Does communal representation perpetuate social divisions? If you look upon communal representation as making electoral Colleges of social divisions, the criticism may be said to be valid. This is true only if it is presupposed that the divisions are no real divisions and that they don’t matter. This is as false a pre-supposition as that of inviting India which is made when it is said that Englishmen are unsocial. Communal Representation is a device to ward off the evil effects of the divisions. To those who, while agreeing to this particular benefit of communal representation, object to it on the score that it perpetuates the divisions it can be shown that there is another perspective from which it can be said that communal representation instead of perpetuating the social divisions is one of the ways of dissolving them.
While communal electorates will be co- terminous with social divisions their chief effect will be to bring together men from diverse castes who would not otherwise mix together into the Legislative Council. The Legislative Council will thus become a new cycle of participation in which the representatives of various castes who were erstwhile isolated and therefore anti-social will be thrown into an associated life. An active participation in an associated life, in its turn, will not leave unaffected the dispositions and attitudes of those who participate. A caste or a religious group to-day is a certain attitude. So long as each caste or a group remains isolated its attitude remains fossilized.
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But the moment the several castes and groups begin to have contact and co-operation with one another the resocialization of the fossilized attitude is bound to be the result. If the Hindus become resocialized with regard to their attitude towards Mohammedans, Christians, etc., and the Mohammedans, Christians, etc., become resocialized with regard to their attitudes towards the Hindus, or the touchable Hindus with regard to the untouchables, caste and divisions will vanish. If caste is an attitude and it is nothing else, it must be said to be dissolved when that particular attitude symbolizing the caste is dissolved. But the existing set attitude representing the diverse castes and groups will be dissolved only if the diverse groups meet together and take part in a common activity. Such changes of disposition and attitudes will not be ephemeral but will, in their turn influence associated life outside the Council Hall. The more opportunities are created for such conjoint activities the better. The resocialization will then be on a larger scale and bring about a speedier end of caste and groups. Thus those who condemn communal representation on the score of perpetuating the existing divisions will welcome it, on reflection, as a potent solvent for dissolving them.
Statistics will show that the intelligentia and the Brahmin caste are
exchangeable terms. The disposition of the intelligentsia is a Brahmin
disposition. Its outlook is a Brahmin outlook. Though he has learned to
speak in the name of all, the Brahmin leader is in no sense a leader of the
people. He is a leader of his caste at best, for he feels them as he does for
no other people.
The importance and necessity of communal and adequate representation of untouchables is beyond question. The depth of emotion
with which the untouchables speak on this topic must have been easily gauged when the untouchables of the Madras Presidency told Mr. Montagu that there would be bloodshed if Home Rule for India was not accompanied by communal representation to the untouchables. The authors of the Report however are actuated by a faith in the intelligentsia to effect all reforms for the elevation of the untouchables from permanent degradation and ostracism. They say “they find the educated Indian organizing effort not for political ends alone but for various forms of public and social service.”.
As the authors have connived at the demands of the untouchables on this score it is but proper to investigate whether their faith is
well grounded. On education and its social value the words of Joseph Addison are not too stale to be recalled. He said, “There can
be no greater injury to human society than that good Talents among men should be held Honourable to those who are endowed with them without any regard how they are applied. The Gifts of Nature and the Accomplishments of Art are valuable but as they are exerted in the interest of virtue or governed by the Rules of Honour, we ought to abstract our minds from the observation of an excellence in those we converse with, till we have taken some notice or received some good information of the Disposition of their Minds, otherwise they make us fond of those whom our reason and judgment will tell us we ought to abhor.”
Statistics will show that the intelligentia and the Brahmin caste are exchangeable terms. The disposition of the intelligentsia is a Brahmin disposition. Its outlook is a Brahmin outlook. Though he has learned to speak in the name of all, the Brahmin leader is in no sense a leader of the people. He is a leader of his caste at best, for he feels them as he does for no other people. It is not intended to say that there are no Brahmins who feel for the untouchables. To be just, there are a few more moderate and rational Brahmins who admit the frightful nature of the institution of untouchability in the abstract and perceive the dangers tosociety with which it is fraught. But the great majority of the Brahmins are those who doggedly deny the horrors of the system in the teeth of such a mass of evidence as never was brought to bear on any other subject and to which the experience of every day contributes its immense amount; who, when they speak of freedom, mean the freedom to oppress their kind and to be savage, merciless and cruel, and whose inalienable rights can only have their growth in the wrongs of the untouchables. Their delicate gentility will neither bear the
Englishmen as superior nor will it brook the untouchables as equal. “I will not tolerate a man above me, and of those below none must approach too near” sums up the true spirit of their social as well as political creed. Those who speak against the anti-social pirit of the Brahmin leaders are often cautioned that in their denunciation they do not pay sufficient regard to the existence of the first class of Brahmin leaders. This is no doubt the case. Noble but very rare instances of personal and pecuniary sacrifice may be found among them just as may be found to be tender in the exercise of their unnatural power. Still it is to be feared that this injustice is inseparable from the state of things with which humanity and truth are invoked to deal. The miserable state of the untouchables is not a bit more tolerable because some tender hearts are bound to show sympathy, nor can the indignant tide of honest wrath stand still because in its course it overwhelms a few who are comparatively innocent among a host of guilty.
