the wars of extermination the Kshatriyas survived in sufficient numbers to plague the Brahmins. One need not pay any attention to the filthy story told by the Brahmins and alluded to by Manu that the Kshatriyas of the Manu’s day were not the original Kshatriyas but a race of new Kshatriyas begotten by the Brahmins upon the widows of the old Kshatriyas who were massacred by Parashuram. Blackmailing is one of the means which Brahmanism is never ashamed of using to advance its own purposes. The fight of Brahmanism against the Kshatriyas was from the very beginning a fight between a fool and a bully. Brahmanas were fighting against the Kshatriyas for the maintenance of the Chaturvarna. Now it is this very Chaturvarna which allowed bayonets to the Kshatriyas and denied them to the Brahmins. How under this theory could the Brahmin fight with the Kshatriya with any hope of success? It could not have taken long for the Brahmins to realise the truth—which Tallyrand told Napoleon—that it is easy to give bayonets but it is very difficult to sit on them and that as Kshatriyas had bayonets and Brahmins none, war with the Kshatriya was the way to ruin. These were the direct consequences of these wars between the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas. But there were others which could not have escaped the attention of the Brahmins. While the Brahmins and Kshatriyas were fighting among themselves nobody was left to check and keep the Vaishyas and the Shudras under control. They were on the road of social equality almost nearing to the status of the Brahmins and Kshatriyas. To Brahmanism the possibility of suppressing the Kshatriya was very remote and the danger of being overtaken by Vaishyas and Shudras were real and very real. Should the Brahmana continue to fight the Kshatriya and ignore the danger of the Vaishyas and the Shudras? Or Should the Brahmana give up the hopeless struggle against the
- See Hopkins History of the Ruling Races.