250 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
While I am a Member of Government of India, you will have the responsibility of keeping up our movement and making it effective so that it may lead to the result we all hope to achieve. I shall help you, I shall advise you. But I shall not be able to participate in it. That is a fact you must all bear in mind. It is, therefore, all the more necessary that before I transfer the responsibility to others, I must render account of my stewardship of this movement of the Untouchables which has been associated with me and has been carried on under my guidance if not under my aegis during the last
20 years. It is necessary for me to do so in order that those on whom this responsibility will fall should know where the Scheduled Castes stand vis-a-vis other communities in this country, what has been done and what remains to be done for their emancipation.
It is a matter of immense satisfaction that the Untouchables have made great strides along all sides. I will particularise only three. They have acquired a degree of political consciousness which few communities in India have acquired. Secondly, they have made considerable progress in education. Thirdly, they are securing a foothold in the institutions and in the public service of the country.
The modern generation of Untouchables are not in a position to realize the immensity of the progress made by the Untouchables. For the simple reason that they do not know how things stood when the movement began 20 years ago. I well remember the first meeting addressed in Bombay after I returned from England as a Barristerat-Law. Except the organisers of the meeting, there was not a single member in the audience-some persons were sitting on the doorsteps of houses smoking pipes and others were chatting in corners by themselves. No one thought of attending the meeting. See the difference. You have here an audience of 75000 people. Education has made a good progress as compared to that 20 years ago. In Poona alone there are 50 boys studying in colleges. There are altogether about 500 Untouchables who have graduated from the various universities. Some are doctors. Some have become barristers. Many of our brethren are members of Municipalities. District and Local Boards. Years ago our children were denied