Untouchables or The Children of India's Ghetto
________________________________________________
Chapter I: Untouchability—its
source
Chapter 3 : Slaves and untouchables
Chapter 4 : The Indian ghetto—the
centre of untouchability—outside the fold
Chapter 5 : Unfit for human association
PART
III - Roots of the Problem
PART IV - What the Untouchables have to face
UNTOUCHABLES OR THE CHILDREN OF INDIA'S GHETTO
( This is a 208-page MS (Second copy) under the title " Untouchables or The Children of India's Ghetto ". The whole MS forms an independent book by itself. It has a ' Table of Contents ' divided into 4 parts, which are further sub-divided into 14 chapters. Slight modifications had to be made in the arrangement of the chapters to bring them in conformity with that of ' Table of Contents '. Except few corrections in the titles of the chapters, the text is untouched by the author.)
What it is to
be an Untouchable .
chapter
I
It is usual to hear all those who feel moved by the deplorable condition of the Untouchables unburden themselves by uttering the cry "We must do something for the Untouchables". One seldom hears any of the persons interested in the problem saying ' Let us do something to change the Touchable Hindu '. It is invariably assumed that the object to be reclaimed is the Untouchables. If there is to be a Mission, it must be to the Untouchables and if the Untouchables can be cured, untouchability will vanish. Nothing requires to be done to the Touchable. He is sound in mind, manners and morals. He is whole, there is nothing wrong with him. Is this assumption correct ? Whether correct or not, the Hindus like to cling to it. The assumption has the supreme merit of satisfying themselves that they are not responsible for the problem of the Untouchables.
How natural is such an attitude is illustrated by the attitude of the Gentile towards the Jews. Like the Hindus the Gentiles also do not admit that the Jewish problem is in essence a Gentile problem. The observations of Louis Goulding on the subject are therefore very illuminating. In order to show how the Jewish problem is in its essence a Gentile problem, he says:
" I beg leave to give a very homely instance of the sense in which I consider the Jewish Problem in essence a Gentile Problem. A close acquaintance of mine is a certain Irish terrier of mixed pedigree, the dog Paddy, who is to my friend John Smith as the apple of both his eyes. Paddy dislikes Scotch terriers; it is enough for one to pass within twenty yards of Paddy to deafen the neighbourhood with challenges and insults. It is a practice which John Smith deplores, which, therefore, he does his best to check—all the more as the objects of Paddy's detestation are often inoffensive creatures, who seldom speak first. Despite all his affection for Paddy, he considers, as I do, that Paddy's unmannerly behaviour is due to some measure of original sin in Paddy. It has not yet been suggested to us that what is here involved is a Scotch Terrier Problem and that when Paddy attacks a neighbour who is peacefully engaged in inspecting the evening smells it is the neighbour who should be arraigned for inciting to attack by the fact of his existence."
There is here a complete analogy between the Jewish Problem and the problem of the Untouchables. What Paddy is to the Scotch Terrier, the Gentile is to the Jews, and the Hindu is to the Untouchables. But there is one aspect in which the Jewish Problem stands in contrast to the Gentile Problem. The Jews and the Gentiles are separated by an antagonism of the creeds. The Jewish creed is opposed to that of the Gentile creed. The Hindus and the Untouchables are not separated by any such antagonism. They have a common creed and observe the same cults.
The second explanation is that the Jews wish to remain
separate from the Gentiles. While the first explanation is chauvinistic the second seems
to be founded on historical truth. Many attempts have been made in the past by the
Gentiles to assimilate the Jews. But the Jews have always resisted them. Two instances of
this may be referred.
The first instance relates to the Napoleonic regime. After
the National Assembly of France had agreed to the declaration of the ' Rights of man ' to
the Jews, the Jewish question was again reopened by the guild merchants and religious
reactionaries of Alsace. Napoleon resolved to submit the question to the consideration of
the Jews themselves. He convened an Assembly of Jewish Notables of France, Germany and
Italy in order to ascertain whether the principles of Judaism were compatible with the
requirements of citizenship as he wished to fuse the Jewish element with the dominant
population. The Assembly consisting of I I I deputies, met in the Town Hall of Paris on
the 25th of July 1806, and was required to frame replies to twelve questions relating
mainly to the possibility of Jewish patriotism, the permissibility of inter-marriage
between Jew and Non-Jew, and the legality of usury. So pleased was Napoleon with the
pronouncements of the Assembly that he summoned a Sanhedrin after the model of the ancient
council of Jerusalem to convert them into the decree of a Legislative body. The Sanhedrin,
comprising of 71 deputies from France, Germany, Holland and Italy met under the presidency
of Rabbi Sinzheim, of Strassburg on 9th February 1807, and adopted a sort of Charter which
exhorted the Jews to look upon France as their fatherland, to regard its citizens as their
brethren, and to speak its language, and which also pressed toleration of marriages
between Jews and Christians while declaring that they could not be sanctioned by the
synagogue. It will be noted that the Jews refused to sanction intermarriages between Jews
and non-Jews. They only agreed to tolerate them.
