Ranade, Gandhi And Jinnah - Speech By Dr. B. R. Ambedkar - Part 1

RANADE, GANDHI AND JINNAH

Address delivered on the 101st Birthday Celebration of

MAHADEO GOVIND RANADE

held on the 18th January 1943 in the Gokhale Memorial Hall, Poona

First Published : 1943

Reprinted from the first edition of 1943

I

I must tell you that I am not very happy over this invitation. My fear is that I may not be able to do justice to the occasion. When a year ago the Centenary of Ranade’s Birthday was celebrated in Bombay, the Rt. Hon’ble Srinivas Shastri was chosen to speak. For very many reasons he was well-qualified for performing the duty. He can claim to be a contemporary of Ranade for a part of his life. He had seen him at close range and was an eye witness of the work to which Ranade devoted his life. He had opportunity to judge him and compare him with his co-workers. He could therefore expound his views about Ranade with a sense of confidence and with intimacy born out of personal touch. He could cite an anecdote and illuminate the figure of Ranade before his audience. None of these qualifications are available to me. My connection with Ranade is of the thinnest. I had not even seen him. There are only two incidents about Ranade which I can recall. First relates to his death. I was a student in the first standard in the Satara High School. On the 16th January 1901 the High School was closed and we boys had a holiday. We asked why it was closed and we were told that because Ranade was dead. I was then about 9 years old. I knew nothing about Ranade, who he was, what he had done ; like other boys I was happy over the holiday and did not care to know who died. The second incident which reminds me of Ranade is dated much later than the first. Once I was examining some bundles of old papers belonging to my father when I found in them a paper which purported to be a petition sent by the Commissioned and non-Commissioned officers of the Mahar Community to the Government of India against the orders issued in 1892 banning the recruitment of the Mahars in the Army. On inquiry I was told that this was a copy of a petition which was drafted by Ranade to help the aggrieved Mahars to obtain redress. Beyond these two incidents I have nothing to recall of Ranade. My knowledge about him is wholly impersonal. It is derived from what I have read about his work and what others have said about him. You must not expect me to say anything of a personal character which will either interest, you or instruct you. I propose to say what I think of him as a public-man in his days and his place in Indian politics today.