MR. GANDHI AND THE EMANCIPATION OF THE UNTOUCHABLES
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Contents
Chapter I : Total
Population Of The Untouchables
Chapter II : The
Importance Of The Untouchables
Chapter III : The
Political Demands Of The Untouchables
Chapter V : Joint v/s
Separate Electorates
Chapter VIII : Separate Settlements
Chapter IX : Caste and Constitution
Chapter X : Some Questions To The Hindus and Their Friends
In
response to the invitation of the Chairman of the Indian section of the Institute of
Pacific Relations, I wrote in August last year a Paper on the Problem of the Untouchables
of India for the Session of the Conference which was due to be held on December 1942 at
Mont' Tramblant in Quebec in Canada. The Paper is printed in the proceedings of the
Conference. Ever since it became known that I had written such a Paper, the leaders of the
Untouchables and Americans interested in their problem have been pressing me to issue it
separately in the form of a book and make it available to the general public. It was not
possible to refuse the demand. At the same time I could not without breach of etiquette
publish the paper until the proceedings of the Conference were made public. I am now told
by the Secretary of the Pacific Relations Conference that the proceedings have been made
public and there can be no objection to the publication of my Paper if I desired it. This
will explain why the Paper is published nearly 10 months after it was written.
Except
for a few verbal alterations the Paper is printed as it was presented to the Conference.
The Paper will speak for itself. There is only one thing I would like to add. It is
generally agreed among the thoughtful part of humanity that there are three problems which
the Peace Conference is expected to tackle. They are (1) Imperialism,(2) Racialism, (3)
Anti-semitism and (4) Free Traffic in that merchandise of death popularly called
munitions. There is no doubt these are the plague glands in which nation's cruelty to
nation and man's inhumanity to man have their origin. There is no doubt that these
problems must be tackled if a new and a better world is to emerge from the ashes of this terrible
and devastating war. What my fear is that the problem of the Untouchables may be forgotten
as it has been so far. That would indeed be a
calamity. For the ills which the Untouchables are suffering if they are not as much advertised as those of the Jews,
are not less real. Nor are the means and the methods of suppression used by the Hindus
against the Untouchables less effective because they are less bloody than the ways
which the Nazis have adopted against the Jews. The Anti-semitism of the Nazis against the Jews is in no way
different in ideology
and in effect from the Sanatanism of the Hindus against the
Untouchables .
The world owes a duty to the Untouchables as it does to all
suppressed people to break their shackles and to set them
free. I accepted the invitation to write this Paper because
I felt that it was the best opportunity to draw the attention of the world to this problem
in comparison to which the problem of the Slaves, the Negroes and the Jews is nothing. I
hope the publication of this Paper will serve as a notice to
the Peace Conference that this problem will be on the Board of Causes
which it will have to bear and decide and also to the Hindus that they will have
to answer for it before the bar of the world.
The Decennial Census in India was at one time a
very simple and innocent operation which interested only the Malthusians. None else took
interest in it. Today the Census is a matter of a first rate concern to everybody. Not
only the professional politician but the general public in India regards it as a matter of
very grave concern. This is so because Politics in India has become a matter of numbers.
It is numbers which give political advantage, to one community over another which does not
happen anywhere else in the world. The result is that the Census in India is deliberately
cooked for securing political advantages which numbers give. In this cooking of the Census
the Hindus, the Muslims and the Sikhs have played their part as the chief chefs of the
kitchen. The Untouchables and the Christians, who are also interested in their numbers,
have no hand in the cooking of the Census, for the simple reason that they have no place
in the administrative services of the country which deal with the operations of the
Census. On the other hand the Untouchables are the people who are quartered, cooked and
served by the Hindus, Muslims and the Sikhs at every Decennial Census. This has happened
particularly in the last Census of 1940. The Untouchables of certain parts of the Punjab
were subjected to systematic tyranny and oppression by the Sikhs. The object was to compel
them to declare in the Census returns that they are Sikhs even though they are not. This
reduced the number of the Untouchables and swelled the number of the Sikhs. The Hindus on
their part carried on a campaign that nobody
should declare his or her caste in the Census return. A particular appeal was made to the
Untouchables. It was suggested to them that it is the name of the Caste that proclaims to
the world that they are Untouchables and if they did not declare their caste name but
merely said that they were Hindus, they would be treated just like other Hindus and nobody
would know that they were really Untouchables. The Untouchables fell a victim to this
stratagem and decided not to declare themselves as
Untouchables in the Census return but to call themselves merely as Hindus. The result was obvious. It reduced the number of Untouchables and swelled the
ranks of the Hindus. To what extent the cooking of the Census has taken place it is
difficult to say. But there can be no doubt that the degree to which cooking was resorted
to was considerable. The Census has been cooked all over. But it is the Untouchables who
have suffered most from the cooking of the Census. That being so, the Census figure
regarding the total population of the Untouchables in British India cannot be accepted as
giving a correct total. But one cannot be far wrong if it was said that the present number of the Untouchables to
British India is round about 60 million people.
