Mahatma Gandhi in his usual post-prayer speech here yesterday visualized an independent India of a casteless and classless people living together with full cultural and religious freedom. “An independent India, as conceived by me,” he said, “will have all Indians belonging to different religions living in perfect friendship.”
Gandhiji added there need be no millionaires and no paupers. All would belong to the State, for the State belonged to them.
He added emphatically: “I will die in the act of working for the realization of this dream.” He would not wish to see India torn asunder by civil strife, he concluded.
Gandhiji said when untouchability was really gone there would be no caste. But while the caste system was in vogue the untouchables would naturally want to belong to the high castes. But that was an impossibility. Therefore, any such attempt would mean war among castes and castes on the one hand and the Untouchables on the other. But when castes disappeared, all would be Hindus pure and simple.
Gandhiji’s advice to the Untouchables was that they should abolish all distinctions among themselves and observe the laws of cleanliness better than the so-called caste Hindus do. And instead of working for separate treatment for themselves they should endeavour to merge themselves in the ocean of Hindu humanity.
A deputation of Manipuris waited for Gandhiji on Wednesday to represent to him the case of the Manipuris living in Assam province. The delegation had come from Cachar district and it claimed for the two lakhs of Manipuris in Assam a minority representation in the Assam Assembly.
The members of the delegation, said Gandhiji, had complained to him that although caste Hindus in Assam considered the Manipuris part of themselves, yet they did not look after the interest of the Manipuris. The caste Hindus, the delegation had complained, took advantage of the presence of the Manipuris in their midst only to swell their votes. But none either understood or cared for the Manipuris’ interests. Therefore, they thought, some arrangement should be made for safeguarding their interests. Gandhiji said all that he wanted to say in this regard was that if Hinduism was to survive, it would have to be casteless. He had long since forgotten that he belonged to any caste. Therefore, he delighted in calling himself a Bhangi and acting like one. He did not believe in any artificial divisions. If caste Hindu meant Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya, these three were a hopeless minority which, when the British had wholly withdrawn and independence was truly established, would, as the three superior castes, be wholly extinct. Gandhiji hoped that all inequalities would be a thing of the past. Then the so-called downtrodden would come into their own.