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:: page 15 ::
Shahu never believed in infiltration theory in education,
Shahu’s rejoinder to Kesari’s editorial calling for
airy school buildings is remarkable because it echoes
prophetically the truth of the economic and social justice
which we are anxious to implement with a constitutional
pledge.
Shahu said: “ The Kesari’s argument to extend the school
building and to make them airy before making education
compulsory would irritate any honest person. ‘No cake to a few
until all are served with bread’ is the principle of the
British Labour Party. In India 90 per cent people are starving
while 10 per cent are feasting. Those who urge that ghee be
provided to those who are feasting before any condiments are
served to those who are starving, strangely betrayed their
anxiety to the masses. I fail to understand how people are not
ashamed to give expression to such damnable utterances in
newspapers in public, that Legislative Councils are not places
for the Lingayats and the Jains to exhibit their skills in
holding the grocer’s pair of scales or for the farmers to show
their skill in ploughing.”
How uncannily economic this utterance sounds today when we
find that an eminent economist Prof. Gunnar Myrdal
strongly propounds in his great study Asian Drama That the “control
of education is the mot fundmental monopoly element in an
inequalitarian social stratification.” Institutional and
social reform as a condition precedent for economic and
political reform is the thesis of Myrdal. Shahu had acted upon
the same premises as early as at the dawn of the 20th century
and we could still take an instructive lesson from Shahu’s
great concern for ‘immediatism ‘ to deal with such social
evils as untouchability and educational backwardness.
It is in this context, that I feel that the great utterance of
Shahu at the All India Conference of the Untouchable
Classes at Nagpur on February 16,1922 needs to e studied
by everone concerned with administration and the
implementation of our most urgent socio-economic and legal
programmes as adumbrated in the 20 Point Economic Programme,
Shahu said:
“ I am convinced that these peoples are not devoid of
natural ability . What they are in need of is the opportunity.
If proof be wanted there is not paucity thereof. The eminence
to which Matang, Tuk, Parashar, Vasishtha., Chokhamela were
raised and other sages who were born in low communities
sufficiently bears out the above statement. Not long before,
we find even in advanced country like England people were
granted the diploma of Barrister merely by dining a certain
number of days in the inns of court. Even men, non
matriculated Indian, availed themselves of this opportunity .
But these dinner barristers were deemed fit to conduct cases
in any court of law, and it will be admitted this class has
produced many noteworthy lawyers. Our high class people feel
it disrespectful to raise the status as I have done by giving
diplomas to the members of the untouchable community, but this
is a mistake. To wait for equality of treatment till their
educational qualifications are raised, cannot be preferred to
the policy of immediate action to end the fearless and
thoughtless social tyranny which cannot be matched anywhere on
his earth. Immediatism is the only successful way, that is my
firm belief. I do not wish to follow the way of those
reformers who would delay indefinitely an action in favour of
social because that gives offence to the older folks. The
enlightened mind of the country is agreed on the evils of the
caste systems. The only question is who should begin the work
of abolition.”
How far-seeing Shahu’s conception of immediatism was in
educational reform and innovation in legal systems by giving
practicing diplomas to deserving untouchables , can be seen by
the fact that the London ‘ Observer ’ in its editorial
‘Wings on the Green’(February 15,1976) commented on an MP’s
demand in the British Parliament” to end the monopoly of
lawyers as advocates and allow a party to be represented by
anyone, competent to help him, present his case. The editorial
said : “Many people in Britan, perhaps most, regard the law as
an enemy rather than a friend. That ought to worry lawyers,
politicians and rest of us, since respect for the rule of law
goes to the heart of a democratic society… For Britain has at
present a legal systems which often looks as anachronistic as
its wigs and gowns: a systems in which solicitors are
plentiful in well to do areas and inaccessible in less
fashionable districts: in which the law appears suited only to
the property rights of the middle class, but oblivious of the
new problems of the poorer and less well educated
people…Sooner rather than later, the legal system must be made
to appear less like a bastion of privilege, more like a
defender of us ali.”
... Continued
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