The trend of nationalism in India does not warrant us to believe that the few who are sympathetic will grow in volume. On the other hand it is the host of guilty that time is sure to multiply. With the growth of political agitation, the agitation for social reform has
subsided and has even vanished The Prarthana Samaj, the Brahmo Samaj with their elevating influence have become things of the past. The future has few things like these in store. The growth of education if it is confined to one class, will not necessarily lead to liberalism. It may lead to the justification and conservation of class interest; and instead of creating the liberators of the down-trodden, it may create champions of the past and the supporters of the status quo. Isn’t, this the effect of education so far ? That it will take a new course in future ceteris paribus, there is no ground to believe. Therefore, instead of leaving the untouchables to the mercy of the higher castes, the wiser policy would be to give power to the untouchables themselves who are anxious, not like others, to usurp power but only to assert their natural place in society.
This gigantic world war, however motivated, has yielded what is known as the principle of self-determination which is to govern
international relations of the future. It is happy to note that the pronouncement of the 20th August 1917 declared the application
of the principle to India — a principle which enunciates the rule that every people must be free to determine the conditions under
which it is to live. It would be a sign of imperfect realization of the significance of this principle if its application were restricted to
international relations, because discord does not exist between nations alone, but there is also discord between classes from within a nation. Wittingly our Indian politicians in their political speeches and harangues hold to the de jure conception of the Indian people. By the de jure conception they conceive of the Indian people as by nature one and emphasize the qualities such as praiseworthy community of purpose and welfare, loyalty to public ends and mutuality of sympathy which accompany this
unity. How the de jure and de facto conceptions conflict, it is hoped, the committee will not fail to realize. As an instance the following may be noted. The moral evil to the Indian people of their conquest and subjugation by the British is a theme which is very attractive to the Brahmin politicians, who never fail to make capital out of it. The moral evils were once portrayed by John Shore in his “Notes on Indian Affairs” written in 1832. The late Honourable Mr. Gokhale once voiced the same feeling when speaking about the “excessive costliness of the foreign agency”. He said : “There is a moral evil which, if anything, is even greater. A kind of dwarfing or stunting of the Indian race is going on under the present system. We must live all the days of our life in an atmosphere of inferiority and the tallest of us must bend, in order that the exigencies of the existing system may be satisfied. The upward impulse,
if I may use such an expression, which every schoolboy at Eton and Harrow may feel, that he may one day be a Gladstone or apoleon
or a Wellington, and which may draw forth the best efforts of which he is capable, is denied to us. The full height to which our anhood is capable of rising can never be reached by us under the present system. The moral elevation which every self-governing people feel cannot be felt by us. Our administrative and military talents must gradually disappear, owing to sheer disuse till at last our lot as hewers of wood and drawers of water in our own country, is stereotyped.”.
The trend of nationalism in
India does not warrant us
to believe that the few who
are sympathetic will grow in
volume. On the other hand it
is the host of guilty that time
is sure to multiply.
I beg to invite the attention of the Committee whether these sentiments which have been voiced by a Brahmin (a noble Brahmin to be sure) to the disgrace of the British bureaucracy cannot be more fittingly voiced by the untouchables to the disgrace of the rahmin
oligarchy? May it be said to the credit of the bureaucracy, that it has disproved the charge of being wooden and shown itself usceptible to feeling by proposing changes in the system of the Government which has dwarfed the personality of those for whom it was devised. But can the oligarchy claim anything half as noble? Their belief is that the Hindu social system has been perfected for all time by their ancestors who had the superhuman vision of all eternity and supernatural power for making infinite provision for future ages. This deep ingrained ethnocentrism has prevented a reconstruction of Hindu Society and stood in the way of a revision of vested rights for the common good. A farce of a conference for the removal of untouchability was enacted in March 1918 in Bombay. Doctor Kurtakoti, the Shankaracharya of Karvir fame, though promised to attend, left for Northern India
just a day or two before the conference met, on some urgent business. Mr. Tilak is credited with a short speech at the conference which has for the good luck of Mr. Tilak remained unreported. But this was only lip sympathy shown to hoodwink the untouchables for when the draft of the proclamation removing untouchabilily was presented to Mr. Tilak, it is known on creditable evidence that e refused to honour it with his signature.
Here is disclosed a patent disharmony within a nation and therefore a proper field for the application of the principle of self-
determination. If the advanced classes are clamouring for its application to India and if the powers that be have sanctioned it, however partially, to ward off the future stunting and dwarfing of the Indian people, may not the untouchables with justice claim its benefit in their own interest ? Admitting the necessity of self-determination for the untouchables communal representation cannot be withheld from them, for communal representation and self-determination are but two different phrases which express the same notion.
(Excerpts from the “EVIDENCE BEFORE THE
SOUTHBOROUGH COMMITTEE”)
