724 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
little chance for them to monopolize State service in the way and to the extent they have done. For if efficiency was made the only criterion there would be nothing wrong in employing Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans & Turks instead of the Brahmins of India. Be that as it may, the Non-Brahmin Parties refused to make a fetish to efficiency and insisted that there must be introduced the principle of communal ratio in the public services in order to introduce into the administration an admixture of all castes & creeds and thereby make it a good administration. In carrying out this principle the Non-Brahmin Parties in their eagerness to cleanse the administration of Brahmindom while they were in power, did often forget the principle that in redressing the balance between the Brahmins and non-Brahmins in the public services they were limited by the rule of minimum efficiency. But that does not mean that the principle they adopted for their guidance was not commendable in the interests of the masses.
This policy no doubt set the teeth of many Brahmins on edge. They were vehement in their anger. This piece by Dr. Paranjpe is the finest satire on the policy of the nonBrahmin Party. It caricatures the principle of the non-Brahman party in a manner which is inimitable and at the time when it came out, I know many non-Brahmin leaders were not only furious but also speechless. My complaint against Dr. Paranjpe is that he did not see the humour of it. The non-Brahmin Party was doing nothing new. It was merely turning Manu Smriti upside down. It was turning the tables. It was putting the Brahmin in the position in which Manu had placed the Shudra. Did not Manu give privileges to Brahmin merely because he was a Brahmin ? Did not Manu deny any right to the Shudra even though he deserved it ? Can there be much complaint if now the Shudra is given some privileges because he is a Shudra ? It may sound absurd but the rule is not without precedent and that precedent is the Manu Smriti itself. And who can throw stones at the non-Brahmin Party ? The Brahmins may if they are without sin. But can the authors and worshippers, upholders of Manu Smriti claim that they are without sin ? Dr. Paranjpe’s piece is the finest condemnation of the inquity that underlies this Manav Dharma. It shows as nothing else does what a Brahmin feels when he is placed in the position of a Shudra.