Most parts of the world have had their type of what
Ward calls the lowly. The Romans had their slaves, the Spartans their helots, the British
their villeins, the Americans their Negroes and the Germans their Jews. So the Hindus have
their Untouchables. But none of these can be said to have been called upon to face a fate
which is worse than the fate which pursues the Untouchables. Slavery, serfdom, villeinage
have all vanished. But Untouchability still exists and bids fair to last as long as
Hinduism will last. The Untouchable is worse off than a Jew. The sufferings of the Jew are
of his own creation. Not so are the sufferings of the Untouchables. They are the result of
a cold calculating Hinduism which is not less sure in its effect in producing misery than
brute force is. The Jew is despised but is not denied opportunities to grow. The
Untouchable is not merely despised but is denied all opportunities to rise. Yet nobody
seems to take any notice of the Untouchables-some 60 millions of souls-much less espouse
their cause.
If there is any cause of freedom in this Indian
turmoil for independence it is the cause of the Untouchables. The cause of the Hindus and
the cause of the Musalmans is not the cause of freedom. Theirs is a struggle for power as
distinguished from freedom. Consequently it has always been a matter of surprise to me
that no party and no organisation devoted to the cause of freedom has so far interested
itself in the Untouchables. There is the American Weekly called "The Nation".
There is the British Weekly called "Statesman". Both are powerful. Both are
friends of India's freedom. I would mention the American Labour and British Labour among
organised bodies among the supporters of India's freedom. So far as I know none of these
have ever championed the cause of the Untouchables. Indeed what they have done is what no
lover of freedom would do. They have just identified themselves with the Hindu body
calling itself the Indian National Congress. Now everybody in India, outside the Hindus,
knows that whatever may be its title it is beyond question that the Congress is a body of
middle class Hindus supplied by the Hindu Capitalists whose object is not to make Indians
free but to be independent of British control and to occupy
places of power now occupied by the British. If the kind of
Freedom which the Congress wants was achieved there is no
doubt that the Hindus would do to the Untouchables exactly what they have been doing in
the past In the light of this
apathy the Indian branch of
the Institute of International Affairs
may well be congratulated for having invited a paper for
submission to the Institute of Pacific Relations, discussing the position of
the Untouchables in India in the New Constitution. I must confess that this invitation for a statement on the position of the Untouchables under the new constitution came to me as an agreeable surprise and a great relief and
it is because of this, that notwithstanding the many things
with which lam preoccupied, I
agreed to find time to prepare this paper.
THE POLITICAL DEMANDS OF THE UNTOUCHABLES
The problem
of the Untouchables is an enormous problem. As a matter of fact I have been for sometime
engaged on a work dealing with this problem which will run into several hundred pages. All
that I can do within the limits of this paper is to set out in a brief compass what the
nature of the problem is and the solution which the Untouchables have themselves
propounded. It seems to me that I cannot do better than begin by drawing attention to the
following Resolutions which were passed at the All-India Scheduled Castes 1[f.1] Conference
held in the city of Nagpur on the 18th and 19th July 1942 :-
Resolution
No. II
CONSENT
ESSENTIAL TO
CONSTITUTION
"This Conference declares that no
constitution will be acceptable to the Scheduled Castes unless,
(i)
it has the consent of the
Scheduled Castes,
(ii)
it recognises the fact that
the Scheduled Castes are distinct and separate from the Hindus and constitute an important
element in the national life of India, and
(iii)
contains within itself
provisions which will give to the Scheduled Castes a real sense of security under the new
constitution and which are set out in the following resolutions."
Resolution No. Ill
ESSENTIAL
PROVISIONS IN THE
NEW
CONSTITUTION
"For creating this sense of security in
the Scheduled Castes: this Conference demands that the following provisions shall be made
in the new Constitution:-
(1) That in the budget
of every provincial Government an annual sum as may be determined upon by agreement be set
apart for promoting the primary education among the children of the Scheduled Castes and
another annual sum for promoting advanced education among them, and such sums shall be
declared to be the first charge on the revenues of the Province.
(2) That provision shall be made by law for securing
representation to the Scheduled Castes in all Executive Governments-Central and
Provincial-the proportion of which shall be determined in accordance with their number,
their needs and their importance.
