B R Ambedkar Quotes

Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic.

Though, I was born a Hindu, I solemnly assure you that I will not die as a Hindu

A just society is that society in which ascending sense of reverence and descending sense of contempt is dissolved into the creation of a compassionate society

In the Hindu religion, one can[not] have freedom of speech. A Hindu must surrender his freedom of speech. He must act according to the Vedas. If the Vedas do not support the actions, instructions must be sought from the Smritis, and if the Smritis fail to provide any such instructions, he must follow in the footsteps of the great men. He is not supposed to reason. Hence, so long as you are in the Hindu religion, you cannot expect to have freedom of thought

the outcaste is a bye-product of the caste system. There will be outcastes as long as there are castes. Nothing can emancipate the outcaste except the destruction of the caste system.

Democracy is not merely a form of Government...It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen.

The Hindus criticise the Mahomedans for having spread their religion by the use of the sword. They also ridicule Christianity on the score of the Inquisition. But really speaking, who is better and more worthy of our respect—the Mahomedans and Christians who attempted to thrust down the throats of unwilling persons what they regarded as necessary for their salvation, or the Hindu who would not spread the light, who would endeavour to keep others in darkness, who would not consent to share his intellectual and social inheritance with those who are ready and willing to make it a part of their own make-up? I have no hesitation in saying that if the Mahomedan has been cruel, the Hindu has been mean; and meanness is worse than cruelty.

In 1931, when Ambedkar met Gandhi for the first time, Gandhi questioned him about his sharp criticism of the Congress (which, it was assumed, was tantamount to criticising the struggle for the Homeland). “Gandhiji, I have no Homeland,” was Ambedkar’s famous reply. “No Untouchable worth the name will be proud of this land.”61

I refuse to join with them in performing the miracle—I will not say trick—of liberating the oppressed with the gold of the tyrant, and raising the poor with the cash of the rich.

Once you clear the minds of the people of this misconception and enable them to realise that what they are told is religion is not religion, but that it is really law, you will be in a position to urge its amendment or abolition.

I do not know whether you draw a distinction between principles and rules. But I do... Rules are practical; they are habitual ways of doing things according to prescription. But principles are intellectual; they are useful methods of judging things... The principle may be wrong, but the act is conscious and responsible. The rule may be right, but the act is mechanical. A religious act may not be a correct act, but must at least be a responsible act. To permit this responsibility, religion must mainly be a matter of principles only. It cannot be a matter of rules. The moment it degenerates into rules it ceases to be religion, as it kills the responsibility which is the essence of a truly religious act.

Religion, social status, and property are all sources of power and authority which one man has, to control the liberty of another

Every Congressman who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is not fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.

Nothing is infallible. Nothing is binding forever. Everything is subject to inquiry and examination.

Dalit aspirations are a breach of peace. Annihilation of Caste is a breach of peace.

Caste is another name for control. Caste puts a limit on enjoyment. Caste does not allow a person to transgress caste limits in pursuit of his enjoyment. That is the meaning of such caste restrictions as inter-dining and inter-marriage … These being my views I am opposed to all those who are out to destroy the Caste System.57

To the 'Untouchables', Hinduism is a veritable chamber of horrors. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar (Writings and Speeches, Volume: 9, pg: 296)

Caste has however done one thing. It has completely disorganized and demoralized the Hindus.

The path of social reform like the path to heaven at any rate in India, is strewn with many difficulties. Social reform in India has few friends and many critics.

In my opinion, it is only when Hindu society becomes a casteless society that it can hope to have strength enough to defend itself. Without such internal strength, swaraj for Hindus may turn out to be only a step towards slavery.

To leave inequality between class and class, between sex and sex, which is the soul of Hindu society, and to go on passing legislation relating to economic problems is to make a farce of our Constitution and to build a palace on a dung heap.”70

You must not only discard the Shastras, you must deny their authority, as did Buddha and Nanak. You must have courage to tell the Hindus that what is wrong with them is their religion—the religion which has produced in them this notion of the sacredness of Caste. Will you show that courage?

How many generations of ours have worn themselves out by rubbing their foreheads on the steps of the god? But when did the god take pit on you? What big thing has he done for you? Generation after generation, you have been used to clean the village of its garbage and god gave you the dead animals to eat. In spite of all that, god did not show you any pity. It is not this god that you worship, it is your ignorance.

