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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Another illustration in support is the attitude of Gandhism towards the scavenger. The sacred law of the Hindus lays down that a scavenger’s progeny shall live by scavenging. Under Hinduism scavenging was not a matter of choice, it was a matter of force [1] . What does Gandhism do ? It seeks to perpetuate this system by praising scavenging as the noblest service to society ! ! Let me quote Mr. Gandhi: As a President of a Conference of the Untouchables, Mr. Gandhi said [1] :
“I do not want to attain Moksha. I do not want to be reborn. But if I have to be reborn, I should be born an untouchable, so that I may share their sorrows, sufferings and the affronts levelled at them, in order that I may endeavour to free myself and them from that miserable condition. I, therefore prayed that if I should be born again, I should do so not as a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, or Shudra, but as an Atishudra...
“I love scavenging. In my Ashram, an eighteen years old Brahmin lad is doing the scavenger’s work in order to teach the Ashram scavenger cleanliness. The lad is no reformer. He was born and bred in orthodoxy... But he felt that his accomplishments were incomplete until he had become also a perfect sweeper, and that, if he wanted the Ashram sweeper to do his work well, he must do it himself and set an example.
“You should realize that you are cleaning Hindu Society.”
Can there be a worse example of false propaganda than this attempt of Gandhism to perpetuate evils which have been deliberately imposed by one class over another ? If Gandhism preached the rule of poverty for all and not merely for the Shudra the worst that could be said about it is that it is a mistaken idea. But why preach it as good for one class only ? Why appeal to the worst of human failings, namely, pride and vanity in order to make him voluntarily accept what on a rational basis he would resent as a cruel discrimination against him ? What is the use of telling the scavenger that even a Brahmin is prepared to do scavenging when it is clear that according to Hindu Shastras and Hindu notions even if a Brahmin did scavenging he would never be subject to the disabilities of one who is a born scavenger ? For in India a man is not a scavenger because of his work. He is a scavenger because of his birth irrespective of the question whether he does scavenging or not. If Gandhism preached that scavenging is a noble profession with the object of inducing those who refuse
- Young India, 27th April 1921.