CHAPTER X - SOME QUESTIONS TO THE HINDUS AND THEIR FRIENDS - Page 461

432

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

Only because he wants to kill, by kindness, them and their movement for separation and independence from Hindus. The Harijan Sevak Sangh is one of the many techniques which has enabled Mr. Gandhi to be a successful humbug.

Turn to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. He draws his inspiration from the Jeffersonian Declaration; but has he ever expressed any shame or any remorse about the condition of the 60 millions of Untouchables ? Has he anywhere referred to them in the torrent of literature which comes out from his pen ? Go to the youth of India, if you want. The youths who fill the Universities and who follow the Pandit’s lead are ever ready to fight the political battle of India against the British. But what do these children of the leisured class Hindus have done to redress the wrongs their forefathers have done to the Untouchables ? You can get thousands of Hindu youths to join political propaganda but you canot get one single youth to take up the cause of breaking the caste system or of removing Untouchability. Democracy and democratic life, justice and conscience which are sustained by a belief in democratic principle are foreign to the Hindu mind. To leave democracy and freedom in such Tory hands would be the greatest mistake democrats could commit. It is therefore very necessary for the American friends of the Hindus to ask Mr. Gandhi and the Hindus to declare their War aims, so that they may be sure that the fight of the Hindus against British is really and truly a fight for freedom. The Congress and the Hindus will no doubt refer their inquiring foreign friends to the Congress Resolutions regarding minority rights. But I would like to warn the American friends of the Hindus not to be content with the “glittering generalities” contained in congress declaration of Minority Rights. To declare the rights of the minority is one thing and to have them implemented is another. And why should the friends of the Hindus if they are really friends of freedom, not insist on implementation straight away ? Arc not the Hindus saying that they would not be satisfied with mere declaration of freedom from the British ? Are they not asking for immediate implementation ? If they want the Brittish to implement their War aims, why should the Hindus be not prepared to implement their war aims ? American friends of the Hindus, I am sure, will not be misled by the Hindu propaganda that this war of the Hindus against the British is a War for freedom. Before helping the Hindus they