PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 901
universities that as it was for the first time that the lowest of the low people were being sent for higher education, the foreign universities should show them some consideration. The result was that we were able to get admission for about 30 Scheduled Caste students. Thereafter, in 1945 the old regime ended, and the Congress regime came in 1946. I had hoped that a system which had been inaugurated in 1943 or so and which had been given effect to and in which the Government’s responsibility for the education of the Scheduled Castes in India and their education outside was accepted, would be continued, but to my great surprise, great chagrin almost I must say I found that Mr. Rajagopalchari who became the Education Minister in the Congress regime and who has a great knack for giving a pious look to an impious act abolished the system of sending Scheduled Caste students to foreign countries, and since that time there had hardly been any student belonging to the Scheduled Castes who has gone abroad for further studies. I think that this is—what shall I say ?—a most dangerous thing from one point of view. No doubt the Hindus do not like my criticism, but I am firmly convinced that my criticism is right, and I must repeat it notwithstanding the opposition with which it may be met.
Shri B. K. P. Sinha (Bihar) : But the Scheduled Castes are also Hindus.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Yes, if you call them so. I am statutorily a Hindu.
Shri B. K. P. Sinha : Factually also.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, the point is this. In this country, for reasons into which I need not go now, the fact is quite clear that the higher classes receive the highest education. Their children go to Cambridge, their children go to Oxford, their children go to the Columbia University and to all the other foreign universities.
Dr. K. N. Katju : Perhaps my hon. friend is probably not aware that Harijans or members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are being sent to the foreign countries.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : You are repenting, I see.