452 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
rule, and now under the Nehru Government they are unhappy. I received this statement as a great shock. Our country has been famous for truth. Prahlad, a boy of five, had courage enough to utter truth and nothing but truth before his father. For us Harijans Mahatma Gandhi did so much and even the present Congress Government also are doing much but this is certain that our condition has been deteriorating since so long that a greater amount of our difficulties is a result of that unhappy position. Our poverty cannot be removed so easily. A lot will have to be done for us. But when I see our leaders minimizing the efforts that are being made for us, I feel extremely pained. Obstacles should not be placed in the way of a smoothly running cart. It is not proper for us to do so. The path of service has always been acclaimed in India to be a path of Yogis and we have ever been following the same from times immemorial and we have served the society in every possible way. During the days of Swaraj Movement, I can say of at least my own province of Gujarat, if not of others, that our people had worked shoulder to shoulder with our other friends and that is why we do not like to beg anything from them like beggars. Today we demand our legitimate rights from them on the basis of equality and brotherhood. Today we have our own Government, and it is the duty of the Parliament and the Members thereof to do justice to us. In spite of all these things there are still many places in India where our bridegrooms cannot ride a horse, where Harjians cannot sit in motor buses, and there are some places even where our women folk cannot put on costly garments and ornaments. There are no doubt some such places in India even today but it does not mean that condition is the same everywhere. There is no doubt that though much is being done for us, a lot more still remains to be done. But I do not like to be ungrateful as to say that, in spite of so much being done for our uplift, nothing is being done for us and that we were happier under the British rule. There is no doubt that due to their policy of ‘divide and rule’, the Britishers had picked out some educated persons among us, treated them as their equals and tried to benefit them in every possible manner. These people can thus say that they were happier under the British