The second instance relates to what happened when the
Batavian Republic was established in 1795. The more energetic members of the Jewish
community pressed for a removal of the many disabilities under which they laboured. But
the demand for the fuller rights of citizenship made by the progressive Jews was at first,
strangely enough, opposed by the leaders of the Amsterdam community, who feared that civil
equality would militate against the conservation of Judaism and declared that their
co-religionists renounced their rights of citizenship in obedience to the dictates of
their faith. This shows that the Jews preferred to live- as strangers rather than as
members of the community.
Whatever the value of their explanations the Gentiles have
at least realized that there rests upon them a responsibility to show cause for their
unnatural attitude towards the Jews. The Hindu has never realised this responsibility of
justifying his treatment of the Untouchables. The responsibility of the Hindus is much
greater because there is no plausible explanation he can offer in justification of
untouchability. He cannot say that the Untouchable is a leper or a mortal wretch who must
be shunned. He cannot say that between him and the Untouchables, there is a gulf due to
religious antagonism which is not possible to bridge. Nor can he plead that it is the
Untouchable who does not wish to assimilate with the Hindus.
But that is not the case with the Untouchables. They too are
in a different sense an eternal people who are separate from the rest. But this
separateness, their segregation is not the result of their wish. They are punished not
because they do not want to mix. They are punished because they want to be one with the
Hindus. In other words, though the problem of the Jews and of the Untouchables is similar
in nature— inasmuch as the problem is created by others—it is essentially
different. The Jew's case is one of the voluntary isolation. The case of the Untouchables
is that of compulsory segregation. Untouchability is an infliction and not a choice.
Before one tries to know what it is to be an Untouchable one
would like to know what is the total population of the Untouchables of India. For this one
must go to the Census Report.
The first general census of India was taken in the year
1881. Beyond listing the different castes and creeds and adding up their numbers so as to
arrive at the total figure of the population of India the Census of 1881 did nothing. It
made no attempt to classify the different Hindu castes either into higher and lower or
touchable and untouchable. The second general census of India was taken in the year 1891.
It was at this census that an attempt to classify the population on the basis of caste and
race and grade was made by the Census Commissioner for the first time. But it was only an
attempt.
The third general census of India was taken in 1901. At this
census a new principle of classification was adopted namely " Classification by
Social precedence as recognised by native public opinion". To this serious opposition
was raised by high caste Hindus to the enumeration by caste in the Census Report. They
insisted on the omission of the question regarding caste.
This objection did not have any effect on the Census
Commissioner. In the opinion of the Census Commissioner enumeration by caste was important
and necessary. It was argued by the Census Commissioner that " whatever view may be
taken of the advantages or disadvantages of caste as a social institution, it is
impossible to conceive of any useful discussion of the population questions in India in
which caste would not be an important element. Caste is still 'the foundation of the
Indian social fabric' and the record of caste is still 'the best guide to the changes in
the various social strata in the Indian Society' Every Hindu (using the term in its most
elastic sense) is born into a caste and his caste determines his religious, social,
economic and domestic life from the cradle to the grave. In western countries the major
factors which determine the different strata of society viz. wealth, education and
vocation are fluid and catholic and tend to modify the rigidity of birth and hereditary
position. In India spiritual and social community and traditional occupation override all
other factors. Thus where in censuses of western countries an economic or occupational
grouping of the population affords a basis for the combination of demographic statistics,
the corresponding basis in the case of the Indian population is the distinction of
religion and caste. Whatever view may be taken of caste as a national and social
institution it is useless to ignore it, and so long as caste continues to be used as one
of the distinguishing features of an individual's official and social identity it cannot
be claimed that a decinnial enumeration helps to perpetuate an undesirable institution.
This Census of 1901 did not result in fixing the total
population of the Untouchables at any exact figure. This was due to two reasons. In the
first place no exact tests were applied to determine who is an Untouchable. Secondly a
class of the population which was economically and educationally backward but not
Untouchable was mixed up with those who were actually Untouchables.
