Duty of Indian Municipalities – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Duty of Indian Municipalities – Mahatma Gandhi

 

 I have been asked by the Editor to answer the following question for this Gazette: What can Indian municipalities do in the matter of khaddar and untouchability? My answer is as follows: In the matter of khaddar a municipality cans help first, by prescribing the use of khaddar for the uniform of its employees. This will be effective only if the members will themselves wear khaddar Secondly, by making all purchases of cloth for hospitals and the like in khaddar only Thirdly, by introducing the takli and carding-bow in all the schools under its control Fourthly, by removing all duty upon khaddar and by giving grants to khaddar depots within municipal limits. In the matter of untouchability a municipality can help… First, by promoting the reform by insisting upon inspectors of municipal schools securing admission therein of a minimum number of ‘untouchable’ boys and girls Secondly, by opening model schools specially for the instruction of ‘untouchable’ children Thirdly, by opening night schools for grown-up ‘untouchables’ in its employ. Fifthly, by inducing trustees of temples to open them to ‘untouchables’, and where this is not possible, by building attractive temples in suitable places, specially for the use of ‘untouchables’, but generally for public use, and encouraging the public to make use of these temples in common with the ‘untouchables’.

Sixthly, by giving grants to schools, temples and clubs, etc., that would specially cater for ‘untouchables’. Untouchability is perhaps the greatest evil that has crept into Hinduism. The nearest approach to it to be found in the West was untouchability of the Jews, who were confined to the ghettos. I do not know the historical origin of this disease. Socially it seems to have arisen from the desire of the so-called superior classes to isolate themselves from those whom they regarded as inferior. It is the excrescence of varnashrama dharma which has been misrepresented as the cast system with which, as seen in the multitudinous castes of latter-day Hinduism, the original four divisions have little to do. Untouchability in its mildest form takes the shape of not touching or having any social intercourse with the ‘untouchable’. In its extreme form it becomes inapproachability and even invisibility. The approach of a man within a defined distance or his very sight in some parts of the extreme south pollutes the ‘superior’ classes. The ‘unapproachable’ and the ‘invisibles’ are very few in number, whereas the ‘untouchables’ are roughly estimated at sixty million. In my opinion this is a highly exaggerated estimate.

Though I regard myself as a staunch Hindu believing in and having great veneration for the Vedas and the other Hindi religious books, and though I claim, not as a scholar but as a religiously minded man, to have made a serious attempt to understand the Hindu scriptures, I can discover no warrant for this brutal doctrine of untouchability in it. Save for a few texts of doubtful authority in Smritis, the whole doctrine of ‘untouchability’ is utterly repugnant to the spirit of Hinduism whose glory consist in proclaiming nonviolence to be the basis of religion and which lays down the bold formulae that all life, including the meanest crawling beings, is one. But to a reformer like me this philosophical foundation of Hinduism affords but little comfort in the face of the cruel fact that professors of that religion regard innumerable fellow-beings as beyond the pale of society solely on the ground of their birth in a particular group of men and women in every way like them. But this untouchability will soon be a thing of past. Hindu society has become conscious of the hideous wrong done to man by this sinful doctrine. Hundreds of Hindu workers are devoting themselves to the uplift of these suppressed classes. Among them may be named late Swami Shraddhanandji and the late Lala Lajpat Rai. These, however, may not be regarded as orthodox. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviyaji, who is accepted by all Hindus as an orthodox Hindu, has thrown in the weight of his great influence on the side of reform.

Everywhere one sees the process of emancipation silently but surely and steadily going on. The so called higher-class Hindus are conducting schools and building hostels for them, giving them medical relief and serving them in a variety of ways. The effort is absolutely independent of the Government and is part of the process of purification that Hinduism is undergoing. Lastly, the Indian National Congress adopted removal of untouchability as a vital part of its constructive programme in 1920. It may not be superfluous to add that while untouchability is undoubtedly a grave social wrong, it has no legal sanction behind it. So far as I am aware, there is no legal disability against the ‘untouchables’. The reformer has still a stiff task before him in having to convert the masses to his point of view. The masses give intellectual assent to the reformers’ plea, but are slow to grant equality in practice to their outcaste brethren. Nevertheless, untouchability is doomed, and Hinduism is saved. And, as I have indicated above, our municipalities can do much to bring about this salvation. 

 

Reference: 

October 12, 1929