308 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
effectively impose a mandate upon their representatives, and that owing to the inveterate social prejudices of the educated classes there is a great danger of their abusing the political power to exploit the masses. This cardinal fact, it was held, must differentiate the degree and the kind of responsibility which can be introduced at the outset from that which will be the eventual resultant of the new system, and must impose the obligation of ensuring that the forces which now hold the people together are not completely withdrawn before satisfactory substitutes are ready to take their place. On the other hand, it has been urged [1 ] that there is no necessity to wait till the cardinal fact disappears ; for
“in all countries responsibility in the beginning has
been entrusted to a very small section of the people, and
government has been in the hands of a small educated
minority, who have naturally cared for the interests of
the uneducated masses pending the spread of education
and the consequent extension of the franchise.”
This is of course a familiar line of argument which is usually put forth in India by the political radicals and social tories. If we put aside the painful story of the harsh, cruel and inhuman treatment which the classes in India have accorded to the masses, truth is on their side, for in every country there have been downtrodden communities suffering from social oppression and social injustice, and yet no country has had to be without political power on that account. But those who use this argument forget that if other countries like America with her Negroes and Japan with her Hitas are in possession of political power without having first destroyed social inequality, it is due to the fact of their having been in possession of military power. Military force and moral force are the two chief means to political freedom, and a country which cannot generate the former must cultivate the latter. Thus in India the political problem is entirely a social problem, and a postponement of its solution virtually postpones the day when India can have a free government subject to the mandate of none but her own people.
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1 Cf. the evidence of the Hon. V. J. Patel and Mr. Madhava Rao before the Joint Select Committee on the Government of India Bill. House of Commons Return 203 of 1919, p. 106.