Note

Table 21

Composition of the Cabinets in the Congress Provinces [f.6] 

Table 22

Classification of Parliamentary Secretaries in Congress Provinces*

Compiled from Indian Information Issue of July 15, 1939. Question mark indicate inability to classify whether Brahmin or non-Brahmin.

In all the Hindu Provinces, the Prime Ministers were Brahmins. In all Hindu provinces, if the non-Hindu ministers were excluded, the majority of ministers were Brahmins and even parliamentary secretaries were Brahmins.

What has been said so far makes two things as clear as daylight. First is that there is in India a well defined governing class, distinct and separate from the servile class. Second is that the governing class is so powerful that though small in number in the elections of 1987 it quite easily captured political power and established its supremacy over the servile classes. There remains only one more point for me to establish to be able to put my thesis across. It is to show how far Congress was responsible for the victory of the governing class in the elections of 1987. I know I must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Congress is responsible for placing the governing class in the position of supremacy over the servile class. For it might be said that the Congress had nothing to do with this, that even if the Congress was responsible for it the result was an accident and that there was no intention on the part of the Congress to help the governing classes to win this position of supremacy.

V

The first line of these suggested defences can be easily disposed of. It is probable that those who raise this defence do not know the political colour of the province to which the figures given in Tables 19,20,21 and 22 relate. If they knew it they would give up this line of defence. For they relate to what are called the Congress Provinces. In these provinces the majority party was the Congress Party and the Cabinets were Congress Cabinets. Obviously, if in these Congress provinces the governing classes succeeded in establishing their rule over the servile classes it is difficult to see how the Congress could be absolved from responsibility for such a result. The Congress is a well disciplined party. It had a plan for fighting the elections. In every province there was established a Parliamentary Board, the functions of which were (1) to choose candidates for elections, (2) to decide upon the formation of Cabinets, and (8) to control the actions of ministers. Over and above these Provincial Parliamentary Boards there was a Central Parliamentary Board to superintend and control the work of the Provincial Parliamentary Boards. It was an election which was planned and controlled by the Congress. It is therefore futile to argue that if the governing classes captured power in the elections of 1987 in the Congress Provinces the Congress is not responsible for the result.

The second line of defence is as fragile as the first. Those who wish to argue that the dominance of the governing class in the Congress provinces is accidental and not intentional should know that they are advancing an argument which will not stand. I would invite the attention of those who are inclined to treat it as an accident to consider the following circumstances.

First let them consider the mentality of the leading members of the Congress High Command who have guided the destiny of the Congress in the past and who are at present running the affairs of the Congress. It would be well to begin with Mr. Tilak. He is dead. But while he was alive he was the most leading man in the Congress and exercised the greatest sway over it. Mr. Tilak was a Brahmin and belonged to the governing class. Though he had acquired the reputation of being the father of the Swaraj movement his antipathy to the servile classes was quite well known. For want of space I will cite only one instance of his mentality towards the servile classes. In 1918, when the non-Brahmins and the Backward classes had started an agitation for separate representation in the legislature, Mr. Tilak in a public meeting held in Sholapur said that he did not understand why the oil pressers, tobacco shopkeepers, washermen, etc.—that was his description of the Non-Brahmins and the Backward classes—should want to go into the legislature. In his opinion, their business was to obey the laws and not to aspire for power to make laws.

Next after Tilak I may take Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel. Here again, I will cite only one instance to indicate Ins mentality. In 1942, Lord Linlithgow invited 52 important Indians representing different sections of the people to discuss the steps that might be taken to make the Central Government more popular and thereby enlist the sympathy and co-operation of all Indians in war effort. Among those that were invited were members belonging to the Scheduled Castes. Mr. Vallabhbhai Patcl could not bear the idea that the Viceroy should have invited such a crowd of mean men. Soon after the event, Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel made a speech in Ahmedabad and said [f.7]   :—

" The Viceroy sent for the leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha, he sent for the leaders of the Muslim League and he sent for Ghanchis (oil pressers), Mochis (cobblers) and the rest."

Although Mr. Vallabhbhai Patel in his malicious and stinging words referred only to Ghanchis and Mochis his speech indicates the general contempt in which he holds the servile classes of his country.

It may be well to know the reactions of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is a Brahmin but he has the reputation of being non-communal in his outlook and secular in his beliefs. Facts do not seem to justify the reputation he carries. A person cannot be called secular if he, when his father dies, performs the religious ceremonies prescribed by orthodox Hinduism at the hands of Brahmin priests on the banks of the river Ganges as Pandit Jawaharlal did when his father died in 1931. As to his being non-communal it is stated by no less a person than Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya that Pandit Nehru is very conscious of the fact that he is a Brahmin. [f.8]  This must come as a most astonishing fact to those who believe the Pandit to have the reputation of being the most nationally minded Hindu leader in India. But Dr. Sitaramayya must be knowing what he is talking about. More disturbing is the fact that in the United Provinces from which he hails and over which he exercises complete authority the ministers in the cabinet of the province were all Brahmins. Mrs. Vijaya Laxmi Pandit, the well-known sister of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, also seems to be conscious of herself being Brahmin by caste. It is said that at the All-India Women's Conference held in Delhi in December 1940, the question of not declaring one's caste in the Census Return was discussed. Mrs. Pandit disapproved [f.9]  of the idea and said that she did not see any reason why she should not be proud of her Brahmin blood and declare herself as a Brahmin at the Census. Who are these men ? What is their status ? Mr. Tilak has the reputation of being the father of the Swaraj movement. Mr. Patel and Pandit Nehru come next in command in the Congress hierarchy after Mr. Gandhi.

Some might think that these are the individual and private opinions of the members of the Congress High Command. But that would be an error. Several cases could be pointed out in which such opinions have been acted upon in election campaigns run by the Congress.

