58 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
VIII. Uplift of the Depressed Classes.
- Gentlemen, I have insisted, at more length than perhaps I need have done, upon the necessity of our securing political power. But I must now take this opportunity to emphasize that political power cannot be a panacea for the ills of the Depressed Classes. Their salvation lies in their social elevation. The Depressed Classes must be cleansed of their evil habits. They must be improved of their bad ways of living. By a change in their mode of life they must be made fit for respect and friendship. They must be educated. Mere knowledge of the three “R”s will be quite insufficient for the great heights that many of them must reach in order that the whole community may along with them rise in the general estimation. There is great necessity to disturb their pathetic contentment and to instil into them that divine discontent which is the spring of all self-elevation. And last but by no means least in importance, is the necessity to encourage and energize the Depressed Classes so that they will shed all their fears and begin to exercise their rights of humanity in common with the rest. These results will not follow the advent of political power in our hands. We must recognize that, that is only a means to an end. I am uttering this warning because I wish to avoid the fatal mistake involved in the supposition that because a few from amongst the Depressed Classes will be taking their seats as members of the Legislatures, that thereby the Depressed Classes will cease to be depressed. All this, is the work of social uplift. It must be undertaken by organisations of Depressed Classes modelled on the Servants of India Society of the late Mr. Gokhale or the Servants of the People Society of the late Lala Lajpatrai.
Conclusion.
- Gentlemen, I regret I have worried you with a speech which I must admit is inordinately long. But I have felt that though brevity should always be the aim, yet on occasions of this sort where people unaccustomed to politics meet for the first time to decide most fateful issues it would be desirable to place before them all sides of the question. My excuse for