WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : THE REAL ISSUE 185
said—namely that they worship the same Gods and Goddesses as the rest of the Hindus, they go to the same places of pilgrimage, hold the same supernatural beliefs and regard the same stones, trees, mountains as sacred as the rest of the Hindus do ? Is this enough to conclude that the Untouchables and the Hindus are parts of one single community ? If that be the logic behind the contention of the Congress then, whatabout the Belgians, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes, Germans, French, Italians, Slavs, etc.? Are they not all Christians ? Do they not all worship the same God ? Do they not all accept Jesus as their Saviour ? Have they not the same religious beliefs ? Obviously, there is a complete religious unity between all of them in thought, worship and beliefs. Yet, who can dispute that the French, Germans and Italians and the rest are not a single community ? Take another case, that of the Whites and the Negroes in the U.S.A. They too have a common religion. Both are Christians. Can any one say that the two on that account form a single community ? Take a third case, that of the Indian Christians, Europeans and Anglo-Indians. They profess and follow the same religion. Yet it is admitted that they do not form one single Christian community. Take the case of the Sikhs. There are Sikhs, Mazbi Sikhs and Ramdasia Sikhs. All profess Sikhism. But it is accepted that they do not form one community. In the light of these illustrations it is obvious that the argument of the Congress is full of fallacies.
The first fallacy of the Congress lies in its failure to realize that the fundamental issue for settling the question whether to grant or not to grant constitutional safeguards is union versus separation of a social group in the population. Religion is only a circumstance from which unity or separation may be inferred. The Congress does not seem to have understood that the Musalmans and the Indian Christians have been given separate political recognition not because they are Musalmans or Christians but fundamentally because they form in fact separate elements from the Hindus.
The second fallacy of the Congress lies in its attempt to prove that where there is a common religion social union must be presumed. It is on the basis of this reasoning that the Congress hopes to win. Unfortunately for the Congress, it cannot. For the facts are strongly against making a conclusive inference. If religion was a circumstance from which social union was made