'Ever since 1919 when Mr. Gandhi captured the Congress, Congressmen have looked upon the boycott of legislatures as one of the sanctions for making the British Government concede the demand for Swaraj. Under this policy, every time there was an election in which the Congress decided not to take part, the Congress would not only refuse to put candidates on the Congress ticket but would carry on propaganda against any Hindu proposing to stand for election as an independent candidate. One need not quarrel over the merits of such a policy. But what were the means adopted by the Congress to prevent Hindus-standing on an independent ticket ? The means adopted were to make the legislatures objects of contempt. Accordingly, the Congress in various Provinces started professions carrying placards with these significant and telling words: " Who will go in the legislatures ? Only barbers, cobblers, potters and sweepers." In the processions one man would utter the question as part of the slogan and the whole Congress crowd would shout as answer the second part of the slogan. When the Congressmen found that this was not enough to deter persons from standing for the elections, they decided to adopt sterner measures. Believing that respectable people would not be prepared to stand for election if they felt certain that they would have to sit with barbers, potters and sweepers, etc., in the legislatures, the Congress actually went to the extent of putting up candidates from these despised communities on the Congress ticket and got them elected. A few illustrations of this outrageous conduct of the Congress may be mentioned. In the 1920 election, the Congress elected a cobbler[f10]  to the legislature of the Central Provinces. In the 1930 election they elected in the Central Provinces two cobblers, [f.11]  one milkman [f.12]  and one barber, [f.13]   and in the Punjab one sweeper[f14] . In 1984, the Congress elected to the Central Legislature a potter[f15] . It might be said that this is old history. Let me correct such an impression by referring to what happened in 1948, in the Municipal elections in Andheri—a suburb of Bombay. The Congress put up a barber to bring the Municipality in contempt.

What a mentality for a Governing class I What a brazen facedness for a governing class to use the servile class for such an ignominious purpose and yet claim to be fighting for their freedom! What a tragedy for the servile class to take pride in its own disgrace and join in it voluntarily! The Sinn Fein Party in Ireland also boycotted the British Parliament. But did they make such hideous use of their own countrymen for effecting their purposes ? The campaign of boycott of legislature which took place in 1980 is of particular interest. The elections to the Provincial legislatures in 1980 in which these instances occurred coincided with Mr. Gandhi's Salt Satyagraha champaign of 1930; I hope that the future (the official historian, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, has failed to do so) historian of Congress while recording how Mr. Gandhi decided to serve notice on the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, presenting him with a list of demands to be conceded before a certain date and on failure by the Viceroy in this behalf, how Mr. Gandhi selected Salt Act as a target for attack, how he selected Dandi as a scene of battle, how he decided to put himself at the head of the campaign, how he marched out from his Ashram in Ahmedabad with all pomp and ceremony, how the women of Ahmedabad came out with Arthi and applied tilak (saffron mark) to his forehead wishing him victory, how Mr. Gandhi assured them that Gujarat alone would win Swaraj for India, how Mr. Gandhi proclaimed his determination by saying that he would not return to Ahmedabad until he had won Swaraj, will not fail to record that while on the one hand Congressmen were engaged in fighting for Swaraj, which they said they wanted to win in the name of and for the masses, on the other hand and in the very year they were committing the worst outrages upon the very masses by exhibiting them publicly as objects of contempt to be shunned and avoided.

VI

This mentality of the Congress High Command towards the servile classes is enough to negative the theory that the supremacy of the governing classes in the Congress Provinces was an accident. There are other facts which also go to negative the theory of accident and which arc set out in Table 23 (see page 226). They relate to the educational qualifications of the several classes of candidates selected by the Congress for fighting the elections. What does the table show ? It is crystal clear that in the case of the Brahmins the relative proportion of graduates to non-graduates is far higher than what it is in the case of non-Brahmins and the Scheduled Castes. Was this an accident or was this a matter of policy ? This sort of selection is marked by such a state of uniformity that it could hardly be doubted that the Congress High Command in selecting a candidate had a definite policy, namely, in the case of Brahmins, to give preference to & candidate who had the highest educational qualifications and in the case of the non-Brahmins and the Scheduled Castes, to give preference to a candidate who had the lowest educational qualifications. The difference in terms of graduates and non-graduates does not really reveal the real difference between the status and position of the Brahmin candidates and non-Brahmin candidates. The Brahmin candidates were not merely graduates but they were seasoned politicians of high repute, while the non-Brahmin graduates were raw graduates with nothing but the career of second class politicians behind them.

Why did the Congress select the best educated Brahmins as its candidates for election ? Why did the Congress select the least educated non-Brahmins and Scheduled Castes as its candidates for election ? To this question I can sec only one answer. It was to prevent the non-Brahmins—the representatives of the servile classes—from forming a ministry. It cannot be that better educated non-Brahmins were not available. What the Congress seems to have done is deliberately to prefer an uneducated non-Brahmin to an educated non-Brahmin.

Table 23

Clas sification of Brahmin and Non-Brahmin Congress Partymen by  Literaey

And why ? Because from the point of view of the governing class, the uneducated non-Brahmin has two definite advantages over an educated non-Brahmin. In the first place, he is likely to be more grateful to the Congress High Command for having got him elected than an educated non-Brahmin is likely to be. In the second place, the uneducated non-Brahmin is less likely to join hands with the educated non-Brahmins in the Congress Party and overturn the ministry of the governing classes and form a non-Brahmin ministry. In the third place, the greater the number of raw non-Brahmins in the Congress the lesser is the possibility of the non-Brahmins in the Congress forming a competent and alternative Ministry to the detriment of the governing class.

Given these circumstances, can there be any doubt that the Congress " Fight for Freedom " is for the freedom of nobody except that of the governing class ? Is there any doubt that the Congress is the governing class and the governing class is the Congress ? Is there any doubt that when Swaraj came in 1937 in the form of Provincial autonomy, the Congress deliberately and shamelessly put the governing class in places of power and authority ?

VII

The facts set out above prove beyond cavil that the " Fight for Freedom " launched by the Congress has ended in perverting the aim and object of Indian freedom and that the Congress itself is a party to such a perversion. The result is an enormity, the character of which it would not be possible for the foreigner to realise unless he has an adequate idea of the social outlook and social philosophy of the Governing Classes in India.

Starting with the Brahmins who form a strong and powerful element in the governing class in India it is no exaggeration to say that they have been the most inveterate enemies of the servile classes, the Shudras (the old name for the non-Brahmins) and the Untouchables who together constitute about 80 or 90 per cent. of the total Hindu population of India. If the common man belonging to the servile clauses in India is to-day so fallen, so degraded, so devoid of self-respect, hope or ambition, and so lifeless, it is entirely due to the Brahmins and their philosophy. The cardinal principles of this philosophy of the Brahmins were six—to use a correct expression, techniques of suppression—(1) graded inequality between the different classes; (2) complete disarmament of the Shudras And the Untouchables; (8) complete ban on the education of the Shudras and the Untouchables; (4) total exclusion of the Shudras and the Untouchables from places of power and authority; (5) complete prohibition against the Shudras and the Untouchables acquiring property, and (6) complete subjugation and suppression of women. Inequality is the official doctrine of Brahmanism and the suppression of the lower classes aspiring to equality has been looked upon by them and carried out by them, without remorse as their bounded duty. There are countries where education did not spread beyond a few. But India is the only country where the intellectual class, namely, the Brahmins not only made education their monopoly but declared acquisition of education by the lower classes, a crime punishable by cutting off of the tongue or by the pouring of molten lead in the ear of the offender. The result is that for centuries the Brahmins have denied the servile classes the right to education. Even to-day the Brahmins exhibit the same hostility to their education. Mr. Baines, the Census Commissioner for 1891 in discussing the causes why education was not spreading among the masses said :—

