64
WITHOUT STRENUOUS EFFORTS
OUR SOCIAL POSITION MIGHT GET
EVEN WORSE
“A stringent attack on the working of the Panchayats of the Mahar community in the city was directed by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in the presence of many of the prominent members of the Panchayats at a public meeting of the Depressed Classes held in the Bhatt High School Hall, Bombay, last night, the 28th March 1941 to consider the financial position of the Depressed Class students’ Hostel at Thana.
The Panchayats had been levying taxes of all sorts and under various pretexts on the community, he said. Most of that money used formerly to be spent on drinking bouts. But now that prohibition was introduced in the city the money was being spent on eating “battasas” and distributing sweets.
“What has come over you, the elders and senior members of the community” asked Dr. Ambedkar, “that you should behave like children and want to indulge in sweets purchased out of public funds while the community has to face increasing competition with other communities in the struggle for life. Unless we discard these childish activities and take to the serious work of the social and educational advancement our position might get even worse than it is to-day.”
Dr. Ambedkar held before the Depressed Classes the example of the advanced Indian communities. Among the advanced communities, he said, there were always a number of men who devoted themselves exclusively and life-long to educational and other social institutions in their communities without any hope of reward or even appreciation.
Among educated youths of the Depressed Classes, however, the speaker witnessed the tendency to look out for seats on local boards,