Interview of Dr. Ambedkar by Beverley Nichols,
(CHAPTER III
BELOW THE BOTTOM RUNG
Nichols, Beverley. Verdict on India.
Read Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.)
‘A MAN of about fifty. Waiting for
me in a wicker chair on the veranda of his house. Bulky, dynamic. Very charming
manners, but nervy, inclined to fiddle with his shoe-laces. Seemed to be on his
guard, as though ready to parry taunts from all directions. Well, after all
it’s only to be expected . . .’ So runs an extract from my diary. The man is
Doctor Ambedkar. And in a moment we shall see why it is ‘only to be expected.’
Ambedkar is labour member in the Government of India, and one of the six best
brains in, India. He is of the Cavour school of statesman—an implacable
realist. When he speaks in public he is galvanic, creative, and almost
embarrassingly to the point. To compare the average oration of a Congress
politician with a speech by Doctor Ambedkar is like comparing a Hindu chant
with a fusillade of pistol shots. As a result, he is one of the best hated men
in India. And why is it ‘only to be expected’. . . . this nervousness, this
suggestion that he would be ready to take offence? Because Dr. Ambedkar, in the
eyes of most of the 180 million caste Hindus, is ‘untouchable.’ A person to
bring pollution if his Mayfair dinner-jacket should happen to brush against
their dhotis. A creature from whose touch the extreme orthodox must fly as
though he were a leper, a monster whose slightest contact compels them to
precipitate themselves into the nearest bath-tub, to soap and pray, and pray
and soap, and soap and pray, so that the filth of Dr. Ambedkar—(M.A.
London)—the shame of Dr. Ambedkar—(high honours at Columbia University)—the
plague and scourge of Dr. Ambedkar—(special distinction at Heidelberg)—should
be washed forever from their immaculate and immortal souls. We are not talking
of the past, but of the year 1944. These are not legends, fairy-tales, gipsy songs;
they are news paragraphs, stop-press. Untouchability—history’s most flagrant
example of man’s inhumanity to man—is still deeply rooted in the Hindu social
system; nearly all attempts to abolish it have met with failure. If a ten per
cent improvement has occurred in the last fifty years, that is an optimistic
estimate. A large number of people in England and America, deluded by Gandhi’s
propaganda, imagine that this disease—for what else can we call it?—is on the
wane. They have read with approval the Mahatma’s denunciations of it, they have
seen photographs of him with his arm round the shoulders of the outcasts, and
they know that he gave the title of ‘Harijan’1 to his own newspaper, which
circulated among the high and might of the land. ‘Surely,’ they say to
themselves, ‘such a powerful example; in these enlightened days, must be having
some effect?’ It is not. As for Gandhi being the untouchables’ friend, let us
listen to Dr. Ambedkar, who is their indisputed leader. He said to me: ‘Gandhi
is the greatest enemy the untouchables hate ever had in India.’ A little
knowledge of recent history is necessary in order to understand this
accusation. But first let us refresh our memories with the theory of
untouchability, and then illustrate that theory with a few facts. II As
Macaulay’s schoolboy would tell you, there are four main castes in the Hindu
religion. At the top come the Brahmins, hereditary holy persons, but without a
church. The stormy and brilliant Nehru, whose autobiography was a best-seller
on both sides of the Atlantic, is a Brahmin, and it is wise never to forget it.
It weighs a great deal more heavily with him than the fact that he was educated
at Harrow and Cambridge. C. R. Rajagopalachari, ex-President of Congress, and
the chief link between the Extremists and the British, is also a Brahmin. So is
Pandit Malaviya, the leader of the extreme right wing of Hinduism. So are most
of the Congress bigwigs. The Brahmins might be said to play the same role in
India’s political life as the old Etonians in Britain. The main difference is
that they have no organized labour to keep them in order. By and large, they
are masters of all they survey—except when they turn round and take a look at
the Muslims.1 The three other castes are the Kshatriyas or warriors, the
Vaisyas or traders— (Gandhi is a Vaisya)—and the Sudras, or cultivators and
menials. Way off in the outer darkness, sunk deep in the mind, are the
casteless ones, the untouchables, nearly 60 million of them. This
classification is drastically simplified. There are actually 2500 castes, all
with their taboos, their social restrictions, and their almost incredible
ingenuity in complicating the most simple process of life. These castes split
the Hindu fabric into a sort of crazy quilt, lacking all homogeneity, held
together only by fear—fear of each other, fear of the Muslims, fear of British
law. Over and over again it must be emphasized that these castes are a matter
of modern, not ancient history. A homely little instance may sometimes make a
point more vivid than any amount of statistics; here is one. Not long ago I
spilt a bottle of iodine on the floor of a flat where I was staying. I had
nothing to wipe it up with, and I called for a servant to ask him if he would
kindly get a rag and remove the stain. There were five servants in the flat and
they had nothing to do; it seemed a reasonable request. It was not granted. One
after another they came in, regarded the stain, and departed, with black looks.
