४४६ डॉ. बाबासाहेब आंबेडकर लेखन आणि भाषणे
Yet, rightly read, the announcement proclaims a signal advantage won. Six hundred and nine schools in a most orthodox province admitting outcastes, as against only thirteen times that number who refuse !
Inthe Bombay Legislative Council, one day in August, 1926, they were discussing a resolution to coerce local boards to permit Untouchables to send their children to schools, to draw water from public wells, and to enjoy other common rights of citizenship. Most of the Hindu members approved in principle. ‘ But if the resolution is put into effect we would be faced with a storm of opposition,’ demurred one member, represen- tative of many others. ‘Orthodox opinion is too strong, and while | sympathize with the resolution I think that. .... given effect, it may have disastrous effect.” And he submits that the path of wisdom, for friends of the Untouchables, is not to ask for action, but, instead, to content themselves with verbal expressions of sympathy, such as his own.
A second Hindu member, with characteristic nimbleness, pitchforks the load toward shoulders broad enough to bear it :~
‘| think the British Government have followed a very timid policy in this presidency. They have refused to take part in any social ligislation. Probably, being an alien Government, they were afraid that they would be accused of tampering with the religion of the various communities. In spite of the Proclamation of Queen Victoria about equality between the different classes and communities, Government have not given practical effect to it.’
It remains, however, to a mahommadan, Mr. Noor Mahomed, of Sind, to strike the practical note :t
‘| think the day will not be distant when the people who are placed by the tyranny of the higher classes into the lower grade of society. . . . will find themselves driven to other religious folds. There will then be no reason at all for the Hindu society to complain that Mahomedan or Christian missionaries are inducing members of depressed classes to change the religion of their birth. . . .If the Hindu society refuses to allow other human beings, fellow creatures at that, to attend public schools, and if.. . the president of a local board representing so many lakhs? of people in this House refuses to allow his fellows and brothers the bare elemen- tary human right of having water to drink, what right have they to ask for more fights from the bueraucracy ? .... Before we accuse people coming from other lands, we should see how we ourselves behave toward our own people. . . . How can [we] ask for greater political rights when [we ourselves] deny elementary rights of human beings ?’
* Bombay Legislative Council Debates, 1926. Vol. XVIII, Part IX, p. 717.
“ ibid., p. 728.
t Ibid., August 5,p.721.
+ A lakh is one hundred thousand. p.21.