WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS 231
and agitate and blow up the system of reservations. In addition to reserving all executive posts in the State for Brahmins a law was made whereby education was made the monopoly and privilege of Brahmins. As has already been pointed out the law made it a crime for the Shudra, i.e. the lower orders of Hindu Society to acquire learning, the infringement of which was followed by not only heavy but cruel and inhuman punishment such as cutting the tongue of the criminal and filling his ear with hot molten lead. Congressmen cannot escape by saying that these privileges no longer exist. They must admit that while the privileges have gone the advantages derived from their continuance over several centuries have remained. Nor can Congressmen honestly turn down the demands of the servile classes as Communalism knowing full well that a worst form of communalism had been the recognized means adopted by the Brahmins for acquiring power and that if the servile classes are to-day driven to ask for safeguards it is because the Brahmins in order to maintain their privileges passed laws which made it a crime for them to acquire learning or property. Surely what the servile classes are demanding is not half so bad as was done by the Brahmins for their own aggrandisement and for the perpetuation of their own domination.
In the light of what has been said, it will be found that the Fight for Freedom led by the governing class is, from the point of view of the servile classes, a selfish, if not a sham, struggle. The freedom which the governing class in India is struggling for is freedom to rule the servile classes. What it wants is the freedom for the master race to rule the subject race which is nothing but the Nazi or Nietchian doctrine of freedom for superman to rule the common man.
VIII
The foreigner who wishes to know the what and wherefor of Indian politics and desires to make a contribution to the solution of the problems arising out of it must know the basic considerations which lie behind Indian politics. If he fails to have a full grasp of them he is bound to be at sea and cannot but be the sport of a party which may happen to capture him or captivate him. These basic considerations of Indian politics are : (1) The philosophy and outlook of the governing class in