WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : A PLEA TO THE FOREIGNERS 233
bar between the two. A hyphen is only separation ; but a bar is a severance with interests and sympathies completely divided. In other countries, there is a continuous replenishment of the governing class by the incorporation of others who do not belong to it but who have reached the same elevation as the governing class. In India, the governing class is a close corporation in which nobody, not born in it, is admitted. This distinction is very important. In the case where the governing class is a close corporation, tradition, social philosophy and social outlook remain unbroken and the distinction between masters and slaves, between privileged and unprivileged continues hard in substance and fast in colour. On the other hand, where the governing class is not a close preserve, where there is social endosmosis between it and the rest, there is a mental assimilation which makes the governing class more flexible, its philosophy less anti-social. On realizing the truth behind these distinctions, a foreigner should be able to see that mere adult suffrage while it may suffice to hold the governing class in check in other countries, cannot have, in India, that effect and that consequently those parties in India like the Untouchables who are advocating additional safeguards in the constitution, are more worthy of Support for their anxiety to make free India safe for democracy, than the Congress which opposes such safeguards and which aims to place free India in the hands of a governing class.
The facts bearing on the second consideration have also been fully set out. From these facts he should be able to see how intimate is the connection between the Congress and the governing class. They will explain why the governing class in India has placed itself in the vanguard of the Congress movement and why it strives to bring everybody within the Congress fold. To put it briefly the governing class is aware that a political campaign based on class ideology, class interests, class issues and class conflicts will toll its death knell. It knows that the most effective way of sidetracking the servile classes and fooling them is to play upon the sentiment of nationalism and national unity and realizes that the Congress platform is the only platform that can most effectively safeguard the interest of the governing class. For if there is any platform from which all talk of conflict between rich and poor, Brahmin and Non-Brahmin, landlord and tenant, creditor and debtor which does not suit the governing class, can be