A PPENDIX I
SHRADHANAND ON BARDOLI PROGRAMME FOR UNTOUCHABLES
Correspondence between Swami Shradhanand and Pandit Motilal Nehru, General Secretary of the Congress, on the Congress Sub-Committee appointed in 1922 to frame a Scheme for the uplift of the Untouchables .
(1) S WAMIJI ’ S L ETTER
The General Secretary, All India Congress Committee, Camp, Delhi.
I acknowledge, with thanks, receipt of your letters Nos. 331 and 332 embodying resolutions of the Working Committee and of the All-India Congress Committee about Untouchability. I observe with pain, that the resolution of the All India Congress Committee, as at present worded, does not include the whole of what was passed by the Committee.
The facts are these : I sent the following letter to Mr. Vithalbhai Patel (the then) General Secretary on 23rd May 1922, which was also published by the principal dailies of the country.
‘M Y D EAR M R . P ATEL,
There was a time (vide Young India of 25th May, 1921) when Mahatmaji put the question of Untouchability in the forefront of the Congress programme. I find now that the question of raising the Depressed Classes has been relegated to an obscure corner. While Khadi claims the attention of some of our best workers and a liberal sum has been earmarked for it, for the year, while a strong subcommittee has been appointed to look after national education and a special appeal for fund is to be made for the same, the question of the removal of Untouchability has been shelved by making small grants to Ahmedabad, Ahmednagar and Madras. I am of opinion that with a majority of 6 crores of our brethren set against us by the bureaucracy, even the Khadi Scheme cannot succeed completely. The Members of the Working Committee, perhaps, do not know that on this side, our suppressed brethern are leaving off khadi and taking to buying cheap foreign cloth. I want to move the following resolution in the meeting of the All-India Congress Committee which comes off on the 7th of June next at Lucknow, that a sub-committee consisting of three members of the All-India Congress Committee be appointed to give effect to the resolution about the so-called Depressed Classes, that a sum of five lakhs of