UNTOUCHABLE Read online

  Two choruses of voices tore through the air this time : one charged the sky from the platform where the train had stopped ; another rose above the tree-tops of the golbagh, undulating from horizon to horizon.

  Bakha stood for a moment on the platform of the footbridge and stared towards the tin roof. Myriads of faces were jutting out of white clothes. He looked in the direction of the golbagh. A veritable sea of white tunics faced him in the oval, where, ordinarily, he had seen the city gymkhana play cricket. Now there was a profound silence. He waited in the hush and listened. The chorus began again. As a spark of lightning suddenly illumines the sky, the myriad of voices leapt up the curve of the heavens before Bakha and wrote in flaming colours the cry : ‘ Mahatma Gandhi ki-jai.’ And, in a while, there was a rush of eager feet ascending the footbridge behind him shouting : ‘ The Mahatma has come ! The Mahatma has come !’

  Before Bakha had turned round to look at them, they were descending the steps south of the bridge. A passing man answered the questioning look of all the pedestrians by informing them that there was going to be a meeting in the golbagh, where the Mahatma was going to speak.

  At once the crowd, and Bakha among them, rushed towards the golbagh. He had not asked himself where he was going. He hadn’t paused to think. The word ‘ Mahatma ’ was like a magical magnet to which he, like all the other people about him, rushed blindly. The wooden boards of the footbridge creaked under the eager downward rush of his ammunition boots. He began to take several steps at a stride. He was so much in a hurry that he didn’t even remember the fact of his being an Untouchable, and actually touched a few people. But not having his broom and basket with him, and the people being all in a flurry, no one noticed that a sweeper-boy had brushed past him. They hurried by.

  At the foot of the bridge, by the tonga and motor-lorry stand, the road leading to the fort past the entrance of the golbagh looked like a regular racecourse. Men, women and children of all the different races, colours, castes and creeds, were running towards the oval. There were Hindu lallas from the piece-goods market of Bulashah, smartly dressed in silks ; there were Kashmiri Muhammadans from the local carpet factories, immaculately clad in white cotton ; there were the rough Sikh rustics from the near-by villages swathed in handspun cloth, staves in their hands and loads of shopping on their backs ; there were fierce-looking red-cheeked Pathans shirted in red stuff, followers of Abdul Gaffar Khan, the frontier revolutionary ; there were the black-faced Indian Christian girls from the Salvation Army colony, in short coloured skirts, blouses and aprons ; there were people from the outcastes’ colony, whom Bakha recognised in the distance, but whom he was too rushed to greet ; there was here and there a stray European—there was everybody going to meet the Mahatma, to pay homage to Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi. And like Bakha they hadn’t stopped to ask themselves why they were going. They were just going ; the act of going, of walking, running, hurrying, occupied them. Their present motive was to get there, to get there somehow, as quickly as possible. Bakha wished, as he sped along, that there were a sloping bridge on which he could have rolled down to the oval.

  He saw that the fort road was too long and too congested. Suddenly, like a stag at bay, he swerved round to a little marsh made by the overflow of a municipal pipe in a corner of the golbagh, jumped the fence into the garden, much to the consternation of the sweet-peas and the pansies which grew on the edges, but wholly to the satisfaction of the crowd behind him, which, once it had got the lead, followed like sheep. The beautiful garden bowers planted by the ancient Hindu kings and since then neglected were thoroughly damaged as the mob followed behind Bakha. It was as if the crowd had determined to crush everything, however ancient or beautiful, that lay in the way of their achievement of all that Gandhi stood for. It was as if they knew, by an instinct surer than that of conscious knowledge, that the things of the old civilisation must be destroyed in order to make room for those of the new. It seemed as if, in trampling on the blades of green grass, they were deliberately, brutally trampling on a part of themselves which they had begun to abhor, and from which they wanted to escape to Gandhi.