The Census of 1911 went a step further and actually laid
down ten tests to mark off the Untouchables from those who were Touchable. Under these
tests the Census Superintendents made a separate enumeration of castes and tribes who (1)
denied the supremacy of the Brahmins; (2) did not receive the Mantra from Brahmana or
other recognised Hindu Guru; (3) denied the authority of the Vedas; (4) did not worship
the great Hindu Gods; (5) were not served by good Brahmanas; (6) have no Brahmin priests
at all; (7) have no access to the interior of the ordinary Hindu temple; (8) cause
pollution; (9) bury their dead and (10) eat beef and do not reverence the cow. The
separation of the Untouchables from the Hindus was insisted upon by the Muslims in a
memorial to the Government dated 27th January 1910 in which they claimed that their
representation in the political bodies of the country should be in proportion to the
population of Touchable Hindus and not Hindus as a whole because they contended that the
Untouchables were not Hindus.
Be that as it may the Census of 1911 marks the beginning of
the ascertainment of the population of the Untouchables. Efforts in the same direction
were continued at the Census of 1921 and 1931.
As a result of these efforts the Simon Commission
which came to India in 1930 was able to state with some degree of surety that total
population of Untouchables in British India was 44.5 millions.
Suddenly, however, in 1932 when the Lothian Committee came
to India to investigate the question of franchise for the reformed Legislatures and began
its investigation, the Hindus adopted a challenging mood and refused to accept the figure
given by the Simon Committee as a true figure of the Untouchables of India. In some
provinces the Hindus went to the length of denying that there were any Untouchables at
all. This is due to the fact that the Hindus had by now realised the danger of admitting
the existence of the Untouchables. For it meant that a part of the representation enjoyed
by the Hindus will have to be given up by them to the Untouchables.
The Census of 1941 must be left out of consideration. It was
taken during the war and it was a sort of a rough measure.
The latest Census is that of 1951. The following figures are
taken from the statement issued by the Census Commissioner. The Census Commissioner gives
the population of the Scheduled Castes in India as 513 lakhs.
The total population of India, as shown by the 1951 census
is 3,567 lakhs, excluding 1.35 lakhs, the enumeration records in whose case were destroyed
by fire in the Census Tabulation Office at Jullundur.
Out of the total population of 3,567 lakhs, 2,949 lakhs live
in rural areas and 618 lakhs in the urban areas. The Scheduled Castes in rural areas total
462 lakhs and in urban areas their figures are 51 lakhs.
Non-agricultural classes for the whole population total
1,076 lakhs, the Scheduled Castes 132 lakhs.
Cultivators of land, wholly or mainly owned, and their
dependants total 1,674 lakhs for the whole population, 174 lakhs for the Scheduled Castes.
Cultivators of land, wholly or mainly un-owned and their
dependants are 316 lakhs for the whole of India, 56 lakhs for the Scheduled Castes.
Cultivating labourers and their dependants are 448 lakhs for
the whole of India, 148 lakhs for the Scheduled Castes. Figures for non-agricultural
classes are as follows:
Production other than Cultivation: Total 377 lakhs.
Scheduled Castes 53 lakhs.
Commerce: Total 213 lakhs. Scheduled Castes 9 lakhs.
Transport: Total 56 lakhs. Scheduled Castes 6 lakhs. Other services and miscellaneous
sources: Total 430 lakhs, Scheduled Castes 64 lakhs.
Out of a total Scheduled Caste population of over 513 lakhs,
114 lakhs live in North India (Uttar Pradesh); 128 lakhs in East India (Bihar, Orissa,
West Bengal, Assam, Manipur and Tripura); 110 lakhs in South India (Madras, Mysore,
Travancore-Cochin and Coorg); 31 lakhs in West India (Bombay, Saurashtra and Kutch); 76
lakhs in Central India (Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Bharat, Hyderabad, Bhopal and Vindhya
Pradesh); and 52 lakhs in North-West India (Rajasthan, Punjab, Patiala and East Punjab
States Union, Ajmer, Delhi, Bilaspur and Himachal Pradesh).
Far from being ashamed of untouchability, the Hindus try to
defend it. The line of their defence is that the Hindus have never upheld slavery as other
nations have done and that in any case, untouchability is not worse than slavery. This
argument was used by no less a person than
the late Lala Lajpat Rai in his book called ' Unhappy India '. It would have been
unnecessary to waste one's time in refuting this countercharge had it not been that on
account of its plausibility the world at large not having witnessed anything worse than
slavery is likely to believe that untouchability cannot be worse than slavery.
The first reply to the counter-charge is that it is quite
untrue that slavery was not recognised by the Hindus. Slavery is a very ancient
institution of the Hindus. It is recognised by Manu, the Hindu lawgiver and has been
elaborated and systematised by the other Smriti writers who followed Manu. Slavery among
the Hindus was never merely ancient institution, which functioned, only in some hoary
past. It was an institution which continued throughout Indian history down to the year
1843 and if it had not been abolished by the British Government by law in that year, it
might have continued even today.
As to the relative merits of slavery and untouchability, the
best way to meet the counter-charge is to compare and contrast untouchability with slavery
as it existed in ancient Rome and in modern America.
