How gandihiji tried to unite the untouchables and dalits in c.d.m
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Between November 1933 and August 1934, for nearly nine months, Gandhi conducted an intensive crusade against untouchability all over the country, including in the Princely States, travelling over 20,000 kilometres by train, car, bullock cart and on foot, collecting money for the recently founded Harijan Sevak Sangh, propagating the removal of untouchability in all its forms and practices, and urging social workers to go to the villages for the social, economic, cultural and political uplift of the ‘Untouchables’. Ambedkar seldom took note of it; ‘Dalits’ today do not celebrate it; and Gandhi biographers pass over it in a few paragraphs. Yet, there is nothing in the annals of Indian history to which it can be compared. Untouchability was one of Gandhi’s central concerns. In both words and actions, Gandhi attacked untouchability in ways that were radical for a ‘caste Hindu’. Despite being a ‘caste Hindu’, Gandhi identified himself with the ‘Untouchables’.
He said in 1934, “as a savarna Hindu, when I see that there are some Hindus called avarnas, it offends my sense of justice and truth,” and “if I discover that Hindu shastras really countenance untouchability as it is seen today, I will renounce and denounce Hinduism.” As early as 1915, he had said, “if it were proved to me that [untouchability] is an essential part of Hinduism, I for one would declare myself an open rebel against Hinduism itself.” “This religion,” he had said in 1917, “if it can be called such, stinks in my nostrils. This certainly cannot be the Hindu religion.” These were strong words, but the passion behind them sprang from Gandhi’s soul’s agony. To live with untouchability, Gandhi said, was “like a cup of poison” to him.