(3) That provision shall be made by law for securing
representation to the Scheduled Castes in the Public Services the proportion of which
shall be fixed in accordance with their number, their needs and their importance. This
Conference further insists that in the case of security services such as Judiciary, Police
and Revenue, provision shall be made that the proportion fixed for the Scheduled Castes shall, subject to the rule of minimum
qualification, be realised within a period of ten years.
(4) That provision shall be made by
law for guaranteeing to the Scheduled Castes representation in all Legislatures and Local
bodies in accordance with their number, needs and
importance.
(5) That provision shall be made
by law whereby the representation of the Scheduled Castes in
all Legislatures and Local Bodies shall be by the method of Separate Electorates.
(6) That provision shall be made by law for the representation
of the Scheduled Castes on all Public Service Commissions, Central and Provincial."
SEPARATE SETTLEMENTS
"It is the
considered opinion of this conference,
(a) that so long as the Scheduled Castes continue to live on the
outskirts of the Hindu village, with no source of livelihood and in small number as
compared to Hindus, they will continue to remain
Untouchables and subject to the tyranny and oppression of the Hindus and will not be able
to enjoy free and full life.
(b) That for the better protection of the Scheduled Castes from
the tyranny and oppression of the Caste Hindus, which may take a worse form under Swaraj
which cannot but be a Hindu Raj, and
(c) to enable the Scheduled Castes to develop to their fullest
manhood, to give them economical and social security as also to pave the way for the
removal of untouchability.
This Conference has after long and mature
deliberation come to the conclusion that a radical change must be made in the village
system now prevalent in India and which is the parent of all the ills from which the
Scheduled Castes are suffering for so many centuries at the hands of the Hindus. Realising the necessity of these changes this conference holds that
along with the Constitutional changes in the system of Government
there must be a change in the village system now prevalent,
made along the following lines:
(1) The constitution should provide for the
transfer of the Scheduled Castes from their present habitation and form separate Scheduled Caste
villages away from and independent of Hindu village.
(2) For the settlement
of the Scheduled Castes in new villages a provision shall be made by the constitution for
the establishment of a Settlement Commission.
(3) All Government land which is cultivable and
which is not occupied shall be handed over to the Commission
to be held in trust for the purpose of making new settlements of the Scheduled Castes.
(4) The Commission
shall be empowered to purchase new land under the Land Acquisition Act from private owners
to complete the scheme of settlement
of Scheduled Castes,
(5) The constitution shall provide that the Central
Government shall grant to the
settlement commission a minimum sum of Rupees five crores
per annum to enable the Commission
to carry out their duty to this behalf.
HINDU OPPOSITION
The demands set forth in those resolutions fall
into three categories (1) Political, (2) Educational and (3) Economic and Social.
Taking the political demands first it is
obvious that they ask for three safeguards-
(1) That the Legislature shall not be merely representative of
the people but it shall be representative separately of both categories Hindus as well as
Untouchables.
(2) That the Executive shall not be merely responsible to the
Legislature, which means to the Hindus, but shall also be responsible both to the Hindus
as well as to the Untouchables.
(3) That the administration shall not be merely efficient but
shall also be worthy of trust by all sections of the people and also of the Untouchables
and shall contain sufficient number of representatives of the Untouchables holding key
positions so that the Untouchables may have confidence in it.
These Political demands of the Untouchables
have been the subject matter of great controversy between the Untouchables and the Hindus.
Mr. Gandhi, the friend of the Untouchables, preferred to fast unto death rather than
consent to them and although he yielded he is not reconciled to the justice underlying
these demands. It will be well if I set out at this stage what the Hindu or the Congress
Scheme of representative Government is. It is as follows :-
(1) The Legislature to be elected by Constituencies
which are to be purely territorial.
(2) The Executive to be drawn solely from the
Majority party in the Legislature.
(3) The Administration to be run by a public
service based entirely upon considerations of efficiency.
The Hindus of the Congress describe their own
pet scheme as a National Scheme and call the scheme put forth by the Untouchables as the
Communal Scheme. As I will show, there is no substance in this distinction. It is a case
of damning what you do not like by the easy method of giving it a bad and a repelling
name. Such tactics can't give strength to a case which is inherently
weak. To expose its weakness let me examine the merits of the so called National
Scheme. Before proceeding it might be desirable to note the points of agreement and the
points of difference between the two. Both have the same object, inasmuch as both stand
for a representative Legislature. The point of difference lies in the method of devising a
scheme which will make the Legislature a truly representative Legislature. The so-called
national, scheme insists upon the territorial constituency as being both proper and
sufficient for producing a representative Legislature in India. What is called the
Communal Scheme denies that a territorial constitution can produce a truly representative
legislature in India in view of the peculiar social structure of the Indian Society as it
exists today. The issue can a purely territorial
constituency produce a really representative legislature in India 7 It is round this issue
that the controversy has centred.