While I am prepared to bear with the imperfections and shortcomings of the society in which I may be destined to labour, I feel I should not consent to live in a society which cherishes wrong ideals, or a society which, having right ideals, will not consent to bring its social life into conformity with those ideals.

I am convinced that the real remedy is intermarriage. Fusion of blood can alone create the feeling of being kith and kin, and unless this feeling of kinship, of being kindred, becomes paramount, the separatist feeling—the feeling of being aliens—created by caste will not vanish.

Plato had no perception of the uniqueness of every individual, of his incommensurability with others, of each individual as forming a class of his own. He had no recognition of the infinite diversity of active tendencies, and the combination of tendencies of which an individual is capable.

You must abolish your slavery yourselves. Do not depend for its abolition upon god or a superman. Remember that it is not enough that a people are numerically in the majority. They must be always watchful, strong and self-respecting to attain and maintain success.We must shape our course ourselves and by ourselves.

Pakistan is merely another manifestation of a cultural unit demanding freedom for the growth of its own distinctive culture.

Any Government which denied this elementary right of freedom of speech and freedom of action did not deserve allegiance from the people.

Everything, you see, is impermanent.

Siddharth Gautama rose in his seat and said, "I oppose this resolution. War does not solve any question. Waging war will not serve our purpose. It will sow the seeds of another war. The slayer gets a slayer in his turn; the conqueror gets one who conquers him; a man who despoils is despoiled in his turn.

no civilized society of today presents more survivals of primitive times than does the Indian society. Its religion is essentially primitive and its tribal code, in spite of the advance of time and civilization, operates in all its pristine vigour even today.

Asceticism he found to be useless. It was vain to attempt to escape from the world. There is no escape from the world even for an ascetic. He realised that what is necessary is not escape from the world. What is necessary is to change the world and to make it better.

The saints have never according to my study carried on a campaign against. Caste and Untouchability. They were not concerned with the struggle between men. They were concerned with the relation between man and God. They did not preach that all men were equal. They preached that all men were equal, in the eyes of God a very different and a very innocuous proposition which nobody can find difficult to preach or dangerous to believe in.

Hinduism is not interested in the common man. Hinduism is not interested in Society as a whole. The centre of its interest lies in a class and its philosophy is concerned in sustaining and supporting the rights of that class.

To leave inequality between class and class, between sex and sex, which is the soul of Hindu society, and to go on passing legislation relating to economic problems is to make a farce of our constitution and to build a palace on a dung heap

The protagonists of chaturvarnya do not seem to have considered what is to happen to women in their system. Are they also to be divided into four classes, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra? Or are they to be allowed to take the status of their husbands? If the status of the woman is to be the consequence of marriage, what becomes of the underlying principle of chaturvarnya—namely, that the status of a person should be based upon the worth of that person? If they are to be classified according to their worth, is their classification to be nominal or real?

These will suffice to show that the emancipation of the mind and the soul is a necessary preliminary for the political expansion of the people.

On the other hand, every Hindu is taught to believe that his civilisation is not only the most ancient but that it is also in many respects altogether unique.

B.R. Ambedkar believed the tale was not so much about Ram’s character as it was about the unsustainability of the caste system that needed violence for its enforcement.

There can thus be no manner of doubt that the Muslim Society in India is afflicted by the same social evils as afflict the Hindu Society. Indeed, the Muslims have all the social evils of the Hindus and something more. That something more is the compulsory system of purdah for Muslim women. As a consequence of the purdah system a segregation of the Muslim women is brought about. The

The fallacy of the socialists lies in supposing that because in the present stage of European society property as a source of power is predominant, the same is true of India, or the same was true of Europe in the past. Religion, social status, and property are all sources of power and authority which one man has to control the liberty of another. One is predominant at one stage; the other is predominant at another stage. That is the only difference. If liberty is the ideal, and if liberty means the destruction of the dominion which one man holds over another, then obviously it cannot be insisted upon that economic reform must be the one kind of reform worthy of pursuit. If the source of power and dominion is, at any given time or in any given society, social and religious, then social reform and religious reform must be accepted as the necessary sort of reform.

