Caste and Race in India c12.96

c12.96

Individual workers like Messrs. V. R. Shinde and A. V. Thakkar have done much not only to rouse the feeling of the caste-Hindus against the unjust doctrine of untouchability but also to prepare the depressed classes for better treatment by spreading education amongst them. The problem of the removal of untouchability is now made a national one through the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi. We have already dealt with the liberalizing consequences of certain administrative aspects of the British rule. The campaign has, in no small measure, benefited by the efforts made by Christian and Muhammadan missionaries to convert the depressed classes to their faiths. The more reasonable section of the high-caste Hindus have sensed a real danger to their faith in allowing their doctrine of untouchability to drive away into the folds of other faiths members of the untouchable castes—members who have been quite good and devout Hindus.