WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS 211
is old history. Let me correct such an impression by referring to what happened in 1943, in the Municipal Elections in Andheri—a suburb of Bombay. The Congress put up a barber to bring the Municipality in contempt.
What an enormity ? The Sinn Fein in Ireland boycotted the British Parliament. But did they make such hideous use of their own countrymen for effecting their purposes ? The campaign of boycott of legislature which took place in
1930 is of particular interest. The elections to the Provincial Legislatures in 1930 in which these instances occurred coincided with Mr. Gandhi’s Salt satyagraha campaign of 1930!! I hope that the future (the official historian Dr. Pattabhi Sitamayya has failed to do so) historian of Congress while recording how Mr. Gandhi decided to serve notice on the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, presenting him with a list of demands to be con ceded before a certain date and on failure by the Viceroy in this behalf, how Mr. Gandhi decided to launch a campaign of civil disobedience, how Mr. Gandhi elected an Englishman to carry his notice, how Mr. Gandhi selected Salt Act as a target for attack, how he selected Dandi as a scene of battle, how he decided to put himself at the head of the campaign, how he marched out from his Ashram in Ahmedabad with all pomp and ceremony, how the women of Ahmedabad came out with Arthi and applied tilak (saffron mark) to his forehead wishing him victory, how Mr. Gandhi assured them by saying that Gujarat alone will win Swaraj for India, how Mr. Gandhi proclaimed his determination by saying that he will not return to Ahmedabad until he has won Swaraj, will not fail to record that while on the one hand Congressmen were engaged in fighting for Swaraj which they said they wanted to win in the name and for the masses, on the other hand and in the very year they were committing the worst outrages, upon the very masses by exhibiting them publicly as objects of contempt to be shunned and avoided.
Such is the mentality of the governing classes in India towards the servile classes.
IV
What is to be the fate of the servile classes of India under this governing class ?