Losing my patience, I went to the kitchen, found a rag, and wiped the thing up
myself. ‘What is the matter with you all?’ I demanded, when I handed back the
rag. They explained that Dido, the sweeper, the untouchable, was out having his
lunch, and only he could wipe up the stain. They would be degraded if they did
it themselves, and he—Dido—would lose respect for them if he heard about it.
Heaven knows, this may sound a trivial instance, but when you multiply it by
millions it ceases to be trivial; it becomes a major problem, not only for
India but for the whole democratic world. III Very briefly, let us consider the
life of the untouchables. It is largely a matter of negatives. They may not use
the public wells, which means that they are condemned to drink any filthy
liquid they can find. Their children may not enter the schools; they must sit
outside, whatever the weather, even in the monsoon. They may not go near the
bathing places. Hence, through no fault of their own, they are usually
unutterably filthy. The temples are closed to them. This is the unkindest cut
of all, for if you take away their faith from a people so sunk in misery, you
take away the only consolation they have. Admittedly, one or two dramatic
gestures have been made in the past few years, by enlightened rulers and
statesmen, who have thrown open temples to all comers. But what happens? As
soon as the untouchables flock in, the orthodox flock out. The temple becomes
an ‘untouchable’ temple, it is tainted, unholy, and as such it ceases to be an
object of reverence even to the untouchables themselves.1 Among other
restrictions, the barbers may not cut their hair, nor the washermen wash their
clothes. One thing they can do is to tend the earth closets and carry away the
night soil from the villages. This they do in large wicker baskets, which they
put on their heads. The baskets leak, and the untouchable is not a pretty sight
when he, or she, has finished the job. Still—say the Hindus—it is their own
fault; they are paying for the sins of a previous incarnation; why should we
have any pity for them? A convenient doctrine, if you happen to have been born
in the right bedroom. “Ah, this is very old stuff,” you may say. ‘Of course, it
is,’ we answer. ‘And it is also very new. It is as old as the hills and as new
as the morning dew. It is a long way B.C. and it is also A.D. 1944.’ Let us
have a few more examples from personal experience. Slight though they are, they
may help us to realize the bitter struggle which these 60 millions must make
for the most elementary decencies, a struggle which is being carried on as you
read these words.
IV
SCENE ONE. A bungalow on a small
island lying a few miles off the west coast. We have just finished dining on
the veranda and a British subaltern joins us for a drink. He has walked up the
hill from the seashore, where is he in charge of a training camp for young
Indian engineers. He looks tired and depressed. ‘Had a trying day?’ ‘Pretty
sticky.’ He flings himself into a chair. ‘Trouble with recruiting.’ ‘Aren’t
they coming in fast enough?’ ‘Oh—they’re coming in all right. But I have to
send ’em away again. Look over there.’ He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. We
see two young Indians standing in the shadow of a eucalyptus tree, staring at
the dust. They are of exceptional physique, and they are spick and span as though
they were dressed for a party. ‘See those chaps? Well, they’re two of the best
who’ve ever come my way, physically and mentally. Well above standard. They
want to join my lot; I want to have them; and I can’t.’ ‘Why on earth not?’