What was the de facto
condition of the slaves in the Roman Empire? The best description I know of is to be found
in Mr. Barrow's Slavery in the Roman Empire.
Says' Mr. Barrow:
" Hitherto, it is the repulsive side of household slavery that has been sketched. There is also another aspect. The literature reveals the vast household as normal. It is, of course, the exception. Large slave staffs undoubtedly existed, and they are generally to be found in Rome. In Italy and the Provinces there was less need of display; many of the staff of the Villa were engaged in productive work connected with land and its produce. The old-fashioned relationship between foreman and slave remained there; the slave was often a fellow worker. The kindliness of Pliny towards his staff is well known. It is in no spirit of self-righteousness, and in no wish to appear in a favourable light in the eyes of the future generations which he hoped would read his letters that he tells of his distress at the illness and death of his slaves. The household (or Pliny) is the slaves' republic. Pliny's account of his treatment of his slaves is sometimes regarded as so much in advance of general or even occasional practice as to be valueless as evidence. There is no reason for this attitude.
From reasons both of display and genuine literary interest,
the rich families attached to their households, slaves trained in literature and art.
Clavisices Sabinus is said by Seneda to have had eleven slaves taught to recite Homer,
Hesioid, and nine lyric poets by heart. ' Book cases would be cheaper ', said a rude
friend. ' No, what the household knows the master knows ' was the answer. But, apart from
such abuses, educated slaves must have been a necessity in the absence of printing;.. ..
The busy lawyer, the dilettante poet, the philosopher and educated gentlemen of literary
tastes and need of copyists and readers and secretaries. Such men were naturally
linguistic also; a librarius who dies at the age
of twenty boasts that he was ' literatus Graecis Latinis '. Amanuenses were common enough; librarians are to be
found in public and private libraries.... Shorthand writing was in common use under the
Empire, and slave Notarii were regularly
employed. Many freemen, rhetoricians and grammarians are collected by Snetonius in a
special treatise. Verrius Flaccus was tutor to Austus's grandsons, and at death was
publicly honoured by a statue. Scribonius Aphrodisius was the slave and disciple of
Orbilius and was afterwards freed by Scribenia. Hyginus was librarian of the Palatine
Library, in which office he was followed by Julius Modestus, his own freeman. We hear of
freemen historians of a slave philosopher who was encouraged to argue with his master,
friends of slaves and freed architects. Freemen as doctors occur frequently in the
inscriptions, some of them specialists, they had been trained in big households as slaves,
as is shown by one or two examples; after Manumission they rose to eminence and became
notorious for their high fees."' The tastes of some section of society demanded that
dancer, singers, musicians, mountebanks, variety artists, athletic trainers and messieurs
should be forthcoming. All these are to be found in slavery often trained by teachers who
had acquired some reputation1[f1]. '
The age of Augustus was the beginning of a period of
commercial and industrial expansion.... Slaves had indeed been employed (in arts and
crafts) before, but the sudden growth of trade.... their employment in numbers that would
otherwise have been unnecessary. Romans engaged more freely and more openly in various
forms of commercial and industrial venture. Yet, even so, the agent became more important,
for commercial activities became more widespread; and such agents were almost necessarily
slaves.... (this is so) because the bonds of slavery (are elastic). (They could be) so
relaxed as to offer an incentive to the slave to work by the prospect of wealth and
freedom, and so tightened as to provide a guarantee to the master against loss from the
misconduct of his slave. In business contracts between slave and master or third person
seem to have been common, and the work thus done, and no doubt, the profits were
considerable.... Renting of land to the slave has already been noticed.... and in industry
much the same system was used in various forms; the master might lease a bank, or a
business of the use of a ship, the terms being a fixed return or the slave being paid on a
commission basis'[f2].
The earnings of the slave became in law his peculium was
saved it might be used to a variety of purpose. No doubt in many cases this fund was
expended in providing food or pleasure. But peculium must not be regarded merely as petty
savings, casually earned and idly spent. The slave who made his master's business yield
profits, to his own profit too, very often, had a keen sense of the best use to make up
his own money. Often he reinvested it in his master's business or in enterprises entirely
unrelated to it. He could enter into business relations with his master, from whom he came
to be regarded as entirely distinct, or he could make contracts with a third person. He
could even have procurators to manage his own property and interests. And so with the
peculium may be found not only land, houses, shops, but rights and claims.
The activities of slaves in commerce are innumerable;
numbers of them are shopkeepers selling every variety of food, bread, meat, salt, fish,
wine, vegetables, beans, lupine-seed, honey, curd, ham, ducks and fresh fish; others deal
in clothing— sandals, shoes, gowns and mantles. In Rome, they plied their trade in
the neighbourhood of the Circus Mamimus, or the Porticus Trigemimus; or the Esquiline
Market, or the Great Mart (on the Caolian Hill) or the Suburra[f3]....