  Beyond the bowers, on the oval, was a tumult, and the thronging of the thousands who had come to worship. The eager babble of the crowd, the excited gestures, the flow of emotion, portended one thought and one thought alone in the surging crowd—Gandhi. There was a terror in this devotion, half expressed, half suppressed, of the panting swarms that pressed round. Bakha stopped short as he reached the pavilion end of the cricket ground. He leant by a tree. He wanted to be detached. It wasn’t that he had lost grip of the emotion that had brought him swirling on the tide of the rushing stream of people. But he became aware of the fact of being a sweeper by the contrast which his dirty khaki uniform presented to the white garments of most of the crowd. There was an insuperable barrier between himself and the crowd, the barrier of caste. He was part of a consciousness which he could share and yet not understand. He had been lifted from the gutter, through the barriers of space, to partake of a life which was his, and yet not his. He was in the midst of a humanity which included him in its folds and yet debarred him from entering into a sentient, living, quivering contact with it. Gandhi alone united him with them, in the mind, because Gandhi was in everybody’s mind, including Bakha’s. Gandhi might unite them really. Bakha waited for Gandhi.

  Eager and unconscious, he recalled all that he had heard of this man. People said he was a saint, that he was an avatar (incarnation) of the gods Vishnu and Krishna. Only recently he had heard that a spider had woven a web in the house of the Lat Sahib (Viceroy) at Dilli (Delhi), making a portrait of the sage, and writing his name under it in English. That was said to be a warning to the sahibs to depart from Hindustan, since God Almighty Himself had sent a message to a little insect that Gandhi was to be the Maharajaha of the whole of Hindustan. That the spider’s web appeared in the Lat Sahib’s kothi (Viceroy’s residence) was surely significant. And they said that no sword could cut his body, no bullet could pierce his skin, no fire could scorch him !

  ‘ The Sarkar (Government) is afraid of him,’ said a lalla standing by Bakha. ‘ The magistrate has withdrawn his order against Gandhi ji’s entry into Bulashah.’

  ‘ That is nothing, they have released him unconditionally from gaol,’ chimed in a babu, spitting out a phrase of the Tribune, pompously, in order to show off his erudition.

  ‘ Will he really overthrow the government ? ’ asked a rustic.

  ‘ He has the shakti (power) to change the whole world,’ replied the babu, and he began to vomit out the whole article about Gandhi that he had crammed from the Tribune that morning. ‘ This British Government is nothing. Every country in Europe and America is passing through terrible convulsions, politically, economically and industrially. The people of Vilayat (England), the Angrez log (the English), are less convulsed on account of their innate conservatism, but very soon every country on earth including Vilayat will be faced with problems that cannot be solved without a fundamental change in the mental and moral outlook of the West. Without a radical change from a hankering after sense-gratification, which is the goal of Western civilisation, through a striving after sense-control, whether in individual or in group life, which is the essence of India’s dharmic (religious) culture ! India has been the privileged home of the world’s eternal religion, that teaches how every man and woman, according to their birth and environment, must practise swadharma (sense-control), how through sense-control they must evolve their higher nature, and so realise the bliss of divinity, deep-seated in the hearts of all beings. For this bliss all humanity blindly pants, not knowing that neither cigarettes nor cinemas nor sense-enjoyment can lead to the path of dharmic discipline, which alone is the highest bliss to be realised… Gandhi will reveal this path to the modern world, he will teach us the true religion of God-love which is the best swaraj (self-government)… ’

  ‘ How clever you are, Babu,’ said the peasant, staring at the lecturer. He was impressed by t
he babu’s speech, but baffled. To him Gandhi was a legend, a tradition, an oracle. He had heard from time to time during the last fourteen years how a saint had arisen as great as Guru Nanak, the incarnation of Krishna-ji-Maharaj, of whom the Ferungi Sarkar (English Government) was very afraid. His wife had told him of the miracles which this saint was performing. It was said that he slept in a temple one night with his feet towards the shrine of the god. When the Brahmins had chastised him for deliberately turning his feet towards God, he told them that God was everywhere and asked them to turn his feet in the direction where God was not. Upon this the priests turned his feet in the direction opposite to the one where the image of the god was, and lo the shrine of God moved in the direction of his feet. He had hungered for a sight of the saint since then. His wife wouldn’t be content with anything less than a touch of the Holy Man’s feet. But it was a good thing she wasn’t with him. The peasant reflected that if she had come, the boys would have wished to accompany her, and they might have been crushed to death in the throng. It was a good thing they didn’t know. For myself, I am glad I shall see him. It is lucky he is coming on the day that I came out shopping.

