384 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
if it is amended in the manner the Professor wants it. I therefore think that it is not a desirable amendment.
Then I come to my Friend Mr. Nagappa. He has asked me to explain some of the words which have been used in this article. His first question was whether “shop” included laundry and shaving saloon. Well, so far as I am concerned, I have not the least doubt that the word ‘ shop ‘ does include laundry and shaving place. To define the word ‘shop’ in the most generic term one can think of is to state that ‘shop’ is a place where the owner is prepared to offer his service to anybody who is prepared to go there seeking his service. A laundryman therefore would be a man sitting in his shop offering to serve the public in a particular respect, namely, wash the dirty clothes of a customer. Similarly, the owner of a shaving saloon would be sitting there offering his service for any person who enters his saloon.
The Honourable Shri B. G. Kher (Bombay : General) : Does it include the offices of a doctor and a lawyer 7
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Certainly it will include anybody who offers his services. I am using it in a generic sense.
I should like to point out therefore that the word ‘shop’ used here is not used in the limited sense of permitting entry. It is used in the larger sense of requiring the services if the terms of service are agreed to.
The second question put to me was whether ‘place of public resort’ includes burial grounds. I should have thought that very few people would be interested in the burial ground, because nobody would care to know what happens to him after he is dead. But, as my Friend Mr. Nagappa is interested in the point should say that I have no doubt that a place of public resort would include a burial ground subject to the fact that such a burial ground is maintained wholly or partly out of public funds. Where there are no burial grounds maintained by a municipality, local board or taluka board or Provincial Government or village panchayat, nobody of course has any right, because there is no public place about which anybody can make a claim for entry. But if there is a burial ground maintained by the State out of State funds, then obviously every person would have every right to have his body buried or cremated therein.