 The National Broadcasting Company at its affiliated stations present the Pacific story. This is the story of the Pacific, the drama of the millions of people who live around this greatest sea where the United States is now committed to a long term policy of keeping the peace. This is the background story of the events in the Pacific and their meaning to us and to the generations to come. The Untouchables of India calls all Untouchables to the village well at Sundown. Pass the word. Harken to the call of Ambedkar Sahib, our leader. Come to the village well at Sundown. Pass the word. Untouchables, Dr. Ambedkar Ji calls us to the mass meeting at the village well at Sundown. Pass the word and come. From the streets of Bombay, from the villages around Bombay they came. The Untouchables, whom Gandhi had called the children of God. But whom under the code of Manu have for centuries been reviled? Sweepers, scavengers, washers, convales, tanners, crematory guards. They dropped their work and headed for the outcast community in the suburbs of Bombay. Perhaps it is because Ambedkar Ji has left the chancery of the Gaikwur. He was a favorite of the Gaikwur. It was the Gaikwur who sent him away to be educated. Yes, that is where the Gaikwur made him chief of the chancery when he came back. And now he has resigned? He made him like a dog in the palace. Even though he is educated as well as they. Praise Ambedkar Ji for his courage. The ministers of the Gaikwur's cabinet would not even take a document from his hands. The servants handled everything he touched with tongs. He has shown us the way. At Sundown the Untouchables were streaming into the outcast community from all directions. They gathered at the common well. And Ambedkar, the Untouchable, the son of an Untouchable, the grandson and the great grandson of Untouchables, Ambedkar, born with the taint of the pariah upon him, educated in the College of Bombay, in Columbia University in New York, in the University of London, in the University of Bonn, Germany, Ambedkar spoke to his people. Ten of the caste families here have their own wells. All the other families of this community use this well. All accept us. We must walk a mile outside the village to the well that is designated to us. The worker who has labored all day may not draw water from this well where the lowest caste peddler may drink. Step up here, Lalbetu. Yes, Ambedkar. What is your work, Lalbetu? I am a sweeper. Have you ever walked out to the well outside of the village for your water? Every day of my life. Draw the water from this well, Lalbetu. This well? Yes, draw it. Raise it up. Now pour the water into your bucket. Yes, Ambedkar. Let the Hindus who have condemned us to a wretched life of misery stop this day and what we have done here. I hold here in my hands a copy of the Manu Smriti, the code of Manu. In this code, Manu has set down as sacred the regulations and the duties of the caste and has specified the social damnation of the 50 millions of us untouchables, like the fire. Yes, Ambedkar. Let the Hindus pour into the Manu Smriti and pray it of its code for dealing with us whom they call unclean, and let them remember that this day we consigned it to the flames. Let them ponder on what is left of it in the flames of justice. Ambedkar publicly burned the copy of the code of Manu, and Ambedkar roused the untouchables and burned the copy of the Manu Smriti in a bonfire outside a bonfire. Ambedkar burned the code of Manu and threw water from a caste well before a thousand untouchables in a bonfire. Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar. Ambedkar's name swept through all India. The untouchables had found a champion, a scholar, the intellectual equal of any Brahmin or any Hindu or any Muslim in all India. Dr. Ambedkar knew why he was an untouchable. A thousand years before Christ, India was inhabited by Dravidians and Negrites. They were conquered by the Aryans who came in wave after wave down through Hyberpass. The Aryans were dominated by the priests or the priestly caste, who were called the Brahmins. Under them were three other castes. Instead of killing off the Dravidians, the invaders made them outcasts. All four of the Aryan castes made the Dravidians untouchables, and we have come down from them. The Brahmins saw to it that it was almost impossible for the untouchables to get any learning. With the passing generations, our people were more and more debased. The Brahmins laid down the principles of the four castes, always raising themselves higher and pushing the untouchables lower. The untouchables are insufficiently careful about drinking water. Water is a highly dangerous source of disease and contamination, so spoke the Brahmins. The untouchables are insufficiently careful about their eating habits and about the eating of the flesh of mammals. They must therefore be kept separate from the castes and must do the unclean work, for they are unclean. This was the spirit of the Code of Manu 2,000 years ago, and the Brahmins invested this code, the Manus Muriti, with sacredness. It is not sacred. It is the man-made book of rules contrived by one people for the debasement of another. Ambedkar spoke in terms of the Brahmins and the other Hindu castes understood in terms that were undeniable. Despite all that they could do to hamper the education of the untouchables, he had achieved an education. You are an unusual untouchable, Dr. Ambedkar. Have you Brahmins ever thought how many unusual untouchables there would be if you gave them the chance? Some schools have been open to you, untouchables? Some, yes. Those opened by the Hindu social reform organizations and the foreign missionary societies. And the government agencies. More untouchables