178 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
(vi) The village system makes any progress on the part of Scheduled Castes impossible inasmuch as it enables the Hindus to use that most formidable weapon of social boycott with which they always threaten the Scheduled Castes and which they use to hold them down and compell them to abandon any act or movement however beneficial it may be from the point of view of the Scheduled Castes, if it happens to offend Hindu interests or Hindu sentiments.
- So long as this village organisation remains unbroken, there can be no doubt that the Scheduled Castes will continue to remain the Untouchables, subject to the tyranny and oppression of the Caste Hindus and will never be able to enjoy free, full and honourable life. The Working Committee has, after long and mature deliberation, come to the conclusion that for the better protection of the Scheduled Castes from the tyranny and oppression of the Caste Hindus, which may assume vast magnitude under Swaraj, which is only another name for Hindu Raj, and to enable the Scheduled Castes to develop to their fullest manhood, to give them economic and social security, as also to pave the way for the removal of Untouchability, radical change must be made in the village system if the Scheduled Castes are to be freed from the ills from which they are suffering for so many centuries at the hands of the Hindus. Realising the necessity of a change being made in the village system, the Working Committee holds that it is imperative to make provision in the Constitution of India along the following lines : (i) The Constitution should provide for the transfer of the Scheduled Castes from their present habitations and form separate Scheduled Castes villages, away from and independent of Hindu villages.
(ii) For the settlement of the Scheduled Castes in new villages a provision should be made in the Constitution for the establishment of a Settlement Commission,