MR. GANDHI AND THE EMANCIPATION OF THE UNTOUCHABLES : SOME QUESTIONS TO THE HINDUS AND THEIR FRIENDS
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one day burst forth. The Negroes may laugh at this. But the fact is that even this much comfort the Untouchables cannot hope to have from the Hindus. People to-day are proud of the fact that the Hindus are a solid mass. But strange as it may appear, to the Untouchables of India, this is more a matter of dread than comfort–as the “Solid South” is to the Negroes in the United States. Where could anyone find in India among the Hindus any person with a sense of shame and a sense of remorse such as was felt by Jefferson ? I should have thought the Hindus would be too ashamed of this stigma of Untouchability on them to appear before the world with a demand for their freedom. That they do clamour for freedom–the pity is that they get support–is evidence that their conscience is dead, that they feel no righteous indignation, and to them Untouchability is neither a moral sin nor a civil wrong. It is just a sport as cricket or hockey is. The friends of Mr. Gandhi will no doubt point to him and his work. But what has Mr. Gandhi done to reform Hindu Society that his work and life be cited by democrats as a witness of hope and assurance ? His friends have been informed of the Harijan Sevak Sangh and they continue to ask, “Is not Mr. Gandhi working to uplift the Harijans ?” Is he ? What is the object of this Harijan Sevak Sangh ? Is it to prepare the Untouchables to win their freedom from their Hindu masters, to make them their social and political equals ? Mr. Gandhi had never had any such object before him and he never wants to do this, and I say that he cannot do this. This is the task of a democrat and a revolutionary. Mr. Gandhi is neither. He is a Tory by birth as well as by faith. The work of the Harijan Sevak Sangh is not to raise the Untouchables. His main object, as every self-respecting Untouchable knows, is to make India safe for Hindus and, Hinduism. He is certainly not fighting the battle of the Untouchables. On the contrary by distributing through the Harijan Sevak Sangh petty gifts to petty Untouchables he is buying, benumbing and drawing the claws of the opposition of the Untouchables which he knows is the only force which will disrupt the caste system and will establish real democracy in India. Mr. Gandhi wants Hinduism and the Hindu caste system to remain intact. Mr. Gandhi also wants the Untouchables to remain as Hindus. But as what ? not as partners but as poor relations of the Hindus. Mr. Gandhi is kind to the Untouchables. But for what ?