are being admitted to the schools, even the private schools. Admitted, yes, but still required to sit apart, still reviled. You have started to retreat, and you will not be able to stand the tide. Ambedkar referred to the thousands of untouchables who had risen from the depths to social position at wealth, lawyers, doctors, teachers, representatives in the government, even successful businessmen, and to those who, despite the social straitjacket into which they'd been born, were coming along to carry on the fight for social recognition. All had faced opposition and snubs at every turn. You are living your own part of the village. You will not use the roads that pass Hindu temples or those that go through Brahmin quarters. Stay away from me. Do not come within seven feet of me. Stay away from me. With the intelligence, the diligence, the enterprise of the untouchables who did rise to position, the upper castes could not argue. Yet no matter what they achieved, they would not be recognized nor socially accepted. The Brahmin attitude is fixed. These people are not untouchables by accident. Nothing is accidental. Only those who deserve to be born untouchables by their behavior in previous life are born untouchables. Our own acts determine our fate in the next generation. Do not pity the untouchables. They are only atoning for what they have done in previous life. If they prove themselves deserving in this life, they may be born into a higher caste in their next generation. But no amount of rationalization as to the why of untouchability would stop Dr. Ambedkar in his fight for his unfortunate people. He had great arguments too. And he had practical political ideas which stirred a hornet's nest and set the hand of the great Indian leaders one against the other. Gandhi on one side, Nehru on the other, and many lesser Indians between them. The British government invited Dr. Ambedkar to the Round Table Conference in London in 1930. I demand a separate electorate for the untouchables. Separate electorates meant that the untouchables would elect their own representatives to the legislative bodies of the government of India and to those of the provinces of India. To this Gandhi made a sharp reply. I claim myself in my own person to represent the vast mass of the untouchables. Does the Mahatma mean that his Congress party stands for the untouchables and that he will speak for them? If a referendum were held, I would get the vote of the untouchables. There may be people in the Congress party who sympathize with us untouchables, but I fully represent the claims of the untouchables. Let no man be under any mistaken impression as regards that. And I demand a separate electorate for the untouchables. If the untouchables were given a separate electorate, they would become a separate political unit, apart from the Hindus. With their 50 million, they could be a balance of power. They could throw their weight where it would do them the most good. There is no religious distinction between the untouchables and the Hindus. To give the untouchables a separate electorate would be removing them from Hinduism. We untouchables are now separated by a social gulf greater than that which separates the Muslims from the majority. We untouchables could never be farther apart from Hinduism than Hinduism has already made us. I would not sell the vital interests of the untouchables even for the sake of winning the freedom of India. Separate electorates are not the only ones in India. Separate electorates are not the way to remove the bar sinister which is the shame not of the untouchables themselves but of orthodox Hinduism. Gandhi had already adopted into his own home an untouchable girl. He pleaded the case of Indian nationalism, the unity of the Indians against what was called the government inspired separate electorate. He pleaded that the British government was inspiring the idea of the separate electorate to divide the Indians in order to retain control of India. A separate electorate would perpetuate the status of the untouchables. I would rather the Hinduism die than untouchability live. We must have done with the caste system. I want to say with all the emphasis I can command that if I were the only person to resist this thing I would resist it with all my life. The round table conference collapsed. Gandhi went home. When his ship docked at Bombay he ordered resumption of civil disobedience and the boycott of British goods. Gandhi was arrested and lodged in the jail at Pune. He wrote to Sir Samuel Hoare, the Secretary of State for India. In the event of the government's decision creating separate electorates for the untouchables I must fast unto death. The British Prime Minister answered Gandhi by telegraph. As I understand your attitude you propose to adopt the extreme course of starving yourself to death not to secure that the untouchable should have joint electorates which is already provided nor to maintain the unity of the Hindus which is also provided but solely to prevent the untouchable from being able to secure a limited number of representatives of their own choosing to speak on their behalf in the legislatures which have a dominating influence over their future. The decision of the government must stand. Gandhi's followers gathered outside the jail in Pune. Gandhi G must not be permitted to die. This is not the main issue. The main issue is freedom for India. We must prevail upon Gandhi G not to sacrifice himself for discourse. Meantime Hindu leaders reopened the entire question with Ambedkar and the other untouchable leaders. If you insist on a separate electorate Gandhi will starve himself to death and our major objective will be crippled. The untouchable cannot go on without