HELD AT BAY 271
innumerable cases in which this discretion has been exercised by the Magistrate to the prejudice of the Untouchables. However truthful the witnesses of the Untouchables, the magistrates have taken a common line by saying “ I disbelieve the witnesses”, and no body has questioned that discretion. What sentence to inflict is also a matter of discretion with the magistrate. There are sentences which are appealable and there are sentences which are non-appealable. An appeal is a way of getting redress. But this way may be blocked by a magistrate by refusing to give an appealable sentence.
Such are the forces which are arrayed against the struggling Untouchables. There is simply no way to overcome them because there is no legal way of punishing a whole society which is organized to set aside the law.
V
One way of lessening these difficulties—they certainly cannot be overcome—was open to the Untouchables. That way lay through politics and through effective use of political power. But in this matter the Untouchables have been foiled.
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