The extent to which slave secretaries and agents acted for
their masters is shown very clearly in the receipts found in the house of Caecillius
Jucundus at Pompei [f4].
That the State should possess slaves is not surprising; war,
after all, was the affair of the State and the captive might well be State-property. What
is surprising is the remarkable use made of public slaves under the Empire and the
extraordinary social position occupied by them....
" ' Public slave ' came to mean before the Empire a
slave of the State employed in its many offices, and the term implied a given occupation
and often social position. The work of slaves of the State, slaves of the townships, and
slaves of Caesar comprises much of what would now fall to parts of the higher and the
whole of the lower branches of the civil services and of the servants of Municipal
Corporations, working both with head and hands.... In the subordinate levels (of the
Treasury) there worked numbers of clerks and financial officers, all freedmen and slaves.
The business dealt with must have been of vast range.... The Mint.. .. the immediate head
was a knight, in charge of the minting processes.... a freedman was placed; under him
served freedmen and slaves.... From one branch of State service, at any rate, slaves were
rigorously excluded, except on one or two occasions of exceptional stress. They were not
allowed to fight in the Army because not thought worthy of honour. Doubtless other motives
were present also; it would be dangerous experiment to train too many slaves
systematically in the use of Arms. If, however, slaves served rarely in the fighting line,
they are regularly to be found in great numbers behind it employed as servants, and in the
commissariat and transport. In the fleet slaves were common enough[f5]."
Let us turn to the de
facto position of the Negro in the United States during the period in which he was
slave in the eye of the law. Here are some facts[f6] which shed a good deal of light on his position:
" Lafayette himself had observed that white and black
seamen and soldiers had fought and messed together in the Revolution without bitter
difference. Down in Granville County, North Carolina, a full blooded Negro, John Chavis,
educated in Princeton University, was conducting a private school for white students and
was a licentiate under the local Presbytery, preaching to white congregations in the
State. One of his pupils became Governor of North Carolina, another the State's most
prominent Whig senator. Two of his pupils were sons of the Chief Justice of North
Carolina. The father of the founder of the greatest military Academy of the State attended
his school and boarded in his home . .. .. Slave labour was used for all kinds of work and
the more intelligent of the Negro slaves were trained as artisans to be used and leased.
Slave artisans would bring twice as much as an ordinary field hand in the market. Master
craftsmen owned their staff. Some masters, as the system became more involved, hired
slaves to their slave artisans. Many slave artisans purchased their freedom by the savings
allowed them above the normal labour expected."
" The advertisements for runaways and sales are an
index to this skill. They received the same or better wages than the poor white labourer
and with the influence of the master got the best jobs. The Contractors for masons' and
carpenters' work in Athens, Georgia in 1838 were petitioned to stop showing preference to
Negro labourers. " The white man is the only real, legal, moral, and civil proprietor
of this country and state. The right of his proprietorship reached from the date of the
studies of those whitemen, Copernicus and Galileo, who indicated the sphericity of the
earth; which sphericity hinted to another white man, Columbus, the possibility by a
westerly course of sailing, of finding land. Hence by whitemen alone was this continent
discovered, the whitemen alone, aye, those to whom you decline to give money for bread or
clothes for their famishing families, in the logical manner of withholding work from them
defending Negroes too in the bargain." In Atlanta in 1858 a petition signed by 2
white mechanics and labourers sought protection against the black slave artisans of
masters who resided in other sections. The very next year sundry white citizens were
aggrieved that the City Council tolerated a Negro dentist to remain and operate in their
midst. ' In justice to ourselves and the community it ought to be abated. We, the
residents of Atlanta, appeal to you for justice '. A Census of free Negroes in Richmond
County, Georgia, in 1819 showed carpenters, barbers, boatcorkers, saddlers, spinners,
millwrights, holsters, weavers, harness makers, sawmill attendants and steamboat pilots. A
Negro shoe-maker made by hand the boots in which President Munrow was inaugurated. Harriet
Martineau marvelled at the slave workmanship in the delicately tiled floors of Thomas
Jefferson's home at Monticello. There still stands in the big house of the old plantation,
heavy marks of the hands of these Negro craftsmen, strong mansions built of timber hewn
from the original oak and pinned together by wooden pins. Negro women skilled in spinning
and weaving worked in the mills. Buckingham in 1839 found them in Athens, Georgia, working
alongside with white girls without apparent repugnance or objection. Negro craftsmen in
the South, slave and free fared better than their brothers in the North. In 1856 in
Philadelphia, of 1637 Negro craftsmen recorded, less than two-thirds could use their
trades; 'because of hostile prejudice '. The Irish who were pouring into America from the
very beginning of the nineteenth century were being used in the North on approximately the
same motives of preference, which governed Negro slavery. ' An Irish Catholic, it was
argued in their favour, seldom attempts to rise to a higher condition than that in which
he is placed, while the Negro often makes the attempt with success. Had not the old
Puritan Oliver Cromwell, while the traffic in black slaves was on, sold all the Irish not
killed in the Drogheda Massacre, into Barbados? Free and fugitive Negroes in New York and
Pennsylvania were in constant conflict with this group and the bitter hostility showed
itself most violently in the draft riots of the New York. These Hibernians controlled the
hod carrying and the common labour jobs, opposing every approach of the Negro as a menace
to their slight hold upon America and upon a means of livelihood."