  Bakha had listened hard to the babu, and, although he couldn’t follow every sentence of his rhetorical outburst, he had somehow got the sense of it all.

  ‘ Tell me, Babu,’ Bakha heard the yokel say to the round, felt-capped, bespectacled man who had made the oration, ‘ will he look after the canals when the Ferungis (British) have gone ? ’ It seemed the peasant had more than a vague idea of what Gandhi was about.

  ‘ Bhai ji (brother), don’t you know,’ said the babu, ‘ that according to Mr. Radha Kumud Muker ji we had canals in ancient India four thousand years before Christ ? Who made the Grand Trunk Road ? Not the British !’

  ‘ But what about the mukadamas (lawsuits) ? ’ asked the jat rustic. ‘ The five elders of my village use the Panchayat (committee of five) to wreak vengeance on their enemies, or to bring pressure on the village menials, if they become too independent, and I hear Gandhi says we must not go to the Sarkari Adalat (British Courts of Justice), but must take up our suits to the Panchayat.’

  ‘ A good Panchayat,’ replied the babu sonorously, ‘ can get the villagers to do their bit from time to time in preventing damage by erosion and other causes. It may not be a good judicial body now, but it was, and always has been so in the past. So far as affairs of executive action are concerned, however, you know that the Panchayats have done much good in the service of this country, in the cause of good administration in general, in making walls, rebuilding roads, etc.’

  The peasant didn’t understand that. Nor did Bakha. But the mention of village menials by the peasant recalled to Bakha’s mind the fact that he had heard that Gandhi was very keen on uplifting the Untouchables. Hadn’t it been rumoured in the outcastes’ colony, lately, that Gandhi was fasting for the sake of the bhangis and chamars ? Bakha could not quite understand what fasting had to do with helping the low-castes. ‘ Probably he thinks we are poor and can’t get food,’ he vaguely surmised, ‘ so he tries to show that even he doesn’t have food for days.’

  ‘ We are willing to do all we can,’ the lalla disturbed Bakha’s cogitations with a dramatic gesture towards the babu. ‘ We can boycott Manchester cotton and Bradford fancies, if it is going to mean that in the end we will have a monopoly of swadeshi cloth. I hear, however, that Gandhi ji is making terms with Japan.’

  ‘ You must ask the Mahatma that,’ the babu replied, flurried because he heard noises at the gate from which he presumed that Gandhi was approaching. He wanted to work his way to a position from which he could obtain a good view of the great man.

  ‘ Mahatma ji is not speaking about swadeshi, or on civil disobedience,’ put in a Congress volunteer authoritatively. ‘ The government has allowed him out of gaol only if he will keep strictly within the limits of his propaganda for harijans (men of God, as Gandhi chooses to call the Untouchables), for the removal of untouchability.’ And he walked away after this declamation, showing a little of the glory that he assumed, on account of his powerful position, as an official appointed to serve the community, during the reception to be given to Gandhi.

  ‘ Harijan ! ’ Bakha wondered what that meant. He had heard the word before in connection with Gandhi. ‘ But it has something to do with us, the bhangis and chamars,’ he said to himself. ‘ We are harijans.’ He recalled how some Congress men had come to the outcastes’ street a month ago and lectured about harijans, saying they were no different from the Hindus and their touch did not mean pollution. The phrase, as it dropped from the mouth of the volunteer, had gone through Bakha’s soul and body. He knew it applied to him. ‘ It is good that I came !’ he thought. ‘ Is he really going to talk about the outcastes, about us, about Chota, Ram Charan, my father and me ? What will he say, I wonder ? Strange that the sahib of the Mukti (Salvation Army) said that the rich and the poor, the Brahmins and bhangis, are the same. Now Gandhi Mahatma will talk about us ! It is good that I came. If only he knew what had happened to me this morning. I would like to get up and tell him.’ He imagined himself rising on the platform, when all was still and the meeting had begun, and telling the Mahatma that a man from the city, where he had come to remove untouchability, had abused him for accidentally touching him and had also beaten him. Then the Mahatma would chastise that man perhaps, or, at least, he would chide the citizens here, and they won’t treat me again as they did this morning. He seemed to get a thrill imagining himself in this scene. He felt theatrical. Then a queer stirring started in his stomach. He was confused. His face was flushed and his ears reddened. His breath came and went quickly. A chorus of ‘ Mahatma Gandhi ki-ji ’ released his tension, as it came from the distance and chilled the heat of his body with a sudden fear that it brought into his soul.