But once a missionary religion, Hinduism perforce ceased to be a missionary religion after the time when the Hindu society developed its system of castes. For, caste is incompatible with conversion.

There is no doubt, in my opinion, that unless you change your social order you can achieve little by way of progress. You cannot mobilize the community either for defence or for offence. You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole.

योsवमन्येत ते मूले हेतुशास्त्राश्रयात् द्विजः । स साधुभिर्बहिष्कार्यो नास्तिको वेदनिन्दकः ।। According to this rule, rationalism as a canon of interpreting the Vedas and Smritis, is absolutely condemned. It is regarded to be as wicked as atheism and the punishment provided for it is ex-communication.

For myself I shall find as much pleasure in a positive destruction of my own ideology, as in a rational disagreement on a topic, which, notwithstanding many learned disquisitions is likely to remain controversial forever.

Under the rule of the Peshwas in the Maratha country,11 the Untouchable was not allowed to use the public streets if a Hindu was coming along, lest he should pollute the Hindu by his shadow. The Untouchable was required to have a black thread either on his wrist or around his neck, as a sign or a mark to prevent the Hindus from getting themselves polluted by his touch by mistake. In Poona, the capital of the Peshwa, the Untouchable was required to carry, strung from his waist, a broom to sweep away from behind himself the dust he trod on, lest a Hindu walking on the same dust should be polluted. In Poona, the Untouchable was required to carry an earthen pot hung around his neck wherever he went—for holding his spit, lest his spit falling on the earth should pollute a Hindu who might unknowingly happen to tread on it.

Every profession in India is regulated. Engineers must show proficiency, Doctor must show proficiency, Lawyers must show proficiency, before they are allowed to practise their professions. During the whole of their career, they must not only obey the law of the land, civil as well as criminal, but they must also obey the special code of morals prescribed by their respective professions. The priest's is the only profession where proficiency is not required. The profession of a Hindu priest is the only profession which is not subject to any code....All this becomes possible among the Hindus because for a priest it is enough to be born in a priestly caste. The whole thing is abominable and is due to the fact that the priestly class among Hindus is subject neither to law nor to morality. It recognizes no duties. It knows only of rights and privileges. It is a pest which divinity seems to have let loose on the masses for their mental and moral degradation.

The Hindus accuse the Muslims of contumacy. The Muslims accuse Hindus of meanness. Both, however, forget that the communal problem exists not because the Muslims are extravagant and insolent in their demands and the Hindus are mean and grudging in their concessions. It exists and will exist wherever a hostile majority is brought face to face against a hostile minority.

B. R. Ambedkar in his 1941 book Thoughts on Pakistan had urged that Indian nationalists should not object to the idea of Pakistan, because India would, he argued, be much better off with a “safe army” in which Punjabis were no longer so dominant (Ambedkar 1941, 93).

Social war has been raging between the strong and the weak far more violently in Europe than it has ever been in India. Yet, the weak in Europe has had in his freedom of military service his physical weapon, in suffering his political weapon and in education his moral weapon. These three weapons for emancipation were never withheld by the strong from the weak in Europe. All these weapons were, however, denied to the masses in India by Chaturvarnya. There cannot be a more degrading system of social organization than the Chaturvarnya.

I measure the progress of the community by the degree of progress that women had achieved. Let every girl who marries stand by her husband, claim to be her husband’s friend and equal, and refuse to be his slave. I am sure if you follow this advice, you will bring honour and glory to yourselves.

He that will not reason is a bigot. He that cannot reason is a fool. He that dare not reason is a slave—H. Drummonda

In the Dhammapada the Buddha says: "There is no greater benefit than. health, and there is nothing more valuable than the spirit of contentment.

In the fight for swaraj you fight with the whole nation on your side. In this, you have to fight against the whole nation—and that too, your own.

Nationalism is an irrational instinct, if not a positive hallucination, and the sooner humanity got rid of it the better for all.

Religion, social status and property are all sources of power and authority, which one man has, to control the liberty of another.

Now the first thing that is to be urged against this view is that the caste system is not merely a division of labour. It is also a division of labourers56.

Being born in the untouchable community, I deem it my first duty to strive for its interests and my duty to India as a whole is secondary.