" The second influence antagonistic to a more general spread of literacy is the long continued existence of a hereditary class whose object it has been to maintain their own monopoly of all book-learning as the chief buttress of their social supremacy, Sacerdotalism knows that it can reign over none but an ignorant populace. The opposition of the Brahmin to the rise of the writer castes has been already mentioned, and the repugnance of both, in the present day, to the diffusion of learning amongst the masses can only be appreciated after long experience. It is true that the recognition by the British Government of the virtue and necessity of primary education has met with some response on the part of the literate castes, but it is chiefly in the direction of academic utterances, which cannot, in the circumstances, be well avoided. It is welcome too, in its capacity of affording the means of livelihood to many of these castes, as they have to be engaged as teachers, and are bound accordingly to work up to the State standard of efficient tuition. The real interest of the castes in question is centred on secondary education, of which they almost exclusively are in a position to reap the advantage."

The Congress politicians complain that the British are ruling India by a wholesale disarmament of the people of India. But they forget that disarmament of the Shudras and the Untouchables was the rule of law promulgated by the Brahmins. Indeed, so strongly did the Brahmins believe in the disarmament of the Shudras and the Untouchables that when they revised the law to enable the Brahmins to arm themselves for the protection of their own privileges, they maintained the ban on the Shudras and the Untouchables as it was without lessening its rigour. If the large majority of people of India appear today to be thoroughly emasculated, spiritless, with no manliness, it is the result of the Brahmanic policy of wholesale disarmament to which they have been subjected for the untold ages. There is no social evil and no social wrong to which the Brahmin has not given his support. Man's inhumanity to man, such as the feeling of caste, untouchability, unapproachability and unseeability is a religion to him. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that only the wrongs of man are a religion to him. The Brahmin has given his support to some of the worst wrongs that women have suffered from in any part of the world. In India widows were burnt alive as suttees and the Brahmin gave his fullest support to the practice. Widows were not allowed to remarry. The Brahmins upheld the doctrine. Girls were required to be married before 8 and the husbands were permitted to claim the right to consummate the marriage at any time thereafter whether she had reached puberty or not. The Brahmin defended the system. The record of the Brahmins as law givers for the Shudras, for the Untouchables and for women is the blackest as compared with the record of the intellectual classes in other parts of the world, For no intellectual class has prostituted its intelligence for the sole purpose of inventing a philosophy to keep his uneducated countrymen in a perpetual state of servility, ignorance and poverty as the Brahmins have done in India. Every Brahmin to-day believes in this philosophy of Brahmanism propounded by his forefathers. He is an alien element in the Hindu Society. The Brahmin vis-a-vis the Shudras and the Untouchables is as foreign as the German is to the French, as the Jew is to the Gentile or as the White is to the Negro. There is a real gulf between him and the lower classes of Shudras and Untouchables. He is not only alien to them but he is also hostile to them. In relationship with them, there is in him no room for conscience and no call for justice.

The Bania is the worst parasitic class known to history. In him the vice of money-making is unredeemed by culture or conscience. He is like an undertaker who prospers when there is an epidemic. The only difference between the undertaker and the Bania is that the undertaker does not create an epidemic while the Bania does. He does not use his money for productive purposes. He uses it to create poverty and more poverty by lending money for unproductive purposes. He lives on interest and as he is told by his religion that money-lending is the occupation prescribed to him by the divine Manu, he looks upon money-lending as both right and righteous. With the help and assistance of the Brahmin judge who is ready to decree his suits, the Bania is able to carry on his trade with the greatest ease. Interest, interest on interest, he adds on and on, and thereby draws millions of families perpetually into his net. Pay him as much as he may, the debtor is always in debt. With no conscience to check him there is no fraud, and there is no chicanery which he will not commit. His grip over the nation is complete. The whole of poor, starving, illiterate India is irredeemably mortgaged to the Bania.

In every country there is a governing class. No country is free from it. But is there anywhere in the world a governing class with such selfish, diseased and dangerous and perverse mentality, with such a hideous and infamous philosophy of life which advocates the trampling down of the servile classes to sustain the power and glory of the governing class ? I know of none. It is true that the governing classes in other countries do not readily admit into their society those who do not belong to their class. But they do not refuse admission to those who have risen to their level. Nor do they prevent any person from rising to their level. In India the governing class is a close corporation unwilling to admit anyone who does not belong to it by birth and ready to use every means to prevent the servile classes from rising to their level.

VIII

There was a governing class in France before the French Revolution. There was a governing class in Japan before the seventies of the nineteenth century when Japan decided to modernise its constitution. In both countries the governing classes realising that it was an hour of national crisis decided to shed their ancient rights and privileges in order to make the transition from oligarchy to democracy smooth and easy.

In France, when the Revolution broke out and demanded equality the governing class in France voluntarily came forward to give up its powers and its privileges and to merge itself in the mass of the nation, This is clear from what happened when the States-General was called. The Commons got 600 representatives, while the clergy and the Nobles got 300 each. The question arose how were the 1,200 members to sit, debate and vote. The Commons insisted upon the union of all the estates in one Chamber and ' vote by head.' It was impossible to expect the clergy and the Nobles to accept this position. For it meant the surrender of their most ancient and valuable privileges. Yet a good part of them agreed to the demand of the Commons and gave France a constitution based upon liberty, equality and fraternity.