adequate representation. What concessions are you prepared to make? What do you ask? We ask more seats in the provincial legislatures. How many more? More than twice as many as we now have. Twice as many? And primary elections so that we can select our own candidates for these seats. The untouchables did not get their separate electorate but they did get the right to vote in the same general constituencies with the Hindus and more than twice as many seats were reserved for them in the provincial legislatures as they had before. On the seventh day Gandhi broke his fast. He had forced to show down with the government but Ambedkar had forced to show down with him and the matter of the untouchables had been aired before the whole world. Gandhi's idea is to remove the stigma of the untouchables by making them a fifth caste. There are four other Hindu castes. But in this he accepts the validity of the caste system. This is an Indian scholar. Nehru on the other hand believes that the caste system must go if India is to progress. Gandhi believes in reform but Nehru says that while some of the social and civic rights of the untouchables may be regained by reform only a complete overhauling of economic system from top to bottom can resolve the fundamental problems of the untouchables and this means that the caste system must be abolished. Even the Hindu Mahasabha a society of orthodox Hinduism has taken formal action against untouchability. Whereas the caste system based on birth as at present existing is manifestly contrary to universal truth and morals whereas it is the very antithesis of the fundamental spirit of the Hindu religion whereas it flouts the elementary rights of human equality This all India Hindu Mahasabha session declares its uncompromising opposition to the system and calls upon the Hindu society to put a speedy end to it. But untouchability still exists. The attitudes it engenders have roots that are deep and centuries old. Untouchability is passing but the castes that are reared to revile the untouchable do not easily accept him nor do the untouchables themselves accept the society of those among themselves whom they consider beneath them. I am a leather worker but I would not break bread with him for he is only a handler of the dead. I have an honorable profession burning the dead but I would not permit that young man to marry my daughter he is only a sweeper. I am a sweeper but I would not drink water from the same well as he does he is only a scavenger. Even among the untouchables each reviling those they consider beneath them these are the people whom Ambedkar leads and whose chains he would break. Ambedkar summoned the untouchables to a conference in North India's historic city of Lucknow representatives of the high untouchables and the low untouchables came. Ambedkar had demonstrated to them what they could do if they joined in a solid determined movement. As they had come from the streets of the great cities and the streets of the villages to see him publicly burn the Manismuriti they came to Lucknow to consider the renunciation of their ancient Hindu faith. Let us resolve here that we will not die with the stigma of untouchability which was seared into our souls when we were born. Any other faith which will recognize our social and human rights. Dr. Ambedkar's outcry shook India from the Himalayas to Cape Comerian. A resolution was adopted recommending that all untouchables renounce Hinduism. Some progress had been made but many untouchables went away with questions in their minds. What religion will we have if we do not have Hinduism? We do not really have Hinduism but it is the only religion we have. Ambedkar Sahib has become a Sikh. A Sikh? Could we all become Sikhs? I do not know. Some embraced Christianity but the mere profession of another faith did not help them. You, what are you doing there? I am drawing water. This is a public well away with you. I am a Christian now. You are still an untouchable. No, I am a Christian. I am no longer a Hindu. The well of the unclean is outside the village. There you can draw water but not here. Now away with you. Christians or Hindus they were still untouchables. Those who embraced Mohammedanism were no better off. They still were not removed from the ranks of the damned. They still could not own land nor produce things to sell nor sell the things that others produced. For whatever they touched those in the castes would not touch. They still could work only in the lowest occupations sweepers, tanners, washers, cobblers, scavengers. They still were obliged to live in houses apart from the Hindus. Sometimes even were obliged to live on the leeward side so that the wind would not carry their uncleanness toward the house of the Hindu. There are two major aspects to the problem. This is the Indian scholar. One is political and the other is economic. A separate electorate would give the untouchable special political power which should it be combined with that of other minorities could be the balance of power in India. Yes, it would take a 50 million from the ranks of the Hindus. And the untouchables would then be in a position to use their block of political power to their own best political interest. This Gandhi believes would increase the friction between the political bodies of India. The alternative then is to do away with the cast altogether. But Gandhi still thinks of the untouchables as within cast, as a fifth cast. He is working for the rehabilitation of the outcasts. Well, indirectly. Well, that is the main objective of his fellowship of the servants of the untouchables. It must be remembered that Gandhi is carrying on the work in this respect that has been underway for many years by such organizations