The following excerpt is from Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Writings and Speeches, namely from the book ‘Rande, Gandhi, and Jinnah’. – editor

In celebrating the birthday of Ranade we must not overlook what the critics and opponents are likely to say. The critics will ask what is the point in celebrating the birthday of Ranade. That the days of hero-worship are gone long past, will be the line of their argument. The opponents will say if I condemn idolatry when it pertains to Mr. Gandhi and to Mr. Jinnah, how do I join in idolizing Mr. Ranade? These are very pertinent questions. True hero-worship is dying. Of that there is no doubt. It was dying even in the days of Carlyle who indignantly complained against his age, saying:—

“This is an age that as it were denies the existence of Great Men: denies the inevitableness of great men.”
“Show our critics a great man,” he said, and “They begin to what they call ‘account for him’; not to worship him but take the dimensions of him.”

But hero-worship is certainly not dead in India. India is still par excellence the land of idolatry. There is idolatry in religion, there is idolatry in politics. Heroes and hero-worship is a hard, if unfortunate, fact in India’s political life. I agree that hero-worship is demoralizing for the devotee and dangerous to the country. I welcome the criticism, in so far as it conveys a caution that you must know that your man is really great before you start worshipping him.

This unfortunately is not an easy task. For in these days, with the Press in hand, it is easy to manufacture Great Men. Carlyle used a happy phrase when he described the great men of history as so many Bank Notes. Like Bank Notes they represent gold. What we have to see [=verify] is that they are not forged notes. I admit that we ought to be more cautious in our worship of great men. For in this country we have perhaps arrived at such a stage when alongside the notice boards saying “beware of pickpockets” we need to have notice boards saying “beware of Great Men.” Even Carlyle, who defended the worship of Great Men, warned his readers how:—

“Multitudes of Men have figured in history as Great Men who were false and selfish.” He regretted deeply that “The World’s wages (of homage) are pocketed (by these so-called Great Men), the World’s work is not done. Heroes have gone out; quacks have come in.”

Ranade never received the honours of apotheosis as these great men of India today are destined to receive. How could he? He did not come with a message hot from Senai. He performed no miracles and promised no speedy deliverance and splendour. He was not a genius and he had no superhuman qualities. But there are compensations. If Ranade did not show splendour and dominance, he brought us no catastrophe. If he had no superhuman qualities to use in the service of India, India was saved from ruin by its [=their] abuse. If he was not a genius, he did not display that perverse super-subtlety of intellect, and a temper of mind which is fundamentally dishonest and which has sown the seeds of distrust and which has made settlement so difficult of achievement.

There is nothing exuberant and extravagant in Ranade. He refused to reap cheap notoriety by playing the part of an extremist. He refused to mislead people by playing upon and exploiting the patriotic sentiments of the people. He refused to be a party to methods which are crude, which have volume but no effect, and which are neither fool-proof nor knave-proof, and which break the back even of the most earnest and sincere servants of the country and disable them from further effort. In short, Ranade was like the wise Captain who knows that his duty is not to play with his ship clever and masterful tricks, just for effect and show in the midst of the ocean, but to take it safely to its appointed port. In short, Ranade was not a forged bank note and in worshipping him we have no feeling of kneeling before anything that is false.

In the second place ,this celebration of Ranade’s birthday is not all an act of hero-worship. Hero-worship in the sense of expressing our unbounded admiration is one thing. To obey the hero is a totally different kind of hero-worship. There is nothing wrong in the former, while the latter is no doubt a most pernicious thing. The former is only man’s respect for everything which is noble and of which the great man is only an embodiment. The latter is the villain’s [=peasant’s] fealty to his lord. The former is consistent with respect, but the latter is a sign of debasement. The former does not take away one’s intelligence to think and independence to act. The latter makes one a perfect fool. The former involves no disaster to the State. The latter is the source of positive danger to it. In short, in celebrating Ranade’s birthday we are not worshipping a boss who is elected by no one, accountable to no one, and removable by no one, but paying our tribute of admiration to a leader who led and did not drive people, who sought to give effect to their deliberate judgement and did not try to impose his own will upon them by trickery or by violence.

In the third place, it is not for hero-worship for which this gathering has assembled. This is an occasion to remind ourselves of the political philosophy of Ranade. To my mind it has become necessary to remind ourselves of it from time to time. For his is a philosophy which is safe and sound, sure if slow. Even if it does not glitter, it is none the less gold. Do any have doubt? If they have, let them ponder over the following utterances of Bismark, Balfour, and Morley. Bismark the great German Statesman said:—

“Politics is the game of the possible.”