The attitude of the governing classes in Japan during the period between 1855 to 1870, a period in which the Japanese people were transformed from a feudal society into a modern nation—was even more self-sacrificing than the attitude of the governing classes in France. As students of Japanese history know, there were four classes in Japanese Society: (1) The Damiyos, (2) The Samurai, (3) The Hemin or the Common folk and (4) The Eta or the outcasts, standing one above the other in an order of graded inequality. At the bottom were the Eta numbering a good many thousands. Above the Eta were the Hem in numbering about 25/30 millions. Over them were the Samurai who numbered about 2 millions and who had the power of life and death over the Hemin. At the apex were the Damiyos or the Feudal Barons who exercised sway over the rest of the three classes and who numbered only 300. The Damiyos and the Samurai realised that it was impossible to transform this feudal society with its class composition and class rights into a modern nation with equality of citizenship. Accordingly the Damiyos charged with the spirit of nationalism and anxious not to stand in the way of national unity, came forward to surrender their privileges and to merge themselves in the common mass of people. In a memorial submitted to the Emperor on the 5th March 1869 they said [f.16]  :—

" The Place where we live is the Emperor's land. The food that we eat is grown by the Emperor's men. How then can we claim any property as our own ? We now reverently offer up our possessions and also our followers (Samurai as well as ' common folk ') with the prayer that the Emperor will take good measures for rewarding those to whom reward is due, and for fining such as do not deserve reward. Let imperial orders be issued for altering and remodelling the territories of the various clans. Let the civil and penal codes, the military laws down to the rules for uniform and for the construction of engines of war, all proceed from the Emperor. Let all affairs of the Empire, both great and small, be referred to him."

How does the governing class in India compare in this behalf with the governing class in Japan ? Just the opposite. Unfortunately, the history of the struggle of the servile classes in India against the governing class has not yet been written. But those who know anything about it will know that the governing class in India has no intention of making any sacrifice not even on the altar of Indian Freedom for which it is thirsting. Instead, the governing class is using every means to retain them. For this it is using two weapons. First is the weapon of nationalism. Whenever the servile classes ask for reservations in the legislatures, in the Executive and in Public Services, the governing class raises the cry of ' nationalism in danger.' What are these reservations for ? To put it briefly they are intended to provide floorings below which the governing class will not be able to push down the servile classes in their struggle for existence. There, is nothing sinister and nothing wrong in this demand for reservations. How does the governing class react to them ? It loses no occasion to deprecate them and to ridicule them. People are led to believe that if they are to achieve national freedom, they must maintain unity, that all questions regarding reservations in the Legislatures, Executives and the Public Services are inimical to national unity and that, therefore, for anyone interested in national freedom it is a sin to support-those who ask for such reservation?. "That is the attitude of the governing class in India. It stands in glaring contrast with that of the governing class in Japan. It is a misuse of nationalism. But the governing class does not feel any compunction for such misuse.

The second means employed by the governing class is the writing of the lampoons and parodies calculated to pour ridicule on the demand for reservations. Such lampoons are by no means few and far between. Even the most respectable members of the governing class do not mind indulging in such compositions, Even Dr. R. P. Paranjape, now India's High Commissioner for Australia, who stands for an advanced type of liberalism, could not withstand the temptation of trying his hand in writing such a parody#. Among the parodies composed by members of the governing class his was the most colourful and had, when it appeared, excited the greatest resentment among the servile classes.

#The parody written by Dr. R. P. Paranjape appeared in a magazine called Gujarathi Punch 1m May 1926 under the heading " A Peep into the Future." As a specimen of this class of writing by members of the governing clam it is worth perusal. It is a satire based on certain incidents which are imagined to have occurred under the principle of communal reservation a. as the magazine if not easily available, I reproduce it below with a view to rescue it from oblivion:—

' A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE '

The following extracts are taken from reports of Commissions, records of police courts cases, judicial trials. Council Proceedings, Administration Reports, etc., issued between the year 1930-50 and are published for the exclusive benefit of the reader of the Gujarati Punch.

I

Report of the Royal Commission on the Goverment of India, 1930 :

We have given our closest consideration to the representations made on behalf of several communities in India. Taking the figures of the last census as our basis we can only give an approximate satisfaction to all the claims made before us, for it is not possible to give an absolutely accurate solution to the problem of constructing a machinery of Government unless every single person in the country is made a member thereof, aa the numbers of the several communities do not possess a common measure. We lay down the number 2375 as the fundamental number in the constitution and this number is divided into parts attached to the several communities as shown in the schedule attached to our report. The claims of each community will henceforward be represented by its proper number, and all appointments, memberships of various bodies, and in fact everything in the country will be awarded according to the proportion given in the schedule wherever possible. The Viceroy's Executive Council will consist of 475 members selected as far as may be according to one-fifth the numbers belonging to each community and there members will hold office for one year so that each community will have attained its exact share of membership in five years. There will be 125 Judges in each High Court, each judge holding office for one year, though according to this arrangement, each section will have obtained its exact share only after the lapse of 19 years. The number of other kinds of appointments will be determined on the same basis for the accurate adjustment of all claims.

To allow for the proper functioning of all bodies with these numbers as many existing Government buildings as may be necessary may be pulled down and rebuilt so as to be of the proper size.

II

(Notification of the Government of India, 1932)

In accordance with the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1931. His Majesty the King Emperor has been pleased to appoint the following 475 gentlemen as members of the Executive Council of the Governor-General :

267. Matadin Ramdin (caste Barber) member in charge of the Surgical Branch of the Medical Department.

372. Allabux Peerbux (Mahomedan Camel driver) in charge of the camel transport division of the Army Department.

433. Ramaswamy (caste, Andhra Sweeper) in charge of the road cleaning branch of the P.W.D.

437. Jagannath Bhattacharya (Kulin Brahmin Priest) in charge of the domestic section of the Registration Department.

•                  •                  •

IV

(Letter to all Local Governments, 1934)

In response to a resolution passed by the Legislative Assembly, with which the Government of India are in full agreement, I am directed to say that henceforward every appointment under Government should go by rotation to each community irrespective of the merits of the applicants.

V

(Notification in the Bombay Government Gazette, 1934)

The Government of Bombay will proceed to make the following appointments in December. The applicants for the several appointments should belong to the castes mentioned against each according to the rotation fixed by Government Order No.   , dated November 30th, 1934.

1.      Chief Engineer for Irrigation (Sind) : Kunbi from North Kanara.

2.      Professor of Sanskrit, Elphinstone College, Bombay: Balachi Pathan from Sind.

3.      Commandant of His Excellency's Bodyguard: Marwari from North  Gujarat.

4.      Consulting Architect to Government: Wadari (wandering gypsy) from the Deccan.

5.      Director of Islamic Culture : Karhada Brabmin

6.      Professor of Anatomy : (Grant Modical College) Mahomedan Butcher.

7.      Superintendent of Yeravda. Jail : Ghantichor. 8.   Two organisers of prohibition: Dharala (Kaira District Bhil) (Panch Mahals).

VI

(Report of a Case from the High Court, 1935)

A.B. (caate Teli) was charged with the cold-blooded murder of his father while he was asleep. The judge summing up against the accused, the jury brought in a verdict of guilty. Before passing sentence the judge asked the pleader for the accused if he had to say anything. The pleader, Mr. Bomanji, said he agreed with the verdict but that according to Law the accused could not be sentenced at all, much lew sentenced to death, as during the current year seven Telis had already been convicted and sentenced two of them with death, that several other communities bad not yet reached their quota of convictions as given in the Government of India Act, who the Telis bad already reached theirs. His Lordship accepted the contention of the defence pleader and acquitted the accused.