Nationality is a social feeling. It is a feeling of a corporate sentiment of oneness which makes those who are charged with it feel that they are kith and kin. This national feeling is a double edged feeling. It is at once a feeling of fellowship for one’s own kith and kin and an anti-fellowship feeling for those who are not one’s own kith and kin. It is a feeling of “consciousness of kind” which on the one hand binds together those who have it, so strongly that it over-rides all differences arising out of economic conflicts or social gradations and, on the other, severs them from those who are not of their kind. It is a longing not to belong to any other group. This is the essence of what is called a nationality and national feeling.

as long as caste in India does exist, Hindus will hardly intermarry or have any social intercourse with outsiders ; and if Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem.

The saints have never, according to my study, carried on a campaign against caste and untouchability. They were not concerned with the struggle between men. They were concerned with the relation between man and god. They did not preach that all men were equal. They preached that all men were equal in the eyes of god - a very different and a very innocuous proposition, which nobody can find difficult to preach or dangerous to believe in.

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 a man who becomes a Pope has no wish to be a revolutionist.

The Hindus hold to the sacredness of the social order. Caste has a divine basis. You must therefore destroy the sacredness and divinity with which Caste has become invested. In the last analysis, this means you must destroy the authority of the Shastras and the Vedas.

It must be recognized that the Hindus observed caste not because they are inhuman or wrong-headed. They observed Caste because they are deeply religious. People are not wrong in observing Caste. In my view, what is wrong is their religion, which has inculcated this notion of caste.

The Musalman, remaining faithful to his religion, has not progressed; he has remained stationary in a world of swiftly moving modern forces. It is, indeed, one of the salient features of Islam that it immobilizes in their native barbarism, the races whom it enslaves. It is fixed in a crystallization, inert and impenetrable. It is unchangeable; and political, social or economic changes have no repercussion upon it. " Having been taught that outside Islam there can be no safety; outside its law no truth and outside its spiritual message there is no happiness, the Muslim has become incapable of conceiving any other condition than his own, any other mode of thought than the Islamic thought. He firmly believes that he has arrived at an unequalled pitch of perfection; that he is the sole possessor of true faith, of the true doctrine, the true wisdom ; that he alone is in possession of the truth—no relative truth subject to revision, but absolute truth. " The religious law of the Muslims has had the effect of imparting to the very diverse individuals of whom the world is composed, a unity of thought, of feeling, of ideas, of judgement.

Untouchability shuts all doors of opportunities for betterment in life for Untouchables. It does not offer an Untouchable any opportunity to move freely in society; it compels him to live in dungeons and seclusion; it prevents him from educating himself and following a profession of his choice.

The conception of secular state is derived from the liberal democratic tradition of west. No institution which is maintained wholly out of state funds shall be used for the purpose of religious instruction irrespective of the question whether the religious instruction is given by the state or any other body.

The Mahatma is not an immortal person....There have been many Mahatmas in India whose sole object was to remove untouchability and to elevate and absorb the Depressed Classes but every one of them have failed in their mission. Mahatmas have come and Mahatmas have gone. But untouchables have remained as untouchables.

For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero- worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.

It took Gautama four weeks of meditation to obtain enlightenment. He reached final enlightenment in four stages. 4. In the first stage he called forth reason and investigation. His seclusion helped him to attain it easily. 5. In the second stage he added concentration. 6. In the third stage he brought to his aid equanimity and mindfulness. 7. In the fourth and final stage he added purity to equanimity and equanimity to mindfulness.

Caste is inconsistent with conversion. Inculcation of beliefs and dogmas is not the only problem that is involved in conversion. To find a place for the convert in the social life of the community is another and a much more important problem that arises in connection with conversion. That problem is where to place the convert, in what caste? It is a problem which must baffle every Hindu wishing to make aliens convert to his religion. Unlike the club the membership of a caste is not open to all and sundry.

the Mohammedans and Christians who attempted to thrust down the throats of unwilling persons what they regarded as necessary for their salvation or the Hindu who would not spread the light, who would endeavour to keep others in darkness, who would not consent to share his intellectual and social inheritance with those who are ready and willing to make it a part of their own make-up ? I have no hesitation in saying that if the Mohammedan has been cruel the Hindu has been mean and meanness is worse than cruelty.

