Gandhi’s Harijan Campaign and thoughts on Caste

Determined to undo the divisive intentions of the government’s divide and rule policy, Gandhi gave up all his other preoccupations and launched a whirlwind campaign against untouchability—first from jail and then, after his release in August 1933, from outside jail.

While in jail, he set up the All India Anti-Untouchability League in September 1932 and started the weekly Harijan in January 1933. After his release, he shifted to the Satyagraha Ashram in Wardha as he had vowed in 1930 not to return to Sabarmati Ashram unless swaraj was won.

Starting from Wardha, he conducted a Harijan tour of the country in the period from November 1933 to July 1934, covering 20,000 km, collecting money for his newly set up Harijan Sevak Sangh, and propagating removal of untouchability in all its forms. He urged political workers to go to villages

and work for social, economic, political and cultural upliftment of the Harijans. He undertook two fasts—on May 8 and August 16, 1934—to convince his followers of the seriousness of his effort and the importance of the issue. These fasts created consternation in nationalist ranks throwing many into an emotional crisis.

Throughout his campaign, Gandhi was attacked by orthodox and reactionary elements. These elements disrupted his meetings, held black flag demonstrations against him and accused him of attacking Hinduism. They also offered support to the government against the Congress and the Civil Disobedience Movement. The government obliged them by defeating the Temple Entry Bill in August 1934. Orthodox Hindu opinion in Bengal was against the acceptance of permanent caste Hindu minority status by the Poona Pact.

Throughout his Harijan tour, social work and fasts, Gandhi stressed on certain themes:

● He put forward a damning indictment of Hindu society for the kind of oppression practised on Harijans.

● He called for total eradication of untouchability symbolised by his plea to throw open temples to the untouchables.

● He stressed the need for caste Hindus to do ‘penance’ for untold miseries inflicted on Harijans. For this reason he was not hostile to his critics such as Ambedkar. He said, “Hinduism dies if untouchability lives, untouchability has to die if Hinduism is to live.”

● His entire campaign was based on principles of humanism and reason. He said that the Shastras do not sanction untouchability, and if they did, they should be ignored as it was against human dignity.

Gandhi was not in favour of mixing up the issue of removal of untouchability with that of inter-caste marriages and inter-dining because he felt that such restrictions existed among caste Hindus and among Harijans themselves, and because the all-India campaign at the time was directed against disabilities specific to Harijans.

Similarly, he distinguished between abolition of untouchability and abolition of caste system as such. On this

point he differed from Ambedkar who advocated annihilation of the caste system to remove untouchability. Gandhi felt that whatever the limitations and defects of the varnashram system, there was nothing sinful about it, as there was about untouchability. Untouchability, Gandhi felt, was a product of distinctions of high and low and not of the caste system itself. If it could be purged of this distinction, the varnashram could function in a such manner that each caste would be complementary to the other rather than being higher or lower. Anyway, he hoped that believers and critics of the caste system would come together in the fight against untouchability.

He believed that the removal of untouchability would have a positive impact on communal and other questions since opposition to untouchability meant opposing the notion of highness and lowness. He was opposed to using compulsion against the orthodox Hindus whom he called ‘sanatanis’. They were to be won over by persuasion, by appealing to “their reason and their hearts”. His fasts were aimed at inspiring friends and followers to redouble their work to abolish untouchability.

Gandhi’s Harijan campaign included a programme of internal reform by Harijans covering education, cleanliness, hygiene, giving up eating of beef and carrion and consumption of liquor, and removing untouchability among themselves.

Impact of the Campaign Gandhi repeatedly described the campaign as not a political movement but as being primarily meant to purify Hinduism and Hindu society. Gradually, the campaign carried the message of nationalism to Harijans who also happened to be the agricultural labourers in most parts of the country, leading to their increasing participation in the national and peasant movements.