Such was the de facto
condition of the Roman slave and the American Negro slave. Is there anything in the
condition of the Untouchables of India which is comparable with the condition of the Roman
slave and the American Negro slave? It would not be unfair to take the same period of time
for comparing the condition of the Untouchables with that of the slaves under the Roman
Empire. But I am prepared to allow the comparison of the condition of the slaves in the
Roman Empire to be made with the condition of the Untouchables of the present day. It is a
comparison between the worst of one side and the best of the other, for the present times
are supposed to be the golden age for the Untouchables. How does the de facto condition of the Untouchables compare with
the de facto condition of the slaves? How many
Untouchables are engaged as the slaves in Rome were, in professions such as
those of Librarians,
Amanuenses, Shorthand writers? How many Untouchables are engaged, as the slaves in
Rome were, in such intellectual occupations as those of rhetoricians, grammarians,
philosophers, tutors, doctors and artists? How many Untouchables are engaged, as the
slaves in Rome? Can any Hindu dare to give an affirmative answer to anyone of these
queries? The Untouchables are completely shut out from any of these avenues in which the
slaves found so large a place. This proves how futile is the line of defence adopted by
the Hindus to justify untouchability. The pity
of the matter is that most people condemn slavery simply because they hold that for one
man or class to have by law the power of life and death over another is wrong. They forget
that there can be cruel oppression, tyranny, and persecution, with the train of misery,
disappointment and desperation even when there is no slavery. Those who will take note of
the facts stated above relating to the de facto condition
of the slaves will admit that it is idle to condemn slavery lightly or hurriedly on the
mere de jure conception of it. What the law
permits is not always evidence of the practices prevalent in society. Many a slave would
readily have admitted that they owed everything to slavery, and many did so whether they
would have admitted it or not.
Slavery, it must be admitted, is not a free social order.
But can untouchability be described as a free social order? The Hindus who came forward to
defend untouchability no doubt claim that it is. They, however, forget that there are
differences between untouchability and slavery, which makes untouchability a worse type of
an un-free social order. Slavery was never obligatory. But untouchability is obligatory. A
person is permitted to hold another as his
slave. There is no compulsion on him if he does not want to. But an Untouchable has no
option. Once he is born an Untouchable, he is subject to all the disabilities of an
Untouchable. The law of slavery permitted emancipation. Once a slave always a slave was
not the fate of the slave. In untouchability there is no escape. Once an Untouchable
always an Untouchable. The other difference is that untouchability is an indirect and
therefore the worst form of slavery. A deprivation of a man's freedom by an open and
direct way is a preferable form of enslavement. It makes the slave conscious of his
enslavement and to become conscious of slavery is the first and most important step in the
battle for freedom. But if a man is deprived of his liberty indirectly he has no
consciousness of his enslavement. Untouchability is an indirect form of slavery. To tell
an Untouchable 'you are free, you are a citizen, you have all the rights of a citizen ',
and to tighten the rope in such a way as to leave him no opportunity to realise the ideal
is a cruel deception. It is enslavement without making the Untouchables conscious of their
enslavement. It is slavery though it is untouchability. It is real though it is indirect.
It is enduring because it is unconscious. Of the two orders, untouchability is beyond
doubt the worse.
Neither slavery nor untouchability is a free social order.
But if a distinction is to be made—and there is no doubt that there is distinction
between the two—the test is whether education, virtue, happiness, culture, and wealth
is possible within slavery or within untouchability. Judged by this test it is beyond
controversy that slavery is hundred times better than untouchability. In slavery there is
room for education, virtue, happiness, culture, or wealth. In untouchability there is
none. Untouchability has none of the advantages of an un-free social order such as
slavery. It has all the disadvantages of a free social order. In an un-free social order
such as slavery there is the advantage of apprenticeship in a business, craft or art or
what Prof. Mures calls 'an initiation into a higher culture '. Neither the crushing of
untouchability nor the refusal of personal growth was necessary inherent in slavery,
especially slavery as it existed in Roman Empire. It is therefore over hasty to say that
slavery is better than untouchability.
