smash-pacifism-zine

some 120,000 people were arrested. By the second half of
1932, however, the movement had largely ground to a halt,
and was eventually called off on April 7, 1934.
The Untouchables, 1932-34
Despite his imprisonment in early 1932, Gandhi
maintained a public profile through his writings and
statements, which he was permitted to carry out by the
British. He also switched focus from the salt tax and home
rule campaigns to that of the Untouchables, a mass of
people born into 'low-caste' positions that condemned them
to lives of poverty and exploitation.
This strict caste system resulted from
traditional Hindu concepts of social division and
hierarchy. The high-caste were primarily the priests
and ruling elites. The low-caste were seen as
subhuman, tasked with the most demeaning labour,
including cleaning toilets. The caste system was
organized with a strict segregation of public life,
including separate paths, temples, living areas, etc.
Gandhi was not the first to promote the cause of the
Untouchables, or to advocate reforms in Hinduism.
At the time, the Untouchables were estimated
to number 50 million, or 15 percent of the overall
population. Although portrayed as entirely altruistic
campaign, the Untouchables were also another
strategic base which Gandhi sought to exploit (as he
had the peasants). Gandhi's campaign around the
Untouchables was also influenced by his paternalistic
morality and authoritarian views.
The Untouchables became a national issue in
1932 when the British offered electoral reforms that
would create separate seats for them, in essence
establishing the Untouchables as a separate political entity
from their Hindu overlords:
“[Gandhi regarded] the Untouchables as an
essential and integral part of the Hindu community and
indeed, along with the peasantry, one of the principal
responsibilities of its educated and reforming leaders. To
lose such a huge part of the Hindu constituency, whether
through separate electorates or religious conversion, was,
for him, highly perturbing. This is one illustration... of
Gandhi's increasingly defensive and proprietorial attitude
towards the Hindu community and its leaders' 'civilizing
mission'... With separate electorates, Gandhi believed, caste
Hindus would feel... absolved from responsibility for the
'uplift' of the Untouchables, whereas one of his concerns
since 1915 had been to elevate them to a position of moral
respectability within Hindu society, and through education
and sanitation, by the abjuring of meat and alcohol and the
rejection of impure lifestyles and livelihoods, enable them
to become worthy members of Hindu civilization.”
(Gandhi, p. 177)
When the Untouchables were unmoved by the
demands of Hindu nationalists, including Gandhi, to reject
the British reforms, Gandhi took more drastic action. On
September 20, 1932, Gandhi threatened he would “fast unto
death” from his prison cell. After five days, the
Untouchable representatives conceded and rejected the
proposed reform. Gandhi, now seeing greater potential in
championing their cause, termed the Untouchables Harijan
—a patronizing term meaning “children of god.” Their
divine association resulted from their suffering and
humility, while their portrayal as child-like called out for
education and parenting.
In February 1933, still imprisoned, Gandhi
established a Service Society for Untouchables, a variation
of the philanthropic service
organizations he had set up for
“uplifting” the peasants and
comprised largely of his
middle-class followers. He also
began writing and publishing a
Harijan newsletter, again
appropriating the voice of an
oppressed class.
In May 1933, Gandhi was
released from jail. He was rearrested
in August 1933 for
disobeying a restraining order,
but was released shortly after,
following an 8 day hungerstrike.
In November 1933, he
began a national Harijan tour
and a campaign to desegregate
Hindu roads, temples, and
wells. He also advocated for
greater education to help “uplift” the Untouchables, and
solicited donations on their behalf.
The campaign created intense division between
Hindu traditionalists and moderates, and would earn
Gandhi the hatred of Hindu nationalists for the rest of his
life (and eventually result in his death). In the following
months, several assassination attempts were made on his
life. Nor would Gandhi earn any praise from the
Untouchables:
“The Harijan movement was seen as a political
gimmick which did not seriously address, let alone resolve,
the real social and economic issues that lay behind their
continuing oppression. Not surprisingly, therefore, among
Gandhi in jail, where he
received preferential treatment
from the British.
many Dalit [Untouchable] organizations Gandhi is
remembered with neither affection nor respect. A manifesto
issued in 1973 by the Dalit Panthers of Maharashtra...
accused Gandhi of being 'deceitful, cunning, an orthodox
caste-ist...'”
(Gandhi, p. 180)
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