The so-called National Scheme of the Hindus
generally appeals to the Westerner and he prefers it to the so-called Communal Scheme.
This is largely because the Westerner knows and is accustomed only to the system of
territorial constituency. But there can be no doubt that this so called National Scheme is
on merits quite unsound and on motives worse than communal.
That it is unsound will be quite obvious to any
One who will stop to examine the assumptions which are involved in the alleged efficacy
and sufficiency of the territorial constituency. What are these assumptions ? To mention
only those which are most important,
(1) It assumes that the majority of voters in a constituency
represents the will of the constituency as a whole.
(2) that it is enough to take stock of the general will of the
constituency as expressed by the majority and that the will of any particular section
however much it may be in conflict with the will of the majority may be ignored without
remorse and without being guilty of any inequity.
(3) That the
representative who is elected by the voters will represent the wishes and interests of the
voters and that there is not the danger of the representative allowing the interest of his
class to dominate and override the interests and wishes of the voter who elects him.
Every one of these assumptions is a false
assumption unjustified by any theory and, unsupported by experience. The history of
Parliamentary Government furnishes abundant proof in support of this assertion and even
the history of England tells the same tale. It is wrong to suppose that the majority in
all circumstances can be trusted to represent the will of all sections of people in the
constituency. As a matter of fact it can never do so to any satisfactory degree. If at
all, it can only give a very pale reflection of the general will and
even that capacity for pale reflection must depend upon how numerous and varied are the
interests which are consciously -shared by the different sections of the constituency and
how full and free is the interplay between than. It is obvious that where, as in India,
there are no interest which are shared, where there is no full and free interplay and
where there
are no common
cycles of participation for the different sections, one section large or small cannot
represent the will of the other. The will of the majority is the will of the minority and
nothing more, and no amount of logical ingenuity can alter the fact and to give effect to
it is to allow full play to the tyranny of the Majority.
Again it is wrong to suppose that the
representative elected to the Legislature will represent the wishes of the voters who
elect him and forget or subordinate the interests of the class to which he belongs. The case of the
representative is a case of divided loyalties. He is confronted with two-rather with three- conflicting duties (1) a duty to himself, (2) a duty to the class
to which he belongs, and (3) a duty to the voters who have elected him. Omitting (he first from our
consideration it is common experience that the representative
prefers the interests of his class to that of his voters. And why should any one expect him to act
otherwise? It is in the nature of things that a man's self should be
nearer to
him than his constituency.
There is a homely saying that man's skin sits closer to him than his shirt. To the
members of the Legislature it is true more often than not that his class is his skin and the constituency is a shut which it is unnecessary to say
is one degree removed than the skin.
The
Hindu therefore in relying upon the territorial
constituency is
seeking-to
base the political structure
of India upon
foundations which all political architects have
declared to
be unsound. The
territorial constituency has long since been regarded even in European countries as a
discredited piece
of political mechanism. In great many
European
countries the representative system based on territorial constituency has been
wound up and replaced by
other systems of Government largely because the territorial system of representation produced neither
good Government nor
efficient Government In other countries where representative
institutions have survived there is an acute discontent with
the result
produced by the system of territorial constituencies. The proposals for
occupational and functional representation, the proposals for referendum and recall all furnish proof, if
proof is really wanted, that there
is a great body of enlightened and intelligent
opinion which is definitely against the system
of territorial constituency.
In
these circumstances the question as to why the Hindu insists upon a political mechanism
which is discredited everywhere excites a certain amount of
curiosity. The reason he gives is that it is the only
mechanism which is consistent with nationalism. I am not convinced that this is the real
explanation. The real explanation to my mind is very different The Hindu prefers the territorial constituency because he knows that
it will enable him to collect and concentrate all political power in the hands of the
Hindus, and who can deny that his calculation is incorrect ? In a purely territorial constituency the
contest, the
Hindu knows, will be between a huge majority of Hindu voters and a small minority of Untouchable voters.