‘Untouchable. Sweeper class.’ ‘But that’s preposterous!’ ‘Of course, it is. But
it’s India. My men would just down tools if I took ‘em on.’ ‘But surely,’ I
exclaimed, ‘you’ve got some authority as their commanding officers?’ ‘No, I
haven’t. Not in a thing like that. Why, the very rumour of those chaps coming
has caused a hell of a row all day—desertions, insolence, insubordination. I
had to give in. I don’t want to start another Indian Mutiny.’ He swallowed his
drink and, sighed. ‘Sounds silly, I know,’ he said, ‘but the worst of it was
that one of the chaps cried. Said I’d broken his heart. Me! It’s pretty grim
when a chap like that starts crying.’ He laughed uneasily. ‘Maybe I’m well shot
of him—maybe he was a cissy. Oh, what the hell, anyway.
1 SCENE TWO. A village in a remote
part of the south-west. I have come to see a temple which is reputed to be of
great beauty. The expedition is not a success; the temple is devoid of any
architectural interest and is only notable for the astonishing obscenity of the
phallic scenes which are carved round its base. This has a curious affect on an
American lady who is also going the rounds. Acting on the principle that evil,
like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, she decides to put on a bold front,
and drags me round the building, prodding her umbrella at the most abandoned
exhibitions and trying to treat them from a purely aesthetic point of view. We
came to one scene where everybody was so upside down and inside out that it
should have been labelled ‘Sex in the Gymnasium.’ She regarded it with a cold,
unblinking stare. ‘Definitely the Jain influence,’ she proclaimed, with a ring
of challenge. I had never heard it call that before. Having digested the
obscenities, I was at a loose end. The lady took her leave as it was very hot,
and she was obviously exhausted by her unwonted championship of the Religion of
the Red Light. But I wanted to explore the village, so I left her sitting in
the shade of the temple, silhouetted in lofcy isolation against a back ground
of ape-like ecstasies. I came to a big mad hut. It was the village school. I
peered through the window. About a hundred little boys were squatting on the
floor, gazing at a blackboard on which a young man was tracing letters in
Canarese. They made the prettiest picture—the rows of dusky faces and the
snow-white eyes turning from right to left, like marbles rolling on a dark
cloth. I drew back my head from the window and strolled round the corner of the
building. And there, to my surprise, were twelve little boys, sitting on a
bench, huddled together as though they were frightened of something. ‘What are
those little boys doing? Are they in disgrace or something?’ The young Hindu
guide answered me. ‘They are of the Scheduled Classes,’ he said curtly. I
stared at the little boys, who had huddled themselves closer together. They
were thin and almost naked and none too clean, but they were little boys, after
all. Each of them was ‘somebody’s bairn,’ as one might say, if one were
sentimental and Scotch. Perhaps one should have kicked up a row about it. Those
kids were supposed to be allowed into the schools. They had passed all sorts of
laws for their protection in this State. But what could one do? If one reported
the matter it would only get the teacher into trouble, and it probably wasn’t the
teacher’s fault. He looked a decent sort of chap even though he was half
starved on his 25 rupees a month. It was more likely due to the parents of the
children inside. So I walked away and left the little outcasts to their fate,
straining their ears towards the window, listening to the teacher’s voice. Now
and then one of them would scribble something in a tattered notebook. Young
India, getting education.
SCENE THREE. A dinner table in Peshawar.
Dramatis personae, Pandit Malaviya and B——, one of the leaders of the
opposition in the legislative council. The year is 1933, and Peshawar is full
of bustle and excitement, for there is a great conference in full swing, which
will settle the fate of the Hindu-Sikh minorities. The venerable old Pandit is
being entertained by B——, and they are both anxious to please each other. But
the dinner party is not a success. Why? Because the Pandit cannot eat. Why? We
shall see. B——had taken a great deal of trouble about this dinner. He knew that
the Pandit was a vegetarian, and so he provided only fruit; moreover, he chose
only such fruits as Nature had ensured from outside pollution, such as oranges
and bananas. And he had been even more careful than that. He had bought on
entirely new dinner service; for he was aware that if the Pandit were asked to
eat off a plate which might once have had meat on it, the worst would happen.
The Pandit would be horrified beyond measure; he would never feel clean again.
