Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c7.s4.t1.21

c7.s4.t1.21

¹ Compare Sircar, 54, 167; Sudamacharita, 14. Compare in this connection some remarks of S. Saklatvala (sometimes M.P. for Battersea) in a letter which he addressed to M.K. Gandhi, the Indian political leader. This letter was widely published by Indian papers early in March, 1927. After reviewing the ordinary behaviour of Indian crowds who used to pass by Gandhi with folded hands and downcast eyes, he proceeds to comment on what he witnessed himself in Yeotmal. 'However, I strongly object to your permitting my countrymen and countrywomen to touch your feet and put their fingers in their eyes. Such touchability appears to be more damnable than untouchability, and I would sooner wish that two persons did not touch each other than that one human being should be touched by another in the way in which you were touched. The depressed classes were subject to a sort of disability, but this new phase of a man of the depressed class worshipping the feet of his deliverer is a more real individual depression and degradation of life, and however much you misunderstand me, I must call upon you to stop this nonsense'.—'Is India different?' London, 1927 (a pamphlet.)