The first and foremost thing that must be recognized is that Hindu Society is a myth. The name Hindu is itself a foreign name. It was given by the Mohammedans to the natives for the purpose of distinguishing themselves. It does not occur in any Sanskrit work prior to the Mohammedan invasion. They did not feel the necessity of a common name because they had no conception of their having constituted a community. Hindu society as such does not exist. It is only a collection of castes. Each caste is conscious of its existence.

Religion does not compel the Non-Hindus to take the same attitude towards caste. If Hindus wish to break caste, their religion will come in their way. But it will not be so in the case of Non-Hindus. It is, therefore, a dangerous delusion to take comfort in the mere existence of caste among Non-Hindus, without caring to know what place caste occupies in their life and whether there are other “organic filaments”, which subordinate the feeling of caste to the feeling of community. The sooner the Hindus are cured of this delusion the better.

If Islam and Hinduism keep Muslims and Hindus apart in the matter of their faith, they also prevent their social assimilation. That Hinduism prohibits intermarriage between Hindus and Muslims is quite well known. This narrow-mindedness is not the vice of Hinduism only. Islam is equally narrow in its social code. It also prohibits intermarriage between Muslims and Hindus. With these social laws there can be no social assimilation and consequently no socialization of ways, modes and outlooks, no blunting of the edges and no modulation of age-old angularities.

Religion, in the sense of spiritual principles, truly universal, applicable to all races, to all countries, to all times, is not to be found in them; and if it is, it does not form the governing part of a Hindu’s life. That for a Hindu dharma means commands and prohibitions is clear from the way the word dharma is used in the Vedas and the smritis and understood by the commentators. The word dharma as used in the Vedas in most cases means religious ordinances or rites. Even Jaimini in his Purva Mimamsa157 defines dharma as “a desirable goal or result that is indicated by injunctive (Vedic) passages”.

What I ask is, 'Can the mortification of the body be called religion?' 9. "Since it is only by the mind's authority that the body either acts or ceases to act, therefore to control the thought is alone befitting--without thought the body is like a dog. 10. "If there was only the body to be considered, merit may [=might] be gained by purity of food, but then there is merit also in the doer. But of what good is it? 11. "New light cannot be attained by him who has lost his strength and is wearied with hunger, thirst, and fatigue, with his mind no longer self-possessed through fatigue. 12. "How could he who is not absolutely calm, reach the end which is to be attained by his mind?

More notable perhaps were the names of those who were not from the Congress. These included two representatives of the world of commerce and one representative of the Sikhs. Three others were lifelong adversaries of the Congress. These were R. K. Shanmukham Chetty, a Madras businessman who possessed one of the best financial minds in India; B. R. Ambedkar, a brilliant legal scholar and an ‘Untouchable’ by caste; and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, a leading Bengal politician who belonged (at this time) to the Hindu Mahasabha. All three had collaborated with the rulers while the Congress men served time in British jails. But now Nehru and his colleagues wisely put aside these differences. Gandhi had reminded them that ‘freedom comes to India, not to the Congress’, urging the formation of a Cabinet that included the ablest men regardless of party affiliation.6

In every country the intellectual class is the most influential class. This is the class which can foresee advice and lead. In no country does the mass of the people live the life for intelligent thought and action. It is largely imitative and follows the intellectual class. There is no exaggeration in saying that the entire destination of the country depends upon its intellectual class. If the intellectual class is honest and independent, it can be trusted to take the initiative and give a proper lead when a crisis arises. It is true that the intellect by itself is no virtue. It is only a means and the use of a means depends upon the ends which an intellectual person pursues. An intellectual man can be a good man but he may easily be a rogue. Similarly an intellectual class may be a band of high-souled persons, ready to help, ready to emancipate erring humanity or it may easily be a gang of crooks or a body of advocates of narrow clique from which it draws its support.

While Gandhi and Rajagopalachari celebrated the proclamation, the all-India leader of the low-caste movement, Dr B.R. Ambedkar himself expressed a more lukewarm response. He was not, he made it clear, convinced that spirituality or emancipation were the real intentions of the Maharajah’s historic proclamation. Instead, it was knowledge that the ‘cessation of so large a community would be the death-knell to the Hindus’ and the fact that Ezhavas by their recent actions had ‘made the danger real’, that compelled the state to act in a substantial manner.125 If it were not for these political pressures, Travancore might never have changed.