This training, this initiation of culture was undoubtedly a
great benefit to the slave. Equally it involved considerable cost to the master to train
his slave, to initiate him into culture. 'There can have been little supply of slaves
educated or trained before enslavement. The alternative was to train them when young
slaves in domestic work or in skilled craft, as was indeed done to some extent before the
Empire, by Cato, the Elder, for example. The training was done by his owner and his
existing staff.... indeed the household of the rich contained special pedagogue for this
purpose. Such training took many forms, industry, trade, arts and letters '.
The reason why the master took so much trouble to train the
slave and to initiate him in the higher forms of labour and culture was undoubtedly the
motive of gain. A skilled slave as an item was more valuable than an unskilled slave. If
sold, he would fetch better price, if hired out he would bring in more wages. It was
therefore an investment to the owner to train his slave.
In an un-free social order, such as slavery, the duty to
maintain the slave in life and the body falls upon the master. The slave was relieved of
all responsibility in respect of his food, his clothes and his shelter. All this, the
master was bound to provide. This was, of course, no burden because the slave earned more
than his keep. But a security for boarding and lodging is not always possible for every
freeman, as all wage earners now know to their cost. Work is not always available even to
those who are ready to toil and a workman cannot escape the rule according to which he
gets no bread if he finds no work. This rule—no work no bread—has no
applicability to the slave. It is the duty of the master to find bread and also to find
work. If the master fails to find work, the slave does not forfeit his right to bread. The
ebbs and tides of business, the booms and depressions are vicissitudes through which all
free wage earners have to go. But they do not affect the slave. They may affect his
master. But the slave is free from them. He gets his bread, perhaps the same bread, but
bread whether it is boom or whether it is depression.
In an un-free social order, such as slavery, the master is
bound to take great care of the health and well being of the slave: The slave was property
of the master. But this very disadvantage gave the slave an advantage over a freeman.
Being property and therefore valuable, the master for sheer self-interest took great care
of the health and well-being of the slave In Rome, the slaves were never employed on
marshy and malarial land. On such a land only freemen were employed. Cato advises Roman
farmers never to employ slaves on marshy and malarial land. This seems strange. But a
little examination will show that this was quite natural. Slave was valuable property and
as such a prudent man who knows his interest will not expose his valuable possession to
the ravages of malaria. The same care need not be taken in the case of freeman because he
is not valuable property. This consideration resulted into the great advantage of the
slave. He was cared for as no one was.
Untouchability has none of the three advantages of the
un-free social order mentioned above. The Untouchable has no entry in the higher arts of
civilisation and no way open to a life of culture. He must only sweep. He must do nothing
else. Untouchability carries no security as to livelihood. None from the Hindus is
responsible for the feeding, housing and clothing of the Untouchable. The health of the
Untouchable is the care of nobody. Indeed, the death of an Untouchable is regarded as a
good riddance. There is a Hindu proverb, which says 'The Untouchable is dead and the fear
of pollution has vanished '.
On the other hand, untouchability has all the disadvantages
of a free social order. In a free social order the responsibility for survival in the
struggle for existence lies on the individual. This responsibility is one of the greatest
disadvantages of a free social order. Whether an individual is able to carry out this
responsibility depends upon fair start, equal opportunity and square deal. The
Untouchable, while he is a free individual, had neither fair start, nor equal opportunity
nor square deal. From this point of view, untouchability is not only worse than slavery
but is positively cruel as compared to slavery. In slavery, the master has the obligation
to find work for the slave. In a system of free labour workers have to compete with
workers for obtaining work. In this scramble for work what chances has the Untouchable for
a fair deal? To put it shortly, in this competition with the scales always weighing
against him by reason of his social stigma he is the last to be employed and the first to
be fired. Untouchability is cruelty as compared to slavery because it throws upon the
Untouchables the responsibility for maintaining himself without opening to him fully all
the ways of earning a living.
To sum up, the Untouchables unlike the slaves are owned by
the Hindus for purposes which further their interests and are disowned by them, when
owning them places them under burden. The Untouchables can claim none of the advantages of
an un-free social order and are left to bear all the disadvantages of a free social order.
THE INDIAN GHETTO—THE CENTRE OF UNTOUCHABILITY—
Outside the Fold
What is the position of the Untouchables under the Hindu
social order? To give a true idea of their position is the main purpose of this chapter.