VII

(Extract from the ' Indian Daily Mail,' 1936)

Annaji Ramchandra (Chitpavan Brahmin) was found wandering in the streets of Poona with a long knife attacking whomsoever he met. When brought up before the Magistrate he was shown by the police to have been recently let off from the Mental Hospital. The Superintendent of the Hospital in his evidence said that Annaji bad been in the hospital as a dangerous insane for three years, but as there was the quota for the Chitpavanas and as the inmates belonging to other communities bad not finished their year-quotas be could not keep him any longer and show any special favouritism to the Chitpavans and he had therefore let him off according to Government Order No. ... in the Medical Department. The Magistrate ordered Annaji to be discharged.

VIII

( Extract from the Report of the Administration of Jails in the Bombay Presidency, 1937)

In spite of every preeaution the numbers in the jails did not eorrespond to the quotas fixed for each community. The Superintendent had already asked for instructions from Government with a view to remedying the discrepancy.

Resolution of Government: Government view with serious displeasure this grave dereliction of duty on the part of the I. G. of prisons. Immediate steps should be taken to arrest and put in jail as many members of the various com munities as are required to bring their quotas up to the proper level. If enough persons required cannot be caught, a sufficient number of in mates should be let off to bring down all to the same level.

IX

(Proceeding of the Legislative Council, 1940)

Mr. Chennappa asked: Has the attention of Government been called to the fact that class list of the recent M.A. Examination in Pali do not show the proper quota for mang-garudis ?

The Hon. Mr. Damn Shroff (Minister of Education) : The University Registrar reports that no candidate from among Mang-garudis offered himself for examination.

Mr. Chennappa: Will Government be pleased to atop this examination until such a candidate offers himself and if the University disobeys the order of Government to take away the University grant and amend the University Act ?

The Hon. Member: Government will be pleased to consider the suggestion favourably. (Cheers).

X

(Extract from ' The Times of India,.' 1942)

The Coroner mr. . . . was suddenly called last evening to inquire into the death of Ramji Sonu at the J. J. Hospital as the result of a surgical operation. Dr. Tanu Pandav (caste Barber) deposed that lie had conducted the operation. He wished to open an abscess in the abdomen but his knife pierced the heart and the patient expired. Asked whether he had ever carried out any operation of this nature before, he said that he was appointed as the principal surgeon to the hospital only one day before as it was then the turn of his community and that he had never held a surgical instrument in his hand before except a razor for shaving. The jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure.

The argument used by the governing classes to oppose the demand of the servile classes for reservations is based on the doctrine of efficiency. To give a patriotic look to the stand taken by the governing classes it is represented that what Indians must aim at is to maintain in India an efficient body politic and that this can be done only by insisting that every place of power and authority should be filled by none but the best man available. It is this argument which seems to impress the foreigner and which makes him a critic if not an adversary of the demand for reservation. It is therefore necessary to examine the validity of the argument and the sincerity of those who use it.

Nobody will have any quarrel with the abstract principle that nothing should be done whereby the best shall be superseded by one who is only better and the better by one who is merely good and the good by one who is bad. But the argument completely fails to carry conviction when in practice one finds that having regard to the historical circumstances of India every time the ' best man ' is chosen he turns out to be a man from the governing class. This may be alright from the point of view of the governing class. But can it be right from the point of view of the servile class ? Could the ' best ' German be the ' best ' for the French ? Could the ' best ' Turk be ' best ' for the Greeks ? Could the ' best ' Pole be regarded ' best ' for the Jews ? There can hardly be any doubt as to the correct answer to these questions.

In answering this question two things cannot be overlooked. One is that a great man is not necessarily a good man. The other is that man is not a mere machine without any feelings. This is even true of the 'best' man. He too is charged with the feelings of class sympathies and class antipathies. Having regard to these considerations the ' best ' man from the governing class may well turn out to be the worst from the point of view of the servile classes.

Mere efficiency can never be accepted as a test. If it was accepted as the only test the result would be that the affairs of the French might well be run by the Germans, of Turks by the Russians and of Chinese by the Japanese. Those who hold out the theory of naked efficiency and nothing but efficiency as the test of good Government should ask the French. The Turks and the Chinese as to what they have to say about it and how they like the result which follows from its application.

Even a simpleton can imagine what answer they are likely to return. I am sure that a theory which produces such a result will be regarded as an absurd one on all hands without exceptions. How then can such a theory be applied to India where the difference between the governing class and the servile class is the same both in degree and in kind as the difference between French and Germans, Turks and Russians or Chinese and Japanese ? The fact is that the governing class in India blinded by self-interest is unmindful of the absurdity of the argument of naked efficiency and being conscious that it has the power to convert its opinion into law does not bother what the servile classes have to say on the point.

The governing class does not bother to inquire into the ways and means by which it has acquired its supremacy. It does not feel the necessity of doing so, partly because it believes that it acquired its supremacy by dint of merit and partly because it believes that no matter how it acquired its power it is enough that it is in a position to dictate its policy on the servile classes. Assuming that the governing class did not find it necessary to examine the ways and means by which it obtained its supremacy what would it find ? Strange as it may seem the governing class has obtained its power by the same system of reservations which it is now opposing on the ground of communalism. Many may find it difficult to accept the truth of this statement. Those who have any doubt need do no more than read the Manu Smriti, the Bible of the Hindus. What will they find in it ? They will find and will no doubt be shocked to know that the Brahmins, the chief and the leading element in the governing class, acquired their political power not by force of intellect—for intellect is nobody's monopoly—but by sheer communalism. According to the Laws of Manu Smriti the post of the Purohit, King's Chaplain and Lord Chancellor, the posts of the Chief Justice and Judges of the High Court and the post of Ministers to the Crown were all reserved for the Brahmins. Even for the post of the Commander-in-Chief the Brahmin was recommended as a fit and a proper person though it was not in terms reserved for him. All the strategic posts having been reserved for the Brahmins it goes without saying that all ministerial posts came to be reserved for the Brahmins. This is not all. The Brahmin was not content with reserving places of profit and power for his class. He knew that mere reservation will not do. He must prevent rivals shooting up from other non-Brahmin communities equally qualified to hold the posts and agitate and blow up the system of reservations. In addition to reserving all executive posts in the State for Brahmins a law was made whereby education was made the monopoly and privilege of Brahmins. As has already been pointed out the law made it a crime for the Shudra, i.e., the lower orders of Hindu Society to acquire learning, the infringement of which was followed by not only heavy but cruel and inhuman punishment such as cutting the tongue of the criminal and filling his ear with hot molten lead. It is true that these reservations do not exist under the British rule. But it must be admitted that though the reservations made by Manu have gone, the advantages derived from their continuance over several centuries have remained. In asking for reservations the servile classes are not asking for anything new or anything extraordinary. The demand for reservation is a demand for protection against the aggressive communalism of the governing class, which wants to dominate the servile class in all fields of life and without imposing on the governing class any such ignominious conditions as was done by the Brahmins for their own aggrandisement and for the perpetuation of their own domination on the Shudra, namely, to make it a crime for the governing class to learn or to acquire property.

