The Doctor and the Saint by Arundhati Roy

Author:Arundhati Roy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, ebook
ISBN: 978-1-60846-798-3
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2017-04-12T04:00:00+00:00

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If one of Gandhi’s first major political actions was the ‘solution’ to the problem of the Durban Post Office, Ambedkar’s was the Mahad Satyagraha of 1927.

In 1923, the Legislative Council of Bombay (whose elections had been boycotted by the Congress) passed a resolution, the Bole Resolution, that allowed Untouchables to use public tanks, wells, schools, courts and dispensaries. In the town of Mahad, the municipality declared that it had no objection if Untouchables used the Chavadar Tank in the town. Passing a resolution was one thing, acting on it quite another. After four years of mobilisation, the Untouchables gathered courage and, in March 1927, held a two-day conference in Mahad. Money for the conference was raised by public contribution. In an unpublished manuscript, the scholar Anand Teltumbde quotes Anant Vinayak Chitre, one of the organisers of the Mahad Satyagraha, saying that forty villages contributed Rs 3 each, and a play about Tukaram was staged in Bombay that made Rs 23, making the total collection Rs 143. Contrast this with Gandhi’s troubles. Just a few months before the Mahad Satyagraha, on 10 January 1927, Gandhi wrote to his industrialist-patron, G.D. Birla:

My thirst for money is simply unquenchable. I need at least Rs 200,000—for Khadi, Untouchability and education. The dairy work makes another 50,000. Then there is the Ashram expenditure. No work remains unfinished for want of funds, but God gives after severe trials. This also satisfies me. You can give as you like for whatever work you have faith in.199

The Mahad conference was attended by about three thousand Untouchables, and a handful of progressive members of the privileged castes. (V.D. Savarkar, out of jail by now, was one of the supporters of the Mahad Satyagraha.) Ambedkar presided over the meeting. On the morning of the second day people decided to march to the Chavadar Tank and drink water. The privileged castes watched in horror as a procession of Untouchables walked through the town, four abreast, and drank water from the tank. After the shock subsided came the violent counter-attack, with clubs and sticks. Twenty Untouchables were injured. Ambedkar urged his people to stay firm and not to strike back. A rumour was deliberately spread that the Untouchables planned to enter the Veereshwar temple, which added a hysterical edge to the violence. The Untouchables scattered. Some found shelter in Muslim homes. For his own safety, Ambedkar spent the night in the police station. Once calm returned, the Brahmins ‘purified’ the tank with prayers, and with 108 pots of cow dung, cow urine, milk, curd and ghee.200 The symbolic exercise of their rights did not satisfy the Mahad satyagrahis. In June 1927, an advertisement appeared in Bahishkrit Bharat (Excluded India), a fortnightly Ambedkar had founded, asking those members of the Depressed Classes who wished to take the agitation further to enlist themselves. The orthodox Hindus of Mahad approached the sub-judge of the town and got a temporary legal injunction against the Untouchables using the tank. Still, the Untouchables decided to hold another conference and regrouped in Mahad in December.

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