WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : THE REAL ISSUE 189
question, what proof is there of their sincerity in this matter ? Have Congressmen sponsored social Reform among Hindus ? Have they carried on a crusade in favour of inter-dining and intermarriages ? What is the record of Congressmen in the field of Social Reform ?
III
It might be well to state what view the Untouchables took of the problem of Untouchables. Until the advent of the British, the Untouchables were content to remain Untouchables. It was a destiny preordained by the Hindu God and enforced by the Hindu State. As such there was no escape from it. Fortunately or unfortunately, the East India Company needed soldiers for their army in India and it could find none but the Untouchables. The East India Company’s army consisted, at any rate in the early part of its history, of the Untouchables and although the Untouchables are now included among the non-martial classes and are therefore excluded from the Army, it is with the help of an army composed of Untouchables that the British conquered India. In the army of the East India Company there prevailed the system of compulsory education for Indian soldiers and their children both male and female. The education received by the Untouchables in the army while it was open to them gave them one advantage which they never had before. It gave them a new vision and a new value. They became conscious that the low esteem in which they had been held was not an inescapable destiny but was a stigma imposed on their personality by the cunning contrivances of the priest. They felt the shame of it as they had never done before and were determined to get rid of it. They too in the beginning thought their problem was social and struggled along the social lines for its solution. This was quite natural. For they saw that the outward marks of their social inferiority were prohibition of interdining and intermarriage between the Untouchables and the Hindus. They naturally concluded that for the removal of their stigma what was necessary was to establish social intercourse with the Hindus on terms of equality which in its turn meant the abolition of rules against interdining and intermarriage. In other words, first programme of action which the Untouchables launched out for their salvation after they became aware of their servile position