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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
may become a minority tomorrow, and what is a minority today may become a majority tomorrow. The difference between the Hindus and the Untouchables cannot be said to be a difference of this sort. There is no endosmosis between the Untouchables and Hindus as there is between the Majority and Minority. There is another characteristic of a majority and minority relationship which would make them inapplicable to the relationship which subsists between the Hindus and the Untouchables. The majority and minority are divided by a difference only–difference in the point of views. They are not separated by a fundamental and deadly antagonism as the Hindus are from the Untouchables. There is a third characteristic of Majority and Minority relationship which is not to be found in the relationship that subsists between the Hindus and the Untouchables. A minority grows into a minority and a majority in becoming a majority absorbs so much of the sentiment of the minority that the minority is satisfied with the result and does not feel the urge of fighting out the issue with the majority. Now all these considerations are quite foreign to the relationship between the Hindu Majority and the Untouchable minority. They are fixed as permanent communites. They are not merely different but they are antagonistic. To speak of them as majority and minority would be as true and as useful as would be to speak of the Germans being a majority and the French being a minority.
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