Sir, no section of the Indian people will welcome this Constitution more enthusiastically than the members of the Scheduled Castes of this country for the reason that this Constitution has made a provision of the abolition of untouchability and thereby enabled the Harijans to live like human beings in the country. Sir, I being a member of the Scheduled Castes welcome this Constitution whole heartedly. Sir, you also know that untouchability is a curse on the Hindu society, and seven crores of the people of this country have been treated or are being treated like dogs and cats by their caste Hindu brethren. They have been segregated for the last so many centuries. When the agitation for India’s independence intensified, leaders like Pandit Motilal Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai, Lokmanya Tilak, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Babu Subhas Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi, Babu Rajendra Prasad, Rajaji and others found that there can be no freedom for India without removing untouchability from the Hindu society. When India became formally independent on the 15th August 1947, I remember, Sir, that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who in my judgment is the greatest custodian of that independence who deserves the unstilted gratitude of this house and of the country for the most magnificent work he did in bring all the States into the Indian Union, said on some occasion that India’s hard-won independence cannot be preserved if untouchability is continued. So also I remember that our veteran Leader Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, said on an important occasion that the foreign countries blamed India only because it observes untouchability. Sir, the social workers and the religious workers and even the political workers of this country worked very hard for removing this untouchability but they could not succeed. So also the social and political workers, leaders amongst the Scheduled Castes like Rao Bahadur Srinivasan, Virratna Devidasji, Jatas Sant Chockamela, Bhakta Ravi Das, P.N. Bhatkar, Kishan Fagoo Bansode, G. A. Gavai, Mahatma Kalicharan Nandagaoli, Umaji Gujaba Khandekar, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Muniswamy Pillay, E. Kannan, B.C. Mandal, Narayan Dhanaji Bhosle, Mrs. Venubai Bhatkar, Sambhaji Godghate, R. B. Matte, Antooji Bhagat, Diwan Bahadur M. C. Rajah, my humble self and many others in the country worked hard for years together to get rid of untouchability, but it is not removed. But we could only succeed to the extent to make the Harijans feel that they too are human beings. This country was being governed for ages together by the law of Manu and you know, Sir, what are the effects of this law on this country. Varnas were crated, castes within castes were formed and even one caste could not see the face of other caste. The untouchables according to the law of Manu were to go and settle outside a village or a town and that too in the east. Even today, Sir, if you minutely see the situation of villages and towns, the houses of untouchables will be found in the east. What of that? We untouchables, at the time called Sudras, were not allowed to name our children according to our wishes. In Manu Smriti there is a sloka: “Mangalam Brahmanasya syat Kshatriasya Balanvitam vaishyasya Dhansaiyukte shudrasya Too jugupsitam“. If we Sudras, today’s Harijans, were to name our children according to our wishes we were not allowed to name them like Jawaharlal Brahmadatta and so on but we could use only names that are jugupsitam which means Nanda janak and this was the law of Manu. Now today, Sir, we are enacting a law of Independent India under the genius of Dr. Ambedkar, the President of the Drafting Committee. If I may do so, Sir, I call this Constitution the Mahar law because Dr. Ambedkar is a Mahar and now when we inaugurate this constitution on the 26th of January 1950 we shall have the law of Manu replaced by the law of Mahar and I hope that unlike the law of Manu under which there was never a prosperity in the country the Mahar law will make India virtually a paradise. Well Sir, even the social, political and religious reformers in the country like Gautama Buddha, Ramanuja, Kabir, Sant Tukaram, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Paramahamsa, Mahatma Joti Rao Fulley, Vithal Ramji Shinde, Thakkar Bapa and last but not the least, Mahatma Gandhi, found it very difficult to get rid of this ghost of untouchability. They agitated in the country but they did not succeed. Now, Sir, we have embodied an article No. 17 in this Constitution to remove untouchability and I am sure that untouchability will be removed, but I have seen Act for removing untouchability in the Provinces, the Temple Entry Act and the Removal of disabilities Acts passed by the different Provinces in this country. What is the effect of these laws? Not an inch of untouchability has been removed by these laws and, therefore, if this law of removing untouchability remains in the book of Constitution, itself, I do not think that untouchability will be removed. If at all the ghost of untouchability or the stigma of untouchability from India should go the minds of these crores and crores of Hindu folks should be changed and unless their hearts are changed, I do not hope, Sir, that untouchability will be removed. It is now up to the Hindu society not to observe untouchability in any shape or form. My honourable Friend, Mr. Ranga in his speech the other day said that he is an optimist and he is sure that untouchability and even the name Scheduled Caste will be removed, from India within ten years’ time. Well, he may be an optimist. I am not. But I am a practical man. Being an untouchable I know the difficulties of untouchables. I am an untouchable (Interruption); I have got into practical knowledge of untouchability and I can say that it cannot be removed within ten years if the Hindu community is not sincere. It will take, in my opinion, very many years because the hearts of the Hindu society are not changed. I have got so many instances, but I have very little time at my disposal and therefore, I do not want to go into details but I can only say to my honourable Friend, Prof. Ranga that making speeches in the Assembly will not remove untouchability. He should go in the country from corner to corner and preach to the Hindu society and change the minds of that society to his views and then and then only untouchability has a chance to be removed. Mr. Ranga also said in his speech the other day that he is fortunate in having got the Andhra Province but I am unfortunate for not having got the separate province for the Marathi speaking people of Maharashtra.