as the Brahma and Parcon Samaj and the depressed classes mission society. Gandhi has for years fought for the untouchables. From his hospital bed, where he was recovering from an operation, he carried on a fight for the right of the untouchables to use a road which passed a famous old Hindu temple in Baikon. A barrier has been thrown across the road? Yes, all people are on one side of the barrier and the Brahmins are on the other side. They will not permit us to pass. The right to pass must be yours. Tell your people to stay there. We will stay. Tell them to hold fast. But there must be no violence. I am with you. For weeks, the untouchables faced the Brahmins across the barrier. When the rains came, the waters rose. Soon the water will be up to our wastes. Gandhi G says we must stay here. The Brahmins have boats. We must stay. The water is up to our wastes. If it rises higher... Still we must stay. Gandhi G says we must stay. The untouchables stayed at the barrier as the waters rose inch by inch. Gandhi from his hospital bed directed the untouchables. Sympathizes came to join them at the barrier. The waters rose. The water is up to our shoulders. We must die here. But we must not leave. The road is hereby officially declared open. What? Who said that? It was unofficial. That one over there. The road is hereby officially declared open to all traffic, including the untouchables. The barrier will be removed. He said we can use the road. We have won. We have won. We have won. Not only was the road past the Hindu temple at Vycom open to the untouchables, all the roads of Travancore were open to the untouchables. And the young Maharaja of Travancore issued a special edict on his 24th birthday. The great Brahmin, Pandit Malavir, personally took hundreds of untouchables into the Hindu veil. Yet all this was not the answer to the deep-rooted problem of untouchability. Many of the temples thrown open by the edict of Travancore were shunned by more Orthodox Hindus. And they became untouchable temples. Human nature could not be changed by edict or by law. Untouchability was still untouchability. But to many, untouchability was only part of the bigger problem of Indian freedom, and therefore economic. It is not we who are fighting for freedom from Britain. This is an educated untouchability. We are fighting for social recognition and for the right to live. Food is enough food to fill our stomach and a cloth to put around our loins. That is the need of all Indians. Starvation is a perpetual problem in India. The social barriers between us can only disappear when India as a whole prospers. We can never prosper, any of us, until we are free. India can never prosper until we enjoy the fruits of our own efforts and the benefits of our own resources. This is the view of the Nationalist Congress Party. The root of our problem is lack of education. Only those are educated who can pay to be educated. There are no free schools in India and education is not compulsory. To win freedom for India, we must be united. But our first interest is to be redeemed. To carry on the fight of a people so debased requires money. It requires organization. It requires leaders. Because of the nature of the plight of the untouchables, there is little of any of these. The untouchables have no money. They have few leaders. They have almost no organization. But today, Ambedkar, the untouchable, holds one of the highest posts of India. In 1942, Ambedkar was appointed a member of the British Viceroy's Council. The Viceroy's Council is an executive council. It is comparable to the cabinet of the president in the United States. Many Hindus do not approve of his serving on this council. It is not an elected post. Ambedkar was not elected by the people. He was appointed by the British Viceroy. Yes. All the members of the council are. The Britishers hold the key positions in the council. The portfolios of war, finance and home affairs. That is right. But 11 of the 15 members of the council are Indians. That gives us a majority. And the Viceroy usually acts on the advice of the council. Or the narrowly yes. But no leader of a leading Indian political party would accept a post on the British Viceroy's Council. The objective of you nationalists is freedom for India. The objective of us untouchables is freedom from the curse of the outcast which has been on us for generations. Slowly the political strength of the untouchables is beginning to tell. The untouchables have no representation in the central legislative assembly which is the national house of representatives. But today they do have representatives in the provincial assemblies or state legislatures. But more important than this is the trend toward the eventual complete abolition of untouchability. The real hope of India lies in the increasing number of persons who have progressed beyond racial barriers and ancient prejudices. These people are looking forward to a social order based upon freedom and equality for all. You have been listening to the Pacific Story presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross currents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific Story program send 10 cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press Berkeley, California. May I repeat? The Pacific Story is written and directed by Arnold Marquess. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Paluso, your narrator, Gane Whitman. Programs in this series of particular interest to service men and women are broadcast overseas to the Worldwide Facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company. This is the National Broadcasting Company. The National Broadcasting Company NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.