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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
merce money is more important than sword. That is one reason for this change in party alignment. The second reason is the need for money to run the political machine. Money can come only from the Bania. It is the Bania who is financing the Congress largely because Mr. Gandhi is a Bania and also because he has realized that money invested in Politics gives large dividends. Those who have any doubts in the matter might do well to read what Mr. Gandhi told Mr. Louis Fisher on June 6, 1942. Reports Fisher [1] :—
“I said I had several questions to ask him about the Congress Party. Very highly placed Britishers, I recalled, had told me that Congress was in the hands of big business and that Gandhi was supported by the Bombay millowners who gave him as much money as he wanted. ‘What truth is there in these assertions,’ I asked.”
“ ‘Unfortunately, they are true,’ he declared simply, ‘Congress hasn’t enough money to conduct its work. We thought in the beginning to collect four annas (about eight cents) from each member per year and operate on that. But it hasn’t worked.’ ”
“ ‘What proportion of the Congress budget,’ I asked, ‘is covered by rich Indians ?’ ”
“ ‘Practically all of it,’ he stated. ‘In this ashram, for instance, we could live much more poorly than we do and spend less money. But we do not and the money comes from our rich friends.’ ”
For this reason, it is impossible for the Brahmin to exclude the Bania from the position of a governing class. In fact, he has established not merely a working but a cordial alliance with the Bania. The result is that the governing class in India today is a Brahmin-Bania instead of Brahmin-Kshatriya combine as it used to be.
The existence of the Governing class does not cover the whole story. What is significant is that the members of the governing class in India are quite conscious of the fact that they do belong to the governing class and that they alone are destined to rule. The late Mr. Tilak could never forget that he was a Brahmin and belonged to the governing class. The same is reported to be the case about Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru [2] and his sister
1 ‘A Week with Gandhi (1943), p. 41.
2 Mr. Pattabhi Sitaramaya in his introduction to the Life of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru by Mr. Y.G. Krishnamurti, says Pandit Nehru is very conscious of the fact that he is a Brahmin. This will shock many who are under the impression that Pandit Nehru is a Socialist and does not believe in caste. But Mr. Pattabhi