I did not expect that your Mandal would be so upset because I have spoken of the destruction of Hindu religion. I thought it was only fools who were afraid of words.

Democracy is not merely a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellow men.

Men do not become a society by living in physical proximity any more than a man ceases to be a member of his society by living so many miles away from other men. Secondly, similarity in habits and customs, beliefs and thoughts is not enough to constitute men into society.

समाज की शक्ति उसमें अस्तित्वमान विभिन्न समूहों के बीच संपर्क के बिंदुओं, अंतरक्रिया की संभावनाओं पर निर्भर होती है। इन्हें कार्लाइल[66] ने ‘जैविक तंतु’ कहा है– वे लचीले धागे, जो विघटित तत्वों को संयुक्त करते हैं और फिर से एकताबद्ध करते हैं।

वह शिया है या सुन्नी, शेख है या सैयद है, खटिक है या पिंजारी। जब वह कहता है कि मैं सिख हूं, तब आप उससे यह नहीं पूछते कि वह जाट है या रोड़ा है या मजहबी[67] है या रामदासी।

पूरी तरह कायल हूं कि वास्तविक उपचार तो अंतरजातीय विवाह ही है। सिर्फ रक्त का सम्मिश्रण ही रिश्ते-नाते की भावना पैदा कर सकता है और जब तक रिश्ते-नाते की आत्मीय होने की भावना सर्वोच्च नहीं हो जाती, तब तक जाति द्वारा उत्पन्न अलगाववादी भावना– विजातीय होने की भावना– खत्म नहीं होगी। हिंदुओं में, अंतरजातीय विवाह अवश्यत: सामाजिक जीवन में एक अधिक शक्तिशाली चीज साबित होगी, जितनी ग़ैर-हिंदुओं में उसके होने की जरूरत है।

दोष उनके धर्म में है, जिसने उनमें जाति की भावना भरी है। अगर यह सही है, तो स्पष्टत: जिस शत्रु से आप को मुठभेड़ करनी है, वह वे लोग नहीं हैं, जो जाति का पालन करते हैं, बल्कि वे शास्त्र हैं, जो उन्हें इस जाति आधारित धर्म की शिक्षा देते हैं।

सिर्फ शास्त्रों का परित्याग ही नहीं करना है, बल्कि उनकी सत्ता को भी अमान्य करना होगा, जैसा बुद्ध और नानक ने किया था। आप को हिंदुओं को यह कहने का साहस संजोना होगा कि उनके धर्म में त्रुटि कहां है– जिस धर्म ने उनके दिमाग में जाति की पवित्रता की धारणा पैदा की है।

जाति का एक दैवी आधार है। अत: आप को उस पवित्रता और अलौकिकता को नष्ट कर देना होगा, जिसके साथ जाति को जोड़कर रखा गया है। अंतिम विश्लेषण में इसका अर्थ यह है कि आप को शास्त्रों और वेदों की सत्ता को नष्ट कर देना होगा।

किसी भी संप्रभु के लिए और खासकर संसद द्वारा सत्ता का वास्तविक इस्तेमाल दो सीमाओं से बंधा हुआ या नियंत्रित होता है। इनमें से एक सीमा बाह्य है और दूसरी आंतरिक। किसी संप्रभु की वास्तविक सत्ता की बाह्य सीमा इस संभावना या निश्चितता में है कि उसकी प्रजा या उसकी एक बहुत बड़ी संख्या उसके कानूनों की अवहेलना या उनका प्रतिरोध तो नहीं करेगी। संप्रभुता के इस्तेमाल की आंतरिक सीमा संप्रभु शक्ति की अपनी प्रकृति से पैदा होती है। एक तानाशाह भी अपने चरित्र के अनुरूप ही अपनी शक्तियों का इस्तेमाल करता है, जो खुद उन परिस्थितियों के अनुसार बदलता रहता है, जिनमें वह जीता है; साथ ही उस पर अपने समय की नैतिक भावनाओं और उसके समाज का भी असर पड़ता है। सुलतान चाहता, तब भी मुस्लिम दुनिया के धर्म को बदल नहीं सकता था और अगर वह कर सकता, तो इस बात की पूरी संभावना थी कि मुस्लिम जगत के प्रधान मोहम्मद के धर्म को उखाड़ फेंकने की कामना करते; सुलतान की शक्ति के इस्तेमाल पर आंतरिक अंकुश कम से कम उतना ही मजबूत था, जितना बाह्य अंकुश। लोग कभी-कभी यह फालतू सवाल करते हैं कि पोप यह या वह सुधार क्यों नहीं शुरू करता? इसका सही जवाब यह है कि क्रांतिकारी टाइप का आदमी पोप नहीं बनता और जो पोप बन जाता है, उसकी क्रांतिकारी होने की कोई इच्छा नहीं होती।