This argument of naked efficiency has also to be considered from the point of view of public welfare. It was said by Campbell Bannerman in the course of a debate in the House of Commons on Ireland, that self-government is better than good government. The statement had become so popular in India that it had become more than a mere slogan. It had become a maxim. As it stands the statement is quite absurd. Campbell Bannerman was not contrasting self-government with good government. He was contrasting self-government with efficient government or rather with " resolute government " to use the phrase of his opponent Lord Salisbury. There is no denying that self-government must be good government, otherwise it is not worth having. The question is, how is good government to be had. Some people seem to be under the impression that as self-government is a sovereign government it is bound to result in good government. This is one of the greatest delusions from which most people in dependent countries are suffering. Those who are living in such a delusion had better read what Prof. Dicey has to say on this point. Discussing the question what persons and bodies with full sovereign powers can do Dicey has the following observations to make:—

" The actual exercise of authority by any sovereign whatever and notably by Parliament, is bounded or controlled by two limitations. Of these the one is an external, the other is an internal limitation.

" The external limit to the real power of a sovereign consists in the possibility or certainty that his subjects or a large number of them, will disobey or resist his laws.

" This limitation exists even under the most despotic monarchies. A Roman Emperor, or a French King during the middle of the eighteenth century, was (as is the Russian Czar at the present day) in strictness a ' sovereign ' in the legal sense of that term. He had absolute legislative authority. Any law. made by him was binding, and there was no power in the empire or kingdom which could annul such law . . . But it would be an error to suppose that the most absolute ruler who ever existed could in reality make or change every law at his pleasure . ..

" The authority, that is to say, even of a despot, depends upon the readiness of his subjects or of some portion of his subjects to obey his behests; and this readiness to obey must always be in reality limited. This is shown by the most notorious facts of history. None of the early Caesars could at their pleasure have subverted the worship of fundamental institutions of the Roman world . . . The Sultan could not abolish Mohammedanism. Louis the Fourteenth at the height of his power could revoke the Edict of Nantes, but he would have found it impossible to establish the supremacy of Protestantism, and for the same reason which prevented James the Second from establishing the supremacy of Roman Catholicism . . . What is true of the power of a despot or of the authority of a constituent assembly is specially true of the sovereignty of Parliament; it is limited on every side by the possibility of popular resistance. Parliament might legally tax the Colonies; Parliament might without any breach of law change the succession to the throne or abolish the monarchy ; but everyone knows that in the present state of the world the British Parliament will do none of these things. In each case widespread resistance would result from legislation which. though legally valid, is in fact beyond the stretch of Parliamentary power.

*             *             *

" There is an internal limit to the exercise of sovereign power itself. Even a despot exercises his powers in accordance with his character, which is itself moulded by the circumstances under which he lives, including under that head the moral feelings of the time and the society to which he belongs. The Sultan could not if he would, change the religion of the Mohammedan world, but if he could do so it is in the very highest degree improbable that the head of Mahommedanism should wish to overthrow the religion of Mahomet ; the internal check on the exercise of the Sultan's power is at least as strong as the external limitation. People sometimes ask the idle question why the Pope does not introduce this or that reform ? The true answer is that a revolutionist is not the kind of man who becomes a Pope and that the man who becomes a Pope has no wish to be a revolutionist . . . "

I have already pointed out that it is not enough for the servile classes to be content with the mere fact that their country has become an independent and a sovereign state. It is necessary for them to go further and to find out who are likely to be the instruments of the State, in other words who is going to be the governing class. Dicey's observations and the profound truth which underlies them no one can question—add a further point namely that for good government, ability and efficiency of the governing class are not enough. What is necessary is to have in the governing class the will to do good or to use Dicey's language, freedom from internal limitations arising out of selfish class interests. Efficiency combined with selfish class interests instead of producing good government is far more likely to become a mere engine of suppression of the servile classes.

In selecting the instrumentalities of the State considerations of class bias in the instrumentalities cannot be overlooked. It is in fact fundamental to good government. It is unfortunate that the importance of this fact is not generally recognised even by those who regard themselves as the champions of democracy. Karl Marx was the first to recognise it and take account of it in the administration of the Paris Commune. It is unnecessary to say that it is today the basis of Government in Soviet Russia. The demand for reservations put forth by the servile classes ill India is essentially based upon the same considerations pointed out by Dicey, advocated by Marx and adopted by Russia. Only those who belong to the servile class can be trusted to protect the interest of that class. This consideration is so important that the principle of efficiency cannot be allowed to altogether override it. If the governing class in India stands on the principle of efficiency and efficiency alone it is because it is actuated by the selfish motive of monopolising the instrumentalities of Government.

IX

The foregoing discussion has extended over such length that the foreigner is likely to miss the points which it is intended to bring out. It may therefore be well to assemble them together with a view to underline them.

The main problems, which those desirous of establishing democracy in India must face, are:—(1) the position of the governing class of India, (2) the aims and objects of the governing class towards the servile classes, (8) the raison d'etre of the demands of the servile classes for constitutional safeguards and (4) the relation of the governing class to the Congress.

Regarding the first point the argument is that the position of the governing class in India is quite different from the position of the governing classes in other countries of the world. It is not easy to understand this difference, nor is it easy to state it in expressive terms. Perhaps the illustration of a bar and a hyphen may help to give a clear idea of what the difference is. Nobody can mistake the difference between a hyphen and a bar. A bar divides but does not link, A hyphen does both. It divides but it also links. In India the governing classes and the servile classes are divided by a bar. In other countries there exists between them only a hyphen. The resultant difference is a very crucial one. In other countries, there is a continuous replenishment of the governing class by the incorporation of others who do not belong to it but who have reached the same elevation as the governing class. In India, the governing class is a close corporation in which nobody, not born in it, is admitted. In other countries where the governing class is not a close preserve, where there is social endosmosis between it and the rest, there is a mental assimilation and accommodation which makes the governing class less antagonistic in its composition and less antagonistic to the servile classes in its social philosophy.   In other words, the governing class in countries outside India is not anti-social.  It is only non-social.   In India where the governing class is a close corporation, tradition, social philosophy and social outlook which are antagonistic to the servile classes remain unbroken in their depth and their tenor and the distinction between masters and slaves, between the privileged and the unprivileged continues for ever hard in substance and fast in colour. In other words the governing class in India is not merely non-social. It is positively anti-social.