So there we are. Fresh fruit, covered with thick skins. New plates, never used
before. Old gentleman, anxious to please host, staring at banana or whatever it
is. All to no avail. He cannot eat the banana. Sometime, somewhere, somehow,
somebody might have touched something, and made it unclean. He dares not risk
it. He is a brave old man but he is not as brave as all that. So, the demands
of courtesy must be set aside. The dinner, we repeat, was not a success. This
story has been told flippantly, because at first sight it falls into the
category of farce. But is it entirely farcical? Malaviya, at the time, was
leader of Congress. He was, and still is, one of the most powerful
personalities in India. He is the sort of man who, if and when India gains
independence, will help to represent his country at international conferences.
To put it mildly, his extreme orthodoxy may tend to slow up the business of the
day. Supposing that we translate this situation into Western terms. Imagine a
conference between Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and Chiang Kai-Shek on orthodox
Hindu lines. What would happen? Well—most of them would be popping in and out
of the bathroom during the greater part of the proceedings. Churchill would
sign a document with the same pen as Roosevelt and would rush to have a shower.
Stalin would inadvertently drink a cup of tea handed him by Chiang Kai-Shek and
hurry away to gargle. Roosevelt would constantly be calling for a flit spray,
and if anybody ever got any business done it would be such a miracle that half
the war debt would have to be sacrificed on the altar of Krishna. Nevertheless,
Malaviya, in spite of these-foibles, is entitled to our respect. Extreme Hindu
as he is he has fought the battle of the untouchables, and admitted hundreds of
them into the Hindu fold. That proves that his heart is very much in the right
place, for only a deep love of his fellow-men could make him challenge the
faith of his fathers. He starves himself for that faith, and yet he takes up
the cudgels for those whom the faith has made pariahs. It would be ungenerous
to deny that he comes out of this story pretty well.
V
We left Dr. Ambedkar, leader of the 60 million
Untouchables, proclaiming that . . . ‘Gandhi is the greatest enemy the
Untouchables have ever had in India.’ This will come as a violent shock to most
people. Gandhi has ceaselessly proclaimed his detestation of untouchability. He
has untouchables in his ashram, he has adopted an untouchable child, and he has
declared, ‘I would rather that Hinduism die than untouchability Live.’ This
often-quoted remark, by the way, does not really make sense. Untouchability is
as integral a part of the Hindu faith as anti-semitism of the Nazi; begin by
destroying untouchability and you will end by destroying all caste. And caste
is the only cement which saves the incredibly complicated Hindu structure from
collapse. None the less, Gandhi was probably sincere when he spoke. So what did
Ambedkar mean? We can best explain it by a parallel. Take Ambedkar’s remark,
and for the word ‘untouchables’ substitute the word ‘peace.’ Now, imagine that
a great champion of peace, like Lord Cecil, said, ‘Gandhi is the greatest enemy
of peace the world has ever had.’ What would he mean, using these words of the
most spectacular pacifist of modern times? He would mean that passive
resistance—which is Gandhi’s form of pacifism—could only lead to chaos and the
eventual triumph of brute force; that to lie down and let people trample on you
(which was Gandhi’s recipe for dealing with the Japanese) is a temptation to
the aggressor rather than an example to the aggressed; and that in order to
have peace you must organize, you must be strong, and that you must be prepared
to use force. Mutatis mutandis, that is precisely what Ambedkar meant about the
untouchables. He wanted them to be organized and he wanted them to be strong.
He rightly considered that the best way of gaining his object was by granting
them separate electorates; a solid block of 60 million would be in a position
to dictate terms to its oppressors. Gandhi fiercely opposed this scheme. ‘Give
the untouchables separate electorates,’ he cried, ‘and you only perpetuate
their status for all time.’ It was a queer argument, and those who were not
bemused by the Mahatma’s charm considered it a phoney one. They suspected that
Gandhi was a little afraid that 60 million untouchables might join up with the
100 million Muslims—(as they nearly did)—and challenge the dictatorship of the
180 million orthodox Hindus. When such irreverent criticisms were made to him,
Gandhi resorted to his usual tactics; he began a fast unto death. (As if that
altered the situation by a comma, or proved anything but his own obstinacy!)