प्रत्येक देश में उसका बौद्धिक वर्ग ही शासक वर्ग नहीं, तो सब से प्रभावशाली वर्ग होता है। बौद्धिक वर्ग वह वर्ग है, जो भविष्य को देख सकता है, यह वह वर्ग है, जो सलाह दे सकता है और नेतृत्व कर सकता है। किसी भी देश में ऐसा नहीं होता कि साधारण लोग बुद्धिमत्तापूर्ण चिंतन और कर्म का जीवन जीते हों। वे मुख्यत: अनुकरणकर्ता होते हैं और बौद्धिक वर्ग का अनुगमन करते हैं।

बुद्धि अपने आप में कोई सद्‍गुण नहीं है। यह सिर्फ एक साधन है और साधन का उपयोग इस पर निर्भर है कि कोई बौद्धिक व्यक्ति किस लक्ष्य से प्रेरित है। कोई बौद्धिक अच्छा आदमी हो सकता है, लेकिन वह आसानी से बदमाश भी हो सकता है।

यह स्थिति कितनी दयनीय है कि भारत में बौद्धिक वर्ग ब्राह्मण जाति का ही दूसरा नाम है। आप को अफसोस हो सकता है कि दोनों एक हैं। अगर बौद्धिक वर्ग का अस्तित्व एक खास जाति तक सीमित रहे, इस बौद्धिक वर्ग की ब्राह्मण वर्ग के हितों और आकांक्षाओं से साझेदारी हो और यह एक ऐसा वर्ग हो, जो अपने को उस जाति के हितों का, न कि देश के हितों का, परिरक्षक हो, तो यह सब बहुत ही दु:खद हो सकता है। लेकिन यह तथ्य बना रहता है कि ब्राह्मण ही हिंदुओं के बौद्धिक वर्ग की रचना करते हैं। यह सिर्फ बौद्धिक वर्ग नहीं है, बल्कि एक ऐसा वर्ग है, जिसे बाकी हिंदू बहुत ही भक्ति भाव से देखते हैं।

अगर यह पूछा जाये कि धर्म के किसी खास मामले की अलग से व्याख्या नहीं की गयी हो, तब क्या किया जाये, तो उत्तर है कि जो शिष्ट ब्राह्मण कहें, वही धर्म है– अनाम्नातेषु धर्मेषु कथं स्यादिति चेद‍्भवेत‍्। यं शिष्टा ब्राह्मणा ब्रूयु: स धर्म: स्यादशंकित:।।

सुधारक के शस्त्रागार में तर्कशक्ति और नैतिकता, ये दो सब से ज्यादा शक्तिशाली हथियार होते हैं।

समाजवादियों की वैचारिक भूल[34] यह मान कर चलने की है कि चूंकि यूरोप के समाज में संपत्ति ही शक्ति के स्रोत के रूप में प्रमुख है, तो भारत पर भी यही नियम लागू होता है,

राजनीतिक विस्तार के लिए मन और आत्मा की मुक्ति प्रारंभिक आवश्यकता है।

प्रश्न यह होता है कि एक वर्ग द्वारा दूसरे वर्ग का दमन और दुर्व्यवहार उसे अखरता है या नहीं, जो एक व्यवस्था के तहत, एक सिद्धांत के स्तर पर होता है और इस तरह जुल्म और अत्याचार को यह अनुमति देता है कि एक वर्ग को दूसरे वर्ग से अलग रखा जा सके।

आप किसी भी ओर मुंह कीजिए। जाति एक ऐसा राक्षस है, जो आप का रास्ता रोकेगा ही नहीं, बल्कि काटेगा भी। जब तक आप इस दैत्य का वध नहीं करते, आप न राजनीतिक सुधार कर सकते हैं और न ही आर्थिक सुधार।