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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Both for society and as well as for the individual there is always a gulf between merely living and living worthily. In order that one may live worthily One must first live. The time and energy spent upon mere life, upon gaining of subsistence detracts from that available for activities of a distinctively human nature and which go to make up a life of culture. How then can a life of culture be made possible ? It is not possible unless there is sufficient leisure. For it is only when there is leisure that a person is free to devote himself to a life of culture. The problem of all problems which human society has to face is how to provide leisure to every individual. What does leisure mean ? Leisure means the lessening of the toil and effort necessary for satisfying the physical wants of life. How can leisure be made possible ? Leisure is quite impossible unless some meas are found whereby the toil required for producing goods necessary to satisfy human needs is lessened. What can lessen such toil ? Only when machine takes the place of man. There is no other means of producing leisure. Machinery and modern civilization are thus indispensable for emancipating man from leading the life of a brute, and for providing him with leisure and making a life of culture possible. The man who condemns machinery and modern civilization simply does not understand their purpose and the ultimate aim which human society must strive to achieve.
Gandhism may be well suited to a society which does not accept democracy as its ideal. A society which does not believe in democracy may be indifferent to machinery and the civilization based upon it. But a democratic society cannot. The former may well content itself with life of leisure and culture for the few and a life of toil and drudgery for the many. But a democractic society must assure a life of leisure and culture to each one of its citizens. If the above analysis is correct then the slogan of a democratic society must be machinery, and more machinery, civilization and more civilization. Under Gandhism the common man must keep on toiling ceaselessly for a pittance and remain a brute. In short, Gandhism with its call of back to nature, means back to nakedness, back to squalor, back to poverty and back to ignorance for the vast mass of the people.
The division of life into separate functions and of society into separate classes may not be altogether obliterated. In spite of many social and economic changes, in spite of the abolition