There was a frenzy of excitement, ending in a compromise on the seventh day of
the fast. The untouchables still vote in the same constituencies as the caste Hindus,
but a substantial number of seats are now reserved for them in the provincial
legislatures. It is better than nothing, but it is not nearly so good as it
would have been if Gandhi had not interfered. That is what Dr. Ambedkar meant.
And I think that he was right.
VI
What of the future? It depends very
largely on the British. If we knuckle under to Congress demands, the state of
the untouchables will remain either stationary or deteriorate. And it cannot be
too often emphasized that even if it remains stationary it will still be quite
intolerable. In spite of the much vaunted ‘new approach,’ in spite of Gandhi’s
soulful proclamations, how many untouchables have managed to obtain university
degrees? Five hundred! Five hundred, in the whole history of Indian Education,
in a country with a population of nearly 400 million! Congress, dominated by
the Brahmins, has no intention of changing this situation. It is highly
significant that by far the most sweeping measures to improve the lot of the
untouchables have been made in the States where the Congress writ does not run.
Mysore, for instance, could set an example to the whole of India.1 If we give
way to Congress, the untouchables might as well run to the nearest village well
and hurl themselves into it en masse. They are forbidden to use it in life;
they might as well use it in death. Ambedkar said to me that the Cripps
proposals ‘would have dealt a death blow to our interests.’ Some people
challenge Ambedkar’s right to leadership. They would not do so if they had ever
attended any of his meetings, such as the great rally at Nagpur where 75,000
untouchables acclaimed him with a fervour that even Gandhi might have envied.
Besides, even if he had any competitors—which he has not—his clear-cut,
creative ideas demand the support of all men of decency and sense. We will end
this random survey by a few sentences from my diary which throw light on those
ideas. Ambedkar said to me: ‘The keynote of my policy is that we are not a
sub-section of the Hindus but a separate element in the national life.’ ‘Gandhi
says to us “Trust us—trust the caste Hindus!” I reply, “We will not trust you,
for you are our hereditary enemies.” ‘In
every village there is a tiny minority of untouchables. I want to gather those
minorities together and make them into majorities. This means a tremendous work
of organization—transferring populations, building new villages. But we can do
it, if only we are allowed.’ ‘We are as staunchly nationalist as any of the
Congress. But we do not want the British to quit India till our rights are
safeguarded. If they do, our fate will be more terrible than the fate of any of
the Oppressed peoples of Europe.’ Can any sane man doubt to whom we ought to
give our support? To Gandhi, the caste Hindu, who would fast, unto death rather
than grant these 60 million outcasts the right of uniting into an independent
organization which might challenge him? Or to Ambedkar, who has himself risen
from the depths, and fought his way through a ceaseless barrage of insult and superstition,
to emerge triumphant as the champion of his people? It is not always, in
British history, that the path of honour is identical with the path of
self-interest, but that is the situation in India to-day. There is only one
path that we should tread, for our own sake, and for the sake of the underdog.
Let us hope that we tread it. 1 Harijan really means ‘Child of God.’ It has
come to be associated with the untouchables. The Government of India’s name for
them is ‘Scheduled Classes.’ 1 The Brahmins, in spite of their lofty position,
have not attracted much love to themselves in the long history of India. And
ancient saying, still current, is ‘if you meet a snake and a Brahmin, kill the
Brahmin.’ Perhaps this is due to the preposterous nature of their claims. For
example, Manu, maker of laws, ruled that to accuse a Brahmin of a crime was
sinful even if the Brahmin was guilty. 1 The classic example of this tendency
was afforded by the great temple at Madura, 300 miles south of Madras. Premier
Rajagopalachari went so far as ordering a government official to lead a group
of untouchables into the temple. The great majority of Brahmins have refused to
set foot in it ever since. 1 This story could be multiplied ad nauseam.
However, it is worth noting that the Army, once it has got hold of a man, is
proving a powerful instrument in undermining the extreme caste system.
Discipline, comradeship, and above all a common sense of danger shared, have
worked wonders in the present war. When the boys come marching home, we may
look out for fireworks. 1 The student who would like to know what can be done
by a benevolent and enlightened ruler should read Harijan Uplift in Mysore,
published by the Government Press, Bangalore.