As to the demand for reservations by the servile classes the reason behind it is to put a limit on the power of the governing classes to have control over the instrumentalities of government. The governing classes are bent on giving the reservations a bad name in order to be able to hang those who are insisting upon them. The real fact is that the reservations are only another name for what the Americans call checks and balances which every constitution must have, if democracy is not to be overwhelmed by the enemies of democracy. That the reservations demanded by the servile classes are different in form from the American sort of checks and balances does not alter their character. The forms of checks and balances must be determined by two considerations. The first is the necessity of establishing a correlation between the political constitution and social institutions of the country if democracy is to be real. As the social institutions of countries differ in their form the checks and balances in its political constitutions must also differ. For instance, where a country is ridden by the caste system the checks and balances will have to be of a different sort from what they need be in a country pervaded by a spirit of social democracy. The second is the necessity of providing a firm flooring to the servile classes against the possibility of their being pressed down by the governing classes by reason of their superior power. In some countries adult suffrage may be quite enough for the servile classes to hold their own against the governing classes. In India unlike other countries the governing class is so omnipotent and omnipresent that other remedies besides adult suffrage will be necessary to give adequate power to the servile classes to protect themselves against exploitation by the governing classes. Looked at in the light of these observations, the reservations demanded by the servile classes, though different in form from the checks and balances embodied in the American Constitution, are fundamentally checks and balances, and must be considered as such by the foreigner before he forms an adverse opinion against them.

The facts bearing on the last point namely the relation of the Congress to the governing classes have also been fully set out. From these facts the foreigner should be able to see how intimate is the connection between the two. The same facts will explain why the governing class in India has placed itself in the vanguard of the Congress movement and why it strives to bring everybody within the Congress fold. To put it briefly the governing class is aware that a political campaign based on class ideology and class conflicts will toll its death knell. It knows that the most effective way of side-tracking the servile classes and fooling them is to play upon the sentiment of nationalism and national unity. It clings to the Congress because it realises that the Congress platform is the only platform that can most effectively safeguard the interest of the governing class. For if there is any platform from which all talk of conflict between rich and poor, Brahmin and non-Brahmin, landlord and tenant, creditor and debtor, which does not suit the governing class, can be effectually banned, it is the Congress platform which is not only bound to preach nationalism and national unity,—this is what the governing class wants, as it is on this that its safety entirely depends—but which prohibits any other ideology inconsistent with nationalism being preached from its platform.

If the foreigner bears in mind these points he will realise why the servile classes of India are not attracted by the Congress brand of Swaraj. What good can the Congress brand of Swaraj bring to them ? They know that under the Congress brand of Swaraj the prospect for them is really very bleak. The Congress brand of Swaraj will either be materialisation of what is called Gandhism or it will be what the governing class would want to make of it. If it is the former it will mean the spread of charkha, village industries, the observance of caste, Brahmacharya (continence), reverence for the cow and things of that sort. If it is left to governing classes to make what it likes of Swaraj the principal item in it will be the suppression of the servile classes by withdrawing the facilities given by the British Government in the matter of education and entry in public services.

Some people hope that under Swaraj there will be a reform of tenancy laws, factory legislation, compulsory primary education, prohibition and construction of roads and canals, improvement of currency, regulation of weights and measures, dispensaries and introduction of other measures for the servile classes. I am not quite sure that these hopes are well-founded. Most people forget that what leads the Congress to-day to mouth such a programme is the desire to show that the Congress is better than the British bureaucracy. But once the bureaucracy is liquidated, will there be the same incentive to better the lot of the masses ? That is the question. Firstly, I entertain very grave doubts as to how far this will materialise. Secondly, there is nothing very great in it. In the world of to-day, no governing class can omit to undertake reforms, which are necessary to maintain society in a civilised state. Apart from this, is social amelioration the be-all and end-all of Swaraj ? Knowing the servile classes as I do that is certainly not the fault of the servile classes. They certainly do not intend to follow the teaching that ' the meek shall eat and be satisfied.' The want and poverty which has been their lot for centuries is nothing to them as compared to the insult and indignity which they have to bear as a result of the vicious social order. Not bread but honour, is what they want. That can happen only when the governing classes disappear and cease to have control over their destiny. The question for the servile classes is not whether this reform or that reform will be undertaken. The question is; Will the governing classes in India having captured the machinery of the State, undertake a programme for the reform of the social order whereby the governing class will be liquidated, as distinguished from a programme of social amelioration ? The answer to this depends upon whether the future constitution of India will be with safeguards or without safeguards for the protection of the servile classes. If it will have safeguards it will be possible for the servile classes to liquidate the governing classes ill course of time. If the constitution is without safeguards the governing class will continue to maintain its dominance over the servile classes. This being the issue, the foreigner should note that the much-advertised representative character of the Congress is absolutely irrelevant. The Congress may be a representative body and the Congress may be the body which is engaged in what is called the Fight for Freedom ; but these things have nothing to do with the decision of the issue. A true lover of democracy before he befriends the Congress will demand that it should produce its blue print of the constitution and be satisfied that its constitution does contain unequivocal and positive provisions for the safety, security for the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the servile classes.

X

The foreigners who take interest in Indian politics fall into two classes. The first class includes those who are travellers and tourists who come * to do ' India for a short while and who are not equipped with a knowledge of the intricacies of the Indian Political problems, the theoretical apparatus to pronounce a correct opinion on the attitude of the different parties to these problems. Those who fall into the second class are the leaders of democratic public opinion such as Louis Fischer in America, KingsIey Martin, Brailsford and Laski whose knowledge and equipment none can question. I would have had no regrets if the foregoing discussion had been called for by the needs of correcting the unthinking bias of the tourists and traveller class of foreigners in favour of the Congress. But unfortunately the same sort of bias is also to be found in those foreigners who fall into the second class.

