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Aye, Brahmins, if the Brahmin has more aptitude for learning on the ground of heredity than the Pariah, spend no more money on the Brahmin's education, but spend all on the Pariah. Give to the weak, for there all the gift is needed. Our poor people, these down- trodden masses of India, therefore, require to hear and to know what they really are. Aye, let every man and woman and child, without respect of caste or birth, weakness and strength, hear and learn that behind the strong and the weak, behind the high and the low, behind everyone, there is that Infinite Soul, assuring that infinite possibility and the infinite capacity of all to become great and good. Let us proclaim to every soul-'Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached. Arise, awake ! Awake from the hyprotism of weakness. None is really weak; the soul is infinite, omnipotent and omniscient. Stand up, assert yourself, proclaim the God within you, do not deny Him ! Too much of inactivity, too much of weakness, too much of hypnotism has been and is upon our race........ Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come, when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity..........

The authentic voice of our culture, voiced by all the great builders of modern India, stood for abolition of the hardships of the pariah, the mlecha, the bonded labour, the hungry, hard-working half-slave, whose liberation was integral to our Independence. To interpret the Constitution rightly we must understand the people for whom it is made- the finer ethos, the frustrations, the aspirations, the parameters set by the Constitution for the principled solution of social disabilities. This synthesis of ends and means, of life's maladies and law's remedies is a part of the know-how of constitutional interpretation if alienation from the people were not to afflict the justicing process. A statute rarely stands alone. Back of Minerva was the brain of Jove, and behind Venus was the spume of the ocean.

"Aye, Brahmins, if the Brahmin has more aptitude for learning on the ground of heredity than the Pariah, spend no more money on the Brahmin's education but spend all on the Pariah. Give to the weak, for there all the gift is needed... Our poor people, these downtrodden masses of India, therefore, require to hear and to know what they really are. Aye, let every man and woman and child, with-out respect of caste or birth, weakness and strength, hear and learn that behind the strong and the weak, behind the high and the low, behind everyone, there is that Infinite Soul, assuring that infinite possibility and the infinite capacity of all to become great and good. Let us proclaim to every soul 'Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.' Arise, awake! To make democracy functional and the republic real the social and economic personality of these backwardmost sections had to be restored. From this angle, the ancient injustice on the shudras among the shudras has to be liquidated by effective equalising measures. Power, material power, is the key to socioeconomic salvation and the State being the nidus of power the framers of the Constitution have made provision for representation of these weaker sections both in the legislature and the executive.

One may easily sympathise with holders of non- selection posts. They are many in number in the lower stations of life. They are economically backward and burdened with the drudgery of life. That is why there is a ballyhoo raised by a larger number of people when some categories in far more distressing social situations enter the arena with preferential treatment. Looking at the problem from the point of view of law and logic and the constitutional justification under Art. 16(4) for reservation in favour of the panchama proletariat there is nothing to strike down in Annexure K. As between the socially, even economically depressed and the economically backward, the Constitution has emphatically cast its preference for the former. Who are we, as Judges to question the wisdom of provisions made by Government within the parameters of Art. 16(4)? The answer is obvious that the writ of the court cannot quash what is not contrary to the Constitution however tearful the consequences for those who may be adversely affected. The progressive trend must, of course, be to classify on the have-not basis but the SC/ST, category is, generally speaking, not only deplorably poor but also humiliatingly pariah in their lot. Maybe, some of the forward lines of the backward classes have the best of both the words and their electoral muscle qua caste scares away even radical parties from talking secularism to them. We are not concerned with that II dubious brand. In the long run, the recipe for backwardness is not creating a vested interest in backward castes but liquidation of handi caps, social economic, by constructive projects. All this is in another street and we need not walk that way now.