[The appeal appeared as a foreword (titled Innermost Thoughts) in the first issue of Mooknayak on 31st January 1920 and was written originally in Marathi by Babasaheb Ambedkar. With this newspaper, the socio-political career of Babasaheb had started. This piece starts with Tukaram’s couplet, which I find very difficult to translate so will skip that. I have tried to translate rest of the piece keeping intended meaning as close as possible but if you have any suggestions please let us know in the comments section. – Velivada Editor]

A page of the paper ‘Mooknayak’ – The Leader of the Dumbs. The first paper started in 1920 by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar that vanguard the glorious Ambedkarite Movement in India

The injustice which is happening on untouchables (Bahishkrit), to give voice to atrocities those will happen on untouchables in future, and to have a discussion and give shape to the future of untouchables, there is no strong alternative to the newspaper. If we look at the newspapers published from Mumbai area we can see that most of those newspapers are for protecting the interests of some special castes only. They don’t care about the interests of other castes. Not only this, sometimes these newspapers publish things against us. We want to convey these newspapers that if one caste didn’t progress, the marks of the downfall will reach to other castes as well, there is no doubt about that. Society is like a ship. As in ship, if any passenger with an intention to hurt others or create ruckus tries to make a hole in the room of the ship, the whole ship will drown. Similarly, there is no doubt that if one caste tries to harm another caste, the oppressive caste group will also suffer and harm own caste group. So, all those newspapers want better treatment for themselves must not seek to damage other newspapers and not show such foolishness. It is a matter of joy that there are some papers that have an understanding of that. ‘Deenmitra’, ‘Jagruk’, ‘Deccan Rayat’, ‘Vijay Maratha’. ‘Gyan Prakash’, ‘Indu Prakash’ and ‘Subodh Patrika’ etc newspapers regularly discuss some issues related to untouchables.  

But discussions and issues of caste groups which think they come from ‘Brahmnetra’ are also carried out by these newspapers. So, the fact is that concerns related to untouchables cannot have proper space in these newspapers. No one can deny and everyone would agree that to raise and discuss the pitiable situation of untouchables there is a need for an independent newspaper. To fill that gap, this newspaper (Mooknayak) has been started.

To discuss specifically rights of untouchables (ashoots) ‘Somvanshya Mitra’, ‘Hind Nagrik’, ‘Vithal Vindvanshak’ etc newspapers were started but closed. If readers of Mooknayak will continue to give proper support to it, Mooknayak, without staggering, will continue to show the right path to all those doing great things. I end my appeal here with this promise. 

– Translated by Pardeep Attri

Read also – Dr Ambedkar as a journalist