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UNITY IS OF SUPREME IMPORTANCE
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar delivered a speech at a luncheon party given by Mr. P. Bala Subramaniya, Editor, Sunday Observor at Connemara Hotel, Madras on 23rd September 1944.
Dr. Ambedkar said,
As far as I have been able to study, the advent of the Non-Brahman party has been an event in the history of India. Many people had not even able to realize that the fundamental basis of the Non-Brahman party was not the communal aspect which the word Non-Brahman indicated. No matter who ran the Non-Brahman party, whether it was what they called the ‘Intermediate class’ which lay between the Brahmins at one end and the Untouchables at the other. The party could be nothing if it was not a party of democracy. Therefore everybody who believed in democracy had a deep concern in the interests and fortune of the party. The organisation of the Non-Brahmin party was an event in the history of the country. Its downfall was also equally an event to be remembered with a great deal of sorrow. Why the party crumbled in the 1937 elections was a question that the leaders of the party should ask themselves. After all in Madras they had the regime of the Non-Brahmin party for practically 24 years before the elections came. Then what was wrong for the Party to make it fall like a pack of cards notwithstanding the long period of office ? What was it that made the party unpopular with a large majority of Non-Brahmins themselves ? In my view two things were responsible for this downfall. Firstly, they had not been able to realize exactly what their differences were with Brahminical sections. Though they indulged in virulent criticism of Brahmins could any one of them say that those differences had been doctrinal ? How much Brahaminism had they in them ? They were ‘Nababs’ and regarded themselves as second class Brahmins. Instead of abandoning Brahminism they had been holding on to the spirit of it as being the ideal they ought to reach. And their anger against Brahmins was that they (the Brahmins) gave them only a second class degree.