86 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
India Company and helped the British to conquer India ? The answer that I can give—and it is based on a good deal of study—is that the people who joined the Army of the East India Company were the Untouchables of India. The men who fought with Clive in the battle of Plassey were the Dusads, and the Dusads are Untouchables. The men who fought in the battle of Koregaon were the Mahars, and the Mahars are Untouchables. Thus in the first battle and the last battle it was the Untouchables who fought on the side of the British and helped them to conquer India. The truth of this was admitted by the Marquess of Tweedledale in his note to the Peel Commission which was appointed in 1859 to report on the reorganization of the Indian Army. This is what he said—
(Quotation not given in the MS.—ed.)
There are many who look upon this conduct of the Untouchables in joining the British as an act of gross treason. Treason or no treason, this act of the Untouchables was quite natural. History abounds with illustrations showing how one section of people in a Country have shown sympathy with an invader, in the hope that the new comer will release them from the oppressions of their countrymen. Let those who blame the Untouchables read the following manifesto issued by the English Labouring Classes in 17 (Left incomplete).
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Was the attitude of the Untouchables in any way singular ? After all, the tyranny under which the English Labourer lived was nothing as compared with the tyranny under which the Untouchables lived and if the English workmen had one ground to welcome a foreign invader the Untouchable had one hundred.
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Not only did the Untouchables enabled the British to conquer India, they enabled the British to retain. The Mutiny of 1857 was an attempt to destroy British Rule in India. It was an attempt to drive out the English and reconquer India. So far as the Army was concerned the Mutiny was headed by the Bengal Army. [1] The Bombay Army and the Madras Army remained loyal and it was
- The Bengal Army was so called because it was under the control of the Bengal Government and not because it was composed of Bengalees. As a matter of fact there were no Bengalees in it. It was formed mostly from up-countrymen.