  He looked across and saw that a vast crowd had rushed the gates of the golbagh and surrounded a motor-car in which, presumably, the Mahatma was travelling. He didn’t know what to do, stand still or rush. He realised he couldn’t rush even though the Mahatma had abolished all caste distinctions for the day. He might touch someone and then there would be a scene. The Mahatma would be too far away to come and help him. He hesitated for a moment, then he looked at the tree overhead. There were some people perched on the branches like eagles waiting for their prey. He made for the trunk. His ammunition boots were an encumbrance but he scrambled up, using his knees as rests against the round trunk. He looked not unlike an ape as he sat commanding a view of the advancing procession along the road.

  Behind a screen of flower petals showered by ardent devotees under many-coloured flags, with garlands of marigolds, jasmine and molseri around his neck, amid cries of ‘ Mahatma Gandhi ki-ji, Hindu—Mussulman—Sikh ki-jai, Harijan ki-ji,’ the great little man came into sight. His body was swathed in a milk-white blanket, and only his dark clean-shaven head was visible, with its protruding big ears, its expansive forehead, its long nose, bridged by a pair of glasses which were divided in the lenses in two, the upper for looking, the lower for reading. There was a quixotic smile on his thin lips, something Mephistophelean in the determined little chin immediately under his mouth and the long toothless jaws resting on his small neck. But withal there was something beautiful and saintly in the face, whether it was the well-oiled scalp that glistened round the little tuft of hair on the top, or the aura of the astral self that shone like an aureole about him.

  Bakha looked at the Mahatma with a mixed feeling of wonder and fear. The sage seemed to him like a child as he sat huddled up between two women, an Indian and an Englishwoman.

  ‘ That’s Mrs. Kasturabai Gandhi,’ Bakha heard a schoolboy whisper to a friend who sat on a branch of the tree next to him.

  ‘ And who is the other lady ? ’ the boy asked.

  ‘ Mahatma ji’s English disciple, Miss Slade, Miraben. She is the daughter of an English Admiral.’

  ‘ He is black like me,’ Bakha said to himself. ‘ But, of course, he must be
very educated.’ And he waited tensely for the car which was marooned right under his eyes among the throngs of men and women seeking to touch the Mahatma’s feet. The Congress volunteers struggled to carve a way through the turbans and fezes and boat-like Gandhi caps, and at last they succeeded in getting the car under way. Half pushed, half towed with the engines shut off, the chauffeur steered the vehicle to the gate, improvised at one end of the oval, with broad-leafed banana-trees decorated with flowers and paper-chains.

  Bakha saw a sallow-faced Englishman, whom he knew to be the District Superintendent of Police, standing by the roadside in a khaki uniform of breeches, polished leather gaiters and blue-puggareed, khaki sun helmet, not as smart as the military officers’, but, of course, possessing for Bakha all the qualities of the sahibs’ clothes. Somehow, however, at this moment Bakha was not interested in sahibs, probably because in the midst of this enormous crowd of Indians, fired with an enthusiasm for their leader, the foreigner seemed out of place, insignificant, the representative of an order which seemed to have nothing to do with the natives.

  ‘ Mahatma Gandhi ki-jai, Mahatma Gandhi ki-jai,’ the cry went thundering up into the smoke-scented evening. Even Bakha’s attention was switched off the man who held the sceptre of British rule in the form of his formidable truncheon, and turned to the diminutive figure of the Mahatma, now seated in the lotus seat on the Congress pandal (platform), surrounded by devotees, who had come soft-footed up the steps, joined hands in obeisance to the master, touched the dust at his feet, and scattered to sit around him.