178 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the weaving department in the Cotton Mills both in Bombay and in Ahemadabad. They can only work in the spinning department. The spinning department is the lowest paid department. The reason why they are excluded from the weaving department is because they are Untouchables and because on that account the caste Hindu worker objects to work with them although he does not mind working with the Musalmans.
Take the Railways. What is the position of the Depressed Class worker on the Railways. No one can deny that his destiny is to work as a gangman. Day in and day out, all his life he works as a gangman with no prospects of a rise. There is no higher grade post that is open to him. Very rarely he is employed even as a Porter. That is because as a porter he must also work as a domestic servant as a part of his customary duties in the household of the Station Master. A Depressed Class worker becomes quite useless to the station master who is generally a high caste Hindu because he cannot avail himself of the services of the porter for his house hold purposes if the porter is an Untouchable. He therefore generally avoids appointing a Depressed Class man as a porter. In the Railway there is no qualifying examination for the appointment of clerks and Non-Matrics are usually employed for these posts. Hundreds of non-matrics from Indian Christians, from Anglo-Indians, and Caste Hindus are employed as clerks in the Railways. But the Depressed Class boys who are non-matrics and there are hundreds of them are systematically rejected and hardly one ever gets a chance. The same is the case in Railway Workshops. Very seldom is a Depressed Class man employed as a mechanic Class. Hardly ever is a Depressed man seen to occupy the position of a Mistry. He is never made a foreman, or even a chargeman in the Workshop. He is just a cooly and remains a cooly. Such is the condition of the Depressed class workers in the Railways.
In those avocations where he has a chance to obtain work he is employed in the lowest grade. He is excluded from any place of power or authority. He is not only employed in the lowest grade but he is confined to that grade until he retires. There is no rise for him. There is no career for him and often