408 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Activities of the Institute
During the short period of five years which has elapsed since its establishment the work of the Institute has grown to such enormous proportions that it is impossible to give even a summary of it within the scope of this leaflet. All that can be done is to indicate the lines of activity undertaken by the Institute in pursuance of its aim, namely; the elevation of the Depressed Classes. These activities may be classified under the following heads :
(1) Propaganda. The Institute publishes a newspaper called Janata (The People) with the object of enlightening the Depressed Classes on their special problems and also on the general problems of the day in so far as they affect them. It educates them into a realization of their civic rights, ventilates their grievances and creates public opinion in favour of speedy redress. The guiding principle of the paper is equality. Until last month it was a fortnightly paper. It is now converted into a weekly. The Institute also publishes other literature from time to time on various subjects for the education of the Depressed Classes.
(2) Civic Rights Campaign. Although there are many cases in which the Law allows civic rights to the Depressed Classes there are a legion in which custom stands in the way of the Depressed Classes benefiting by them. One of the objects of the Institute being to secure to the Depressed Classes the enjoyment of their civic rights, the Institute has had to tackle all those cases in which there is no bar of law but in which the Hindu majority will not allow the Depressed Classes to enjoy those rights on the ground that such an act is an affront to their dignity and a transgression of the social status assigned by custom to the Depressed Classes in Indian Society. The complaints made to the Institute by members of the Depressed Classes regarding infringements of their rights are untold and the volume of work done by the Institute in this connection is beyond description, cases in which Depressed Classes were refused accommodation in a school, in a bus, in a ferry, or in a roadside inn, etc. Besides attending to individual cases of infringement of civic rights the Institute takes up what may be called test cases for ascertaining the exact legal position of the Depressed Classes as to their civic rights in relation to certain matters. Three years ago the Institute took the question of the right of the Depressed Classes to public water Courses and fought