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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the Congress as a body carrying on a ‘Fight for Freedom’ in preference to other parties.
This is quite natural. But a question arises which calls for attention. Is this partiality to the Congress the result of an infatuation for the ‘Fight for Freedom’ movement ? Or, is it the result of a conviction that this ‘Fight for Freedom’ is going to make the people of India free ? If it is the former, all I can do is to regret that what I have said in Chapter VII in explanation as to why the Untouchables have not joined with the Congress in this ‘Fight for Freedom’ has not produced the desired effect on the foreigner. But I cannot quarrel with him on that account. For it is quite understandable that many a foreigner on reading that chapter may say that while the reasons adduced by mc as to why the Untouchables refuse to join the ‘Fight for Freedom’ are valid and good, I have shown no ground why he should not support a body which is carrying on a fight for freedom.
If the basis of his partiality to the Congress is of the latter sort then the matter stands on a different footing. It then becomes necessary to examine the rationale of his attitude and to save him from his error.
Ordinarily, no one trusts the word of a person who is not prepared to place all his cards on the table and commit himself to something clear and definite, so as to prove his bona fides, to inspire confidence and secure the co-operation of those who have doubts about his motives. The same rule must apply to the Congress. But as I have shown in Chapter VII the Congress has not produced its blue print of the sort of democracy it aims to establish in India, showing what place the servile classes and particularly the Untouchables will have in it. Indeed, it has refused to produce such a blue print, notwithstanding the insistent demand of the Untouchables and the other minority communities. In the absence of such a pronouncement it appears to be a strange sort of credulity on the part of the foreigner to give support to the Congress on the ground that it stood for democracy.
There is certainly no ground for thinking that the Congress is planning to establish democracy in India. The mere fact that the Congress is engaged in a ‘Fight for Freedom’ does not warrant such a conclusion. Before any such conclusion is drawn it is the duty of the foreigner to pursue the matter further and ask another question, namely, ‘For whose