CHAPTER 7: UNAPPROACHABILITY

 

1   When he intoned: Jaswant Singh, Jinnah, p. 111.

2   “My heart refuses”: CWMG, vol. 32, pp. 452, 473–74.

3   The Times of India spread: Jaswant Singh, Jinnah, p. 113.

4   His covering letter: Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 9, p. 304.

5   In his view, Gandhi: Jordens, Swami Shraddhananda, p. 110.

6   The start of the noncooperation: Tinker, Ordeal of Love, p. 151.

7   So, in December 1919: Jordens, Swami Shraddhananda, p. 117.

8   “Is it not true”: Ibid.

9   “That was a grave mistake”: Ibid., p. 119.

10   “it is a bigger problem”: CWMG, vol. 19, p. 289.

11   “While Mahatmaji stood”: Jordens, Swami Shraddhananda, p. 119.

12   “If all untouchables”: Ibid., p. 144.

13   This led to a public exchange: CWMG, vol. 23, pp. 567–69.

14   “No propaganda can be allowed”: Ibid., vol. 24, pp. 145, 148–49.

15   Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar: B. R. Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, p. 23.

16   “greatest and most sincere champion”: Ibid.

17   Although Gandhi had called: CWMG, vol. 19, p. 289.

18   “I am trying to make”: Ibid., vol. 25, p. 228.

19   Due to his many years: Ibid., vol. 26, p. 408.

20   “To endure or bear hardships”: Ibid., pp. 264–65.

21   “One caste, one religion”: Mendelsohn and Vicziany, Untouchables, p. 97.

22   at first ambivalent: Interview with M. K. Sanoo, Ernakulam, Jan. 18, 2009.

23   rename the boy: Interview with Dr. Babu Vijayanath, Harippad, Jan. 17, 2009. Malayala Manorama article of Oct. 15, 1927, describes naming ceremony.

24   an untouchable leader: Interview with K. K. Kochu, near Kottayam, Jan. 19, 2009. T. K. Ravindran suggests that this blinding may have been temporary in his book Eight Furlongs of Freedom, p. 108.

25   “I think you should let”: CWMG, vol. 23, p. 391.

26   The letter didn’t reach: Joseph, George Joseph, pp. 166–69. Gandhi’s version of these events can be found in Removal of Untouchability, a collection of his writings on that theme, pp. 107–14.

27   Despite the Congress support: CWMG, vol. 23, p. 471.

28   “I personally believe”: Ibid., p. 519.

29   The villages were divided: Rudrangshu Mukherjee, ed., Penguin Gandhi Reader, p. 221.

30   He would also argue: M. K. Gandhi, Selected Political Writings, pp. 124–25.

31   “I spoke to Gandhi repeatedly”: Mende, Conversations with Mr. Nehru, pp. 27–28.

32   “The caste system, as it exists”: CWMG, vol. 59, p. 45.

33   “If untouchability goes”: Chandrashanker Shukla, Conversations of Ganhiji (Bombay, 1949), p. 59.

34   harmful both to spiritual and national growth: Harijan, July 18, 1936, also in Gandhi, Removal of Untouchability, p. 36.

35   “no interest left in life”: Quoted in Coward, Indian Critiques of Gandhi, p. 61.

36   only remaining varna: CWMG, vol. 80, pp. 222–24, cited by Martin Green in Gandhi in India: In His Own Words (Hanover, N.H., 1987), pp. 324–26.

37   “the deep black ignorance”: Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 6, p. 86.

38   The meeting took place: CWMG, vol. 24, pp. 90–94. Quotations in these paragraphs are all drawn from a document summarizing conversations with two Vaikom emissaries.

39   On their return: Ravindran, Eight Furlongs of Freedom, p. 86.

40   The meeting sent: Ibid., p. 95.

41   The freed leaders threw: Ibid., p. 99.

42   On his release from jail: CWMG, vol. 24, pp. 268–69.

43   By the end of the year: Ibid., vol. 25, p. 349.

44   Standing on their sense: Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 6, p. 58.

45   But it’s Indanturuttil Nambiatiri: Ravindran, Eight Furlongs of Freedom, pp. 164–91.

46   “I am not ashamed”: Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 6, p. 84.

47   The likelier explanation: CWMG, vol. 19, p. 571.

48   Perhaps Nehru’s summing-up: Mende, Conversations with Mr. Nehru, pp. 28–29.

49   “I am trying myself”: Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 6, p. 83.

50   “I have come here to create peace”: Malayala Manorama, March 14, 1925.

51   To break the impasse: Ravindran, Eight Furlongs of Freedom, pp. 187–90.

52   “We will forsake”: Raimon, Selected Documents on the Vaikom Satyagraha, p. 112.

53   accommodate to change: Interview with Krishnan Nambuthiri, Vaikom, Jan. 14, 2009.

54   a crowd of twenty thousand: Malayala Manorama, March 14, 1925.

55   “I claim to be a sanatani”: Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 6, pp. 68–70.

56   “A few days or forever”: Ibid., pp. 77, 81.

57   Caste, untouchability, and social action: Ibid., pp. 84–88.

58   In reality, the Gandhi: Interview with Babu Vijayanath, Harippad, Jan. 17, 2009. The visit is also summarized in Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 6, pp. 124–25.

59   “He thinks I shall have to appear”: Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 6, p. 88.

60   According to a police report: Ravindran, Eight Furlongs of Freedom, p. 340.

61   In one such clash: Interview with Dr. Babu Vijayanath, Hariippad, Jan. 17, 2009.

62   Hearing of the Mahatma’s: This verse was pointed out to me by M. K. Sanoo and subsequently located by journalists at Malayala Manorama who translated it.

63   Definitely it was Gandhi: Raimon, Selected Documents on the Vaikom Satyagraha, p. 203.

64   K. K. Kochu, a Dalit intellectual: Madhyamam, April 2, 1999.

65   “I only wish”: Interview with K. K. Kochu, Kaduthuruthi, Kottayam district, Jan. 18, 2009.

66   “How many among you”: Mahadev Desai, Day-to-Day with Gandhi, vol. 6, pp. 114–15.

67   “Gandhi was sitting cross-legged”: An excellent description, but Mahadev Desai’s contemporaneous diary note makes it clear they reached Alwaye by boat and car. Ibid., p. 118.

68   In his account: Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time, pp. 109–10.