118 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
APPENDIX II
From ‘Sunday Times’, March 9, 1952
WHERE WEARING A SHIRT IS AN OFFENCE Woes of Harijans in S. India A Social Worker’s Experience
(By Swami Anand Thirth, Regional Officer, All India Harijan Sevak Sangh)
It is sad to notice that the various civil disabilities of Harijans still continue to exist in our villages in spite of the Civil Disabilities Removal Act which came into force about five years ago. It is now 9 months since the All India Harijan Sevak Sangh started its intensive work for the removal of social disabilities of Harijans in Melur Taluk in Mathurai district. Several disabilities of Harijans regarding tea shops, barber saloons, wells, tanks, chavadies, etc., have been brought to light during this period. In some places it is the Village Munsifs who were expected to give wide publicity to the Act and enforce it, that are very reactionary forces standing in the way of the poor Harijans exercising their elementary rights. A few instances are cited below to show how deep-rooted is the prejudice against the Harijans in our society.
In Parli near Natham, a Harijan youth who refused to take tea in a cocoanut shell and desired to be served in the glass tumbler was kicked and shoed on the head by a caste Hindu who was subsequently convicted and fined only Rs. 10 by the Sub-Magistrate, Melur. At Melavalvoo, when I went to a tea shop with two Harijan boys, a group of people threatened to assault me and drove away the boys. A glass tumbler was wantonly broken by the tea shopkeeper and they all demanded that I must pay for it on penalty of being thrashed. I, however, took shelter in an Elementary School nearby and the crowd disappeared only on the intervention of the President of the Panchayat Board.
At Kelavalvoo, the Harijans take water from a dirty pond in which men bathe and cattle are washed. The Harijans were encouraged to go to the public Oorani (protected water tank), but they were abused and threatened by the caste Hindus so that they dare not take water from the Oorani. There is a Police Station at Kelavalvoo, but the police here are indifferent towards the disabilities of the Harijans. In Attukulam the caste Hindus put night-soil in the public well because they could not physically obstruct the Harijans who took water from it under our directions. In Ettimangalam, the caste Hindus destroyed the paddy