46 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
have ordered us to always protect them for they are the true symbols of the Hindu faith. If you take objection to them, you can tear them off our bodies with your own hands’. Upon this the Rajputs fell upon the poor men with their lathis and kept on thrashing them for a long time. The Untouchables put up with this persecution with great fortitude and refused to resist or protest. But their torments took no pity on their helpless condition and three or four Rajputs actually tore the holy thread off the body of a Harijan named Gori Ram and bruised his body with a hoe in mock imitation of the sign of the thread.”
From the ‘Milap’ dated 12th October 1929:
“The Rajputs of the village Bahmani have from time past launched a programme against the Untouchables. There is a case going on in the court about the breaking of a holy thread and there is another case too, about an Untouchable woman who was going on to the field to cut the harvest on 7th October 1929 when a Rajput severely thrashed her and caused serious bruises. The woman was brought home on a bed.”
VI
What happens to an Untouchable if he remains seated on a cot in the presence of a Hindu can be seen from the following incident reported in ‘ Jivan ’ of July 1938:
“Nanda Ram and Mangali Prasad of village Pachhahera, Police Post Margaon, Tehsil and District Sitapur, invited their friends and relatives for a communal feast. When the guests were sitting on cots and smoking, Thakkur Sooraj Baksh Singh and Harpal Singh, Zamindars of the village, came there, sent for Nanda Ram and Mangali Prasad and asked who the people sitting and smoking were and why they were sitting on cots. Mangali Prasad said that they were his friends and relatives and asked if only Thakkurs could sit on cots. Enraged by this, the Thakkurs beat both the brothers and their men beat the guests severely as a result of which one man and one woman became senseless and others sustained serious injuries.”
VII
The Untouchables are Hindus. They are also citizens with the same civic rights. But the Untouchables cannot claim the right of the citizenship if it conflicts with any rules of the Established Order.
For instance, no Untouchable can claim lodging in an inn even though it be public. In ‘ Jivan ’ of August 1938, is reported the experience of an Untouchable named Kannhaiya Lal Jatav of Fetegarh: