SPEECH PREPARED BY Dr. B.R. AMBEDKAR
FOR
The 1936 Annual Conference of the Jaat-Paat-Todak Mandal of Lahore
BUT
NOT DELIVERED
Owing to the cancellation of the Conference by the Reception Committee on the ground that the views expressed in the Speech would be unbearable to the Conference
Some have
dug a biological trench in defence of the Caste System. It is said that the
object of Caste was to preserve purity of race and purity of blood. Now
ethnologists are of opinion that men of pure race exist nowhere and that there
has been a mixture of all races in all parts of the world. Especially is this
the case with the people of India. Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar in his paper on Foreign
Elements in the Hindu Population has stated that “There is hardly a class,
or Caste in India which has not a foreign strain in it. There is an admixture
of alien blood not only among the warrior classes—the Rajputs and the
Marathas—but also among the Brahmins who are under the happy delusion that they
are free from all foreign elements.” The Caste system cannot be said to have
grown as a means of preventing the admixture of races or as a means of
maintaining purity of blood. As a matter of fact Caste system came into being
long after the different races of India had commingled in blood and culture. To
hold that distinctions of Castes or really distinctions of race and to treat
different Castes as though they were so many different races is a gross
perversion of facts. What racial affinity is there between the Brahmin of the
Punjab and the Brahmin of Madras? What racial affinity is there between the
untouchable of Bengal and the untouchable of Madras? What racial difference is
there between the Brahmin of the Punjab and the Chamar of the Punjab? What
racial difference is there between the Brahmin of Madras and the Pariah of
Madras? The Brahmin of the Punjab is racially of the same stock as the Chamar
of the Punjab and the Brahmin of Madras is of the same race as the Pariah of
Madras. Caste system does not demarcate racial division. Caste system is a
social division of people of the same race. Assuming it, however, to be a case
of racial divisions one may ask: What harm could there be if a mixture of races
and of blood was permitted to take place in India by intermarriages between
different Castes? Men are no doubt divided from animals by so deep a
distinction that science recognizes men and animals as two distinct species.
But even scientists who believe in purity of races do not assert that the
different races constitute different species of men. They are only varieties of
one and the same species. As such they can interbreed and produce an offspring
which is capable of breeding and which is not sterile. An immense lot of
nonsense is talked about heredity and eugenics in defence of the Caste System.
Few would object to the Caste System if it was in accord with the basic
principle of eugenics because few can object to the improvement of the race by
judicious mating. But one fails to understand how the Caste System secures
judicious mating. Caste System is a negative thing. It merely prohibits persons
belonging to different Castes from intermarrying. It is not a positive method of
selecting which two among a given Caste should marry. If Caste is eugenic in
origin then the origin of sub-Castes must also be eugenic. But can anyone seriously
maintain that the origin of sub-Castes is eugenic? I think it would be absurd
to contend for such a proposition and for a very obvious reason.
If Caste
means race then differences of sub-Castes cannot mean differences of race
because sub-Castes become ex hypothesia sub-divisions of one and the
same race. Consequently the bar against intermarrying and interdining between
sub-Castes cannot be for the purpose of maintaining purity of race or of blood.
If sub-Castes cannot be eugenic in origin there cannot be any substance in the
contention that Caste is eugenic in origin. Again if Caste is eugenic in origin
one can understand the bar against intermarriage. But what is the purpose of
the interdict placed on interdining between Castes and sub-Castes alike?
Interdining cannot infect blood and therefore cannot be the cause either of the
improvement or of deterioration of the race. This shows that Caste has no
scientific origin and that those who are attempting to give it an eugenic basis
are trying to support by science what is grossly unscientific. Even today
eugenics cannot become a practical possibility unless we have definite
knowledge regarding the laws of heredity. Prof. Batcson in his Mendel’s
Principles of Heredity says, “There is nothing in the descent of the higher
mental qualities to suggest that they follow any single system of transmission.
It is likely that both they and the more marked developments of physical powers
result rather from the coincidence of numerous factors than from the possession
of any one genetic element.” To argue that the Caste System was eugenic in its
conception is to attribute to the forefathers of present-day Hindus a knowledge
of heredity which even the modern scientists do not possess. A tree should be
judged by the fruits it yields. If caste is eugenic what sort of a race of men
it should have produced? Physically speaking the Hindus are a C3 people. They
are a race of Pygmies and dwarfs stunted in stature and wanting in stamina. It
is a nation 9/10ths of which is declared to be unfit for military service. This
shows that the Caste System does not embody the eugenics of modern scientists.
It is a social system which embodies the arrogance and selfishness of a perverse
section of the Hindus who were superior enough in social status to set it in fashion
and who had authority to force it on their inferiors.
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