UNTOUCHABILITY AND LAWLESSNESS 57
put their private organs in her mouth. Her clothes were torn and saturated with blood. The following day her mother was forced to do begar work for the whole day and then both of them were left off at 10 p.m.
Murala, wife of Maharaji’s husband’s younger brother has also filed a similar complaint. She has alleged that the same constables took her to the police post the same night and returned her to her house. On the way she was caught by Madari Teli, near Kumar Tola, to the ruins of a house and her modesty violated. Messrs. Munna Lal, Bhushan and Ram Bharose, advocates are appearing for the complainant.”
In the ‘ Hindustan Times ’ of 15th April 1945 Occurs the following news item:
“For refusal to do forced labour, it is alleged, a large number of Harijans in the village of Dukheri in Ambala District were recently assaulted by a party of Rajputs. A man and a woman, both Harijans, were killed. It is also alleged that a large number of houses belonging to Harijans were set on fire. Telegrams have been sent to the Commissioner and the Deputy Inspector General of Police to inquire into the matter.”
From these instances, it will be clear to anyone that the Hindus do not hesitate to use violence to hold down the Untouchables and maintain the established order and even to commit murder.
Mr. Lajpat Rai in his book ‘Unhappy India’ in which he tried to reply to and refute the charges levelled by Miss Mayo in her ‘Mother India’ gives a lengthy and lucid description of the lynchings of the Negroes in the United States and the atrocities committed upon them by the members of the Ku Klux Klan and asks:
“What however is very relevant to her to ask is: is the unjustifiable and cruel attitude of the Brahmins towards the Pariah more unjustifiable and more cruel than that of the Klansmen of America towards the Negroes?”
“What are the caste cruelties of India put by the side of what the whiteman has done to the non-white people?”
Lala Lajpatrai, if he had cared to investigate could have found that the cruelties and atrocities practised by the Hindus against the Untouchables were no less than those practised by the Americans upon the Negroes. If these atrocities are not so well known to the world as are those practised upon the Negro, it is not because they do not exist. They are not known because there is no Hindu who will not do his best to conceal truth in order to hide his shame.