That there should be foreigners of the tourist sort who cannot understand the intricacies of Indian politics and who therefore support the Congress on no other ground except that which Mr. Pickwick gave to Sam Weller—to shout with the biggest crowd—is quite understandable. But what annoys most is the attitude of the leaders of the British Labour Party, heads of radical and leftist groups in Europe and America, represented by men like Laski, Kingsley Martin, Brailsford and editors of journals like the Nation in America, and the New Statesman in England championing the cause of the oppressed and the suppressed people in other parts of the world. How can these men support the Congress it is difficult to understand. Do they not know that the Congress means the governing class and that the governing class in India is a Brahmin-Bania combine ? That masses arc drawn in the Congress only to be camp followers with no say in the making of Congress policy ? Do they not realise that for the reasons for which the Sultan could not abolish Islam or the Pope could not repudiate Catholicism, the governing class in India will not decree the destruction of Brahmanism and that so long as the governing class remains what it is, Brahmanism, which preaches the supremacy of Brahmins and the allied castes and which recognises the suppression and degradation of the Shudras and the Untouchables as the sacred duty of the State, will continue to be the philosophy of the State even if India became free ? Do they not know that this governing class in India is not a part of the Indian people, is not only completely isolated from them, but believes in isolating itself, lest it should be contaminated by them, has implanted in its mind by reason of the Brahmanic philosophy, motives and interests which are hostile to those who are outside its fold and therefore does not sympathise with the living forces operating in the servile masses whom it has trodden down, is not charged with their wants, their pains, their cravings, their desires, is inimical to their aspirations, does not favour any advance in their education, promotion to high office and disfavours every movement calculated to raise their dignity and their self-respect ? Do they not know that in the Swaraj of India is involved the fate of 60 millions of Untouchables ?

It would be impossible to say that the leaders of the British Labour Party, that Kingsiey Martin, Brailsford and Laski whose writings on liberty and democracy are a source of inspiration to all suppressed people, do not know these facts. Yet if they refer to India, it is always to support the Congress. It is very, very seldom that they arc found to discuss the problem of the Untouchables which ought to make the strongest appeal to all radicals and democrats. Their exclusive attention to Congress activities and their utter neglect of other elements in the national life of India show how misguided they have been. One could well understand their support to the Congress if the Congress was fighting for political democracy. But is it? As every one knows, the Congress is only fighting for national liberty and is not interested in political democracy. The party in India who is fighting for political democracy is the party of the Untouchables who fear that this Congress fight for liberty, if it succeeds, will mean liberty to the strong and the powerful to suppress the weak and the down-trodden unless they are protected by constitutional safeguards. It is they who ought to receive the help of these radical leaders. But the Untouchables have been waiting in vain for all these years even for a gesture of goodwill and support from them. These radicals and leftists in Europe and America have not even cared to know the forces behind the Congress.

Ignorant or unmindful one does not know, but the fact remains that these leftists and radical leaders have been giving blind and unquestioning support to the Congress which admittedly is run by capitalists, landlords, money-lenders and reactionaries, only because the Congress calls its activities by the grandiloquent name of " Fight for Freedom." All battles for freedom are not on equal moral plane for the simple reason that the motives and purposes behind these battles of freedom are not always the same. To take only a, few illustrations from English History. The Barons' Rebellion against John which resulted in the Magna Charta could be called a battle for freedom. But could any democrat in modern times give it the same support which he would give—say to the Levellers' Rebellion or to the Peasants' Revolt in English History, merely because it could logically be described as a battle for freedom ? To do so will be to respond to a false cry of freedom. Such crude conduct would have been forgivable, had it proceeded from groups not intelligent enough to make a distinction between freedom to live and freedom to oppress. But it is quite inexcusable in radical and leftist groups led by Messrs. Laski, Kingsley Martin, Brailsford, Louis Fischer and other well-known champions of democracy.

When pressed to explain why they don't support Indian Parties which stand for true democracy, they arc reported to meet the charge by a counter question. Arc there any such parties in India ? Insist that there arc such parties and they turn round and say: If such parties exist, how is it the Press docs not report their activities ? When told that the Press is a Congress Press, they retort: How is it that the foreign correspondents of the English Papers do not report them ? I have shown why nothing better can be expected from these foreign correspondents. The Foreign Press Agency in India is not better than the Indian Press. Indeed it cannot be better. There are in India what are called foreign correspondents. In a large majority of cases they are Indians. Only a very few are foreigners. The selection of Indians as foreign correspondents is so made that they are almost always from the Congress camp. The foreign correspondents who arc foreigners fall into two groups. If they are Americans they are just Anti-British and for that reason pro-Congress. Any political party in India which is not madly anti-British does not interest them. Those who are not in the Congress will testify how hard it was for them to persuade the American War Correspondents who trooped into this country in 1941-42, even to entertain the possibility of the Congress not being the only party, much less to induce them to interest themselves? In other political parties. It took a long time before they recovered their sanity and when they did, they either abused the Congress as an organisation led by impossible men or just lost interest in Indian politics. They never got interested in other political parties in India and never cared to understand their point of view. The situation is no better in the case of foreign correspondents who arc Britishers. They too arc interested only in that kind of politics which is first and foremost anti-British. They are uninterested in those political parties in India whose foremost concern is to make a free India safe for democracy. The result is that the foreign press provides the same kind of news about Indian politics, as does the Indian Press.

These reasons cannot be beyond the ken of these radicals. Correspondents or no correspondents, is it not the duty of radicals to keep in touch with their kindred in other parts of the world to encourage them, to help them and to see that true democracy lives everywhere ? It is a most unfortunate thing that the Radicals of England and America should have forgotten the class to whom they owe a duty to help and have become the publicity agents of Indian Tories who are just misusing the slogan of liberty to be fool and befog the world.

The sooner they get out of this fog created by the Congress and realise that democracy and self-government in India cannot be real unless freedom has become the assured possession of all, the better for them and the better for the people of India. But if they persist in giving their blind support to the Congress on the basis of an empty slogan without examining its relation to facts and intentions, I for one will have no hesitation in saying that far from being the friends of India they arc a positive menace to the freedom of the Indian masses. It is a pity that they do not seem to distinguish the case of a tyrant who is held down and who pleads for liberty because he wants to regain his right to oppress and the case of an oppressed class seeking to be free from the oppression of the tyrant. In their hurry to bring freedom to India they have no time to realise that by siding with the Congress what they are doing is not to make India safe. for democracy but to free the tyrant to practise his tyrannies, Is it necessary to tell them that to support Congress is to let tyranny have freedom to enslave ? It is to save their own reputation as the champions of the oppressed and suppressed classes that they should reconsider their attitude towards the Congress.