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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
effectually banned it is the Congress platform which is not only bound to preach nationalism and national unity which is what the governing classes want and on which their safety entirely depends, but which prohibits any other ideology inconsistent with nationalism being preached from its platform.
If these two considerations are grasped, the foreigner will not find it difficult to understand the third namely the raison d’etre of the political demands of the servile classes.
The reservations demanded by the servile classes are really controls over the power of the governing classes. Even in European countries there is a demand for controls over the powers of certain classes of society. There is control on producers, distributors, money-lenders and landlords. If the necessity for controls over the power of certain classes is admitted in countries where there is much greater degree of homogeneity and identity of interests than there exists in India, a foreigner should not find it difficult to appreciate. The reservations do no more than correlate the constitution to the social institutions of the country in order to prevent political power to fall into the hands of the Governing class.
After so much of explanation of facts and arguments I do not think it will be difficult for the foreigner at least to believe that there is another side to the Congress propaganda, if he is not prepared to agree with the point of view herein presented. It would indeed be a sad commentary on the character and intelligence of a foreigner who even after his having gone through the facts and figures given above was not able to cultivate a cool and a dispassionate attitude towards those who do not share the Congress point of view.
IX
There is a tragic side to the foreigner’s view of Indian politics to which it is impossible not to make a reference. The foreigners who take interest in Indian politics fall into three groups. The first group is aware of the social cleavages which rend Indian politics, cleavages of majorities and minorities, Hindus and Untouchables and so on. Their main object is not to solve these cleavages by appropriate constitutional safeguards and to open the way to constitutional advancement of India but to use these cleavages to block constitutional progress. The second group of foreigners are those who pay no attention