z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-06.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 450
450 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
The most reprehensible part of the conduct of the upper caste Hindus in Mahad and Kolaba District was that messages were sent immediately to the different villages asking the upper class people there to punish the delegates of the Conference as soon as they returned to their respective villages. In obedience to this mandate assaults were committed on a number of Mahars returning from the Conference either before or after they reached their villages where the depressed classes have the disadvantage of being overwhelmingly out-numbered by the upper caste Hindus. The leaders of the depressed classes have appealed to the authorities for protection and the District Officials including the D. S. P. are making enquiries on the spot. It must, however, be stated that if the Resident Magistrate had not allowed two precious hours to pass without doing anything the riot would have probably been averted.
Item No. 5
(From Young India 5th May 1927)
MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN
( By M. K. Gandhi )
In another column will be seen an extract from Navajivan of a most disgraceful case of calculated inhumanity of a medical man towards the dying wife of a member of the suppressed class in a Kathiawad village. Sjt. Amritlal Thakkar who is responsible for giving the details of the case has withheld the names of the place and parties for fear of the poor suppressed class schoolmaster being further molested by the medical man, I wish, however, that the names will be disclosed. Time must come when the suppressed class people will have to be encouraged by us to dare to suffer further hardships and tyranny. Their sufferings are already too great for any further sufferings to be really felt. Public opinion cannot be roused over grievances that cannot be verified and traced to their sources. I do not know the rules of the Medical Council in Bombay. I know that in other places a medical practitioner, who refused to attend before his fees were paid, would be answerable to the Council and would be liable to have his name removed from the Council’s list and be otherwise subject to disciplinary action. Fees are no doubt exactable; but proper attendance upon patients is the first duty of a medical practitioner. The real inhumanity, however, if the facts stated are true, consists in the practitioner refusing to enter the untouchable’s quarters, refusing himself to see the patient, and refusing himself to apply the thermometer. And if the doctrine of untouchability can ever be applied in any circumstances, it is certainly applicable to this member of the profession which he has disgraced. But I am hoping that there is some exaggeration in the statement made by Sjt Thakkar’s correspondent and, if there is none, that the medical practitioner will himself come forth and make ample amends to the society which he has so outraged by his inhuman conduct.