Given this fact the Hindu majority -if it is a purely territorial constituency - is bound
to win in all constituencies. But the Hindus besides relying upon their
majority can also rely upon other factors which cannot but work to strengthen that majority. Those factors have their
origin in the peculiar nature of the Hindu Society. The Hindu Social system which places communities one above the
other is a factor which is bound to have its effect on the result of voting. By the Hindu Social system the Communities are placed in an
ascending scale of reverence and a descending scale of contempt. It needs no
prophet to predict what effect these social attitudes will have cm voting. No Caste Hindu will cast a vote in favour of an Untouchable candidate, for to him he is too contemptible a
person to go to the Legislature. On the other hand there will be found many voters among the Untouchables who would willingly cast their votes for a Hindu candidate in preference to an Untouchable candidate. That is because he is taught to revere the former more than himself or his Untouchable kinsmen. l am not mentioning the other means which are often resorted to for catching votes of the poor, illiterate, unconscious, unorganised body of voters which the Untouchables are. A combination of all these circumstances is bound to work in the direction of augmenting the representation of the Hindus-Under a system of purely territorial constituencies it is quite certain the Hindus will have assured to them a majority. They can draw for their
majority upon themselves as well as upon the Untouchables. It is equally certain that the
Untouchables will lose all seats. They must; firstly because they are a minority, and secondly became the Hindus can successfully exploit the weaknesses of the Untouchables
which makes them offer their votes to the Hindus as one offers burnt meat to his gods.
Understood
in the light of these forces
which are sure to make the territorial
constituency,
profitable to the
Hindus by enabling them to loot the political power which the Untouchable would become possessed of if the Communal
Scheme came into operation, there can be no doubt that the National Scheme is from the result side, if not
from the motive side,
worse than the Communal Scheme.
JOINT V/S SEPARATE ELECTORATES
The Hindus have after a long struggle accepted the
view that a purely territorial constituency will not do in a country like India. In the
previous discussion regarding the controversy between territorial constituency and
communal constituency as two rival methods of bringing about a truly representative
legislature was unnecessary. But I stated the case for and against because I felt that the
foreigners who are not aware of Indian Political conditions ought to know the basic
conceptions underlying that controversy. Unfortunately, however, the fact is that although
the Hindus have accepted the basic argument in favour of communal scheme of representation
they have not accepted all what the Untouchables are demanding. The Untouchables demand
that their representation shall be by separate electorates. A separate electorate means an
electorate composed exclusively of Untouchable voters who are to elect an Untouchable as
their representative to the legislature. The Hindus agree that certain number of seats are
to be reserved for Untouchables to be filled only by Untouchables. But they insist that
the Untouchables who is to be the representative of the Untouchables in the Legislature
should be elected by a mixed electorate consisting both of the Hindus as well as of the
Untouchables and not by an electorate exclusively of the Untouchables. In other words
there is still a controversy over the question of joint versus separate electorates. Here
again I want to set out the pros and cons of this controversy. The objection to separate
electorate raised by the Hindus is that separate electorate means the fragmentation of the
nation. The reply is obvious. First of all, there is no nation of Indians in the real
sense of the word. The nation does not exist, it is to be created, and I think it will be
admitted that the suppression of a distinct and a separate community is not the method of
creating a nation. Secondly, it is conceded - as the Hindus have done - that Untouchables
should be represented in that Legislature by Untouchable then it cannot be denied that the
Untouchable must be a true representative of the Untouchable voters. If this is a correct
position then separate electorate is the only mechanism by which real representation can
be guaranteed to the Untouchables. The Hindu argument against separate electorate is
insubstantial and unsupportable. The premises on which the political demands of the
Untouchables are based are admitted by the Hindus. Separate electorate is only a
consequence which logically follows from those premises. How can you admit the premise and
deny the conclusion? Special electorates are devised as a means of protecting the
minorities. Why not permit a minority like the Untouchables to determine what kind of
electorate is necessary for its protection? If the Untouchables decide to have separate
electorates why should their choice not prevail ? These are questions to which the Hindus
can give no answer. The reason is that the real objection to separate electorates by the
Hindus is different from this ostensible objection raised in the name of a nation. The
real objection is that separate electorate does not permit the Hindus to capture the seats
reserved for the Untouchables. On the Other hand the joint electorate does. Let me
illustrate the point by a few examples of how joint and separate electorate would work in
the constituency. Take the following constituencies from the Madras Presidency.
Name of the Constituency |
Total number of Seats for |
Seat reserved for the
Untouchables. |
Total no of Hindu voters |
Total no of Untouchable voters |
Ratio
of Hindu voters to Untouchable voters |
1. Madras City South |
2 |
1 |
40,626 |
2,577 |
16 to 1 |
2.Chicacole |
2 |
1 |
83,456 |
5,125 |
16 to I |
3.Vijayanagram |
2 |
1 |
47,594 |
996 |
49 to 1 |
4. Amalapuram |
1 |
1 |
52,805 |
7,760 |
7 to 1 |
5. Ellore |
1 |