WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : 17 A STRANGE EVENT
that were formulated, there were two around which public attention was centred. One was called “the Scheme of the Nineteen.” The second was called “the Congress-League Scheme.” The first was put forth by the 19 elected additional Members of the then Imperial Legislative Council. The second was an agreed scheme of political reforms supported by the Congress and the League otherwise known as the Lucknow Pact. Both these schemes had come into existence in 1916, a year before the announcement made by Mr. Montagu.
Of the two schemes, the Congress was interested in seeing that its own scheme was accepted by His Majesty’s Government. The Congress with that purpose in view was keen on giving the Congress-League scheme the status and character of a National Demand. This could happen only if the scheme had the backing of all communities in India. In as much as the Muslim League had accepted the scheme, the problem of securing the backing of the Muslim Community did not arise. Next in numbers came the Depressed Classes. Though not as well organized as the Muslims, they were politically very conscious as their Resolutions show. Not only were they politically conscious but they were all along antiCongress. Indeed in 1895 when Mr. Tilak’s followers threatened to burn the Congress pandal if its use was allowed to the Social Conference for ventilating social wrongs, the Untouchables organized a demonstration against the Congress and actually burned its effigy. This antipathy to the Congress has continued ever since. The resolutions passed by both the meetings of the Depressed Classes held in Bombay in 1917 give ample testimony to the existence of this antipathy in the minds of the Depressed Classes towards the Congress. The Congress while anxious to get the support of the Depressed Classes to the Congress-League scheme of Reforms knew very well that it had no chance of getting it. As the Congress did not then practise—it had not learned it then—the art of corrupting people as it does now, it enlisted the services of the late Sir Narayan Chandavarkar, an Ex-President of the Congress. As the President of the Depressed Classes Mission Society he exercised considerable influence over the Depressed Classes. It was as a result of his influence and out of respect for him that a section of the Depressed Classes agreed to give support to the Congress-League Scheme.