But it is not easy to strike upon the best means of conveying a realistic and concrete
picture of the way the Untouchables live or rather are made to live under the Hindu social
order to one who has no conception of it. One way is to draw a model plant so to say of
the Hindu social order and show the place given to the Untouchables therein. For this it
is necessary to go to a Hindu village. Nothing can serve our purpose better. The Hindu
village is a working plant of the Hindu social order. One can see there the Hindu social
order in operation in full swing. The average Hindu is always in ecstasy whenever he
speaks of the Indian village. He regards it as an ideal form of social organisation to
which he believes there is no parallel anywhere in the world. It is claimed to be a
special contribution to the theory of social organisation for which India may well be
proud of.
How fanatic are the Hindus in their belief in the Indian
village as an ideal piece of social organisation may be seen from the angry speeches made
by the Hindu members of the Indian Constituent Assembly in support of the contention that
the Indian Constitution should recognise the Indian village as its base of the
constitutional pyramid of autonomous administrative units with its own legislature,
executive and judiciary. From the point of view of the Untouchables, there could not have
been a greater calamity. Thank God the Constituent Assembly did not adopt it. Nevertheless
the Hindus persist in their belief that the Indian village is an ideal form of social
organisation. This belief of the Hindus is not ancestral belief, nor does it come from the
ancient past. It is borrowed from Sir Charles Metcalfe—a civil servant of the East
India Company. Metcalfe, who was a revenue officer, in one of his Revenue Papers described
the Indian village in the following terms1[f7]:
"The village communities are little republics, having
nearly everything they want within themselves and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last when
nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down, revolution succeeds to revolution;
Hindu, Pathan, Moghul, Maratha, Sikh, English, all are masters in turn, but the village
communities remain the same. In times of trouble they arm and fortify themselves. An
hostile army passes through the country, the village communities collect their cattle
within their walls and let the enemy pass unprovoked. If plunder and devastation be
directed against them selves, and the forces
employed be irresistible, they flee to friendly villages at a distance; but when the storm
has passed over, they return and resume their occupations. If a country remains for a
series of years the scene of continued pillage and massacre so that the villages cannot be
inhabited, the scattered villagers nevertheless return whenever the power of peaceable
possession revives. A generation may pass away, but the succeeding generation will return.
The sons will take the place of their fathers; the same site for the village, the same
position for their houses, the same lands will be reoccupied by the descendants of those
who were driven out when the village was repopulated; and it is not a trifling matter that
will drive them out, for they will often maintain their post through times of disturbances
and convulsion, and acquire strength sufficient to resist pillage and oppression with
success. This union of the village communities, each one forming a little state in itself,
has, I conceive, contributed more than any other cause to the preservation of the people
of India, through all the revolutions and changes which they have referred, and is in a
high degree conducive to their happiness and to the enjoyment of a great portion of
freedom and independence." Having read this description of an Indian village given by
a high-placed member of the governing class, the Hindus felt flattered and adopted his
view as a welcome compliment. In adopting this view of the Indian village, the Hindus have
not done any justice to their intelligence or their understanding. They have merely
exhibited the weakness common to all subject people. Since many foreigners are led to
accept this idealistic view of the Indian village, it would be better to present a
realistic picture of the Society as one finds it in an Indian village.
The Indian village is not a single social unit. It consists
of castes. But for our purposes, it is enough to say—
1. The population in the village is divided into two
sections—(I) Touchables and (ii) Untouchables.
II. The Touchables form the major community and the
Untouchables a minor community.
III. The Touchables live inside the village and the
Untouchables live outside the village in separate quarters.
IV. Economically, the Touchables form a strong and powerful
community, while the Untouchables are a poor and a dependent community.
V. Socially, the Touchables occupy the position of a ruling
race, while the Untouchables occupy the position of a subject race of hereditary bondsmen.
What are the terms of associated life on which the
Touchables and Untouchables live in an Indian village? In every village the Touchables
have a code which the Untouchables are required to follow. This code lays down the acts of
omissions and commissions which the Touchables treat as offences. The following is the
list of such offences:
1. The Untouchables must live in separate quarters away from
the habitation of the Hindus. It is an offence for the Untouchables to break or evade the
rule of segregation.
2. The quarters of the Untouchables must be located towards
the South, since the South is the most inauspicious of the four directions. A breach of
this rule shall be deemed to be an offence.
3. The Untouchable must observe the rule of distance
pollution or shadow of pollution as the case may be. It is an offence to break the rule.
4. It is an offence for a member of the Untouchable
community to acquire wealth, such as land or cattle.
5. It is an offence for a member of the Untouchable
community to build a house with tiled roof.
6. It is an offence for a member of an Untouchable community
to put on a clean dress, wear shoes, put on a watch or gold ornaments.
7. It is an offence for a member of the Untouchable
community to give high sounding names to their children. Their names be such as to
indicate contempt.
8. It is an offence for a member of the Untouchable
community to sit on a chair in the presence of a Hindu.