Question

What was Gandhi's relationship with the untouchables?

Answer 1

India has traditionally been a caste based society where families specialized in jobs. Certain jobs were considered unhygienic due to the very nature of the jobs. This was the actual reason for some people being untouchables in society. Gandhi did not do anything positive for these people. Now what should have been a positive movement? Gandhi had been to England. While he did try to educate the common Indians to do more themselves and feel dignity in labour, he largely looked at the symptoms rather than causes. Being with modern education and a heart that felt for all, he should have stressed on doing things in a more modern way, which makes things more hygienic. Also the so called untouchable community lacked in the knowledge of cleanliness and hygienic way of living. Did Gandhi work on this? He could have done a few things for them: 1. Teach the untouchable people how to do their job more hygienically. 2. Teach the untouchable people how to live more hygienically so that they would also staymore healthy and keep away from diseases. 3. He should have instead worked on the education of these people and then a subsequent move of their caste tag to a different higher caste. There are all sort of provisions in the Indian culture. Caste was originally about division of labour only. There have been highly realized people in the lower castes and there have been men of God. Indian culture is full of accounts of these. But to make an issue of having a certain person enter temple as a sign of victory over a certain culture is a misunderstanding. Some people make an issue of Inter-caste marriage. Why should anyone bother about who someone marries? Would a father of a rich girl happily give his daughter’s hand in marriage to a poor man? Would a very good looking girl happily marry someone not her match? Even in same caste arranged marriage people do ask about what the father does for living? There have been a lot of inter caste love marriages in India. But should one try to force these on people in a civilized society? Why make an issue of these things? This approach is like the Maoists in India. He could have avoided doing the disservice to nation by giving the Harijan tag to these people. Gandhi was a man of poor vision. This is evident in everything he touched from a misunderstood meaning of non-violence to the issue of untouchables.