nal legislative I would answer
Hindu insolence by creating special and better wells for the exclusive
use of suppressed classes and by erecting better and more numerous
schools for them, so that there would be not a single member of the
suppressed classes left without a school to teach their children. But I
must wait for that better day.

Meanwhile are the depressed classes to be loft to their own resources?
Nothing of the sort. In my own humble manner I have done and am doing
all I can for my Panchama brother.

There are three courses open to those downtrodden members of the nation.
For their impatience they may call in the assistance of the slave owning
Government. They will get it but they will fall from the frying pan into
the fire. To-day they are slaves of slaves. By seeking Government aid,
they will be used for suppressing their kith and kin. Instead of being
sinned against, they will themselves be the sinners. The Mussalmans
tried it and failed. They found that they were worse off than before.
The Sikhs did it unwittingly and failed. To-day there is no more
discontented community in India than the Sikhs. Government aid is
therefore no solution.

The second is rejection of Hinduism and wholesale conversion to Islam or
Christianity. And if a change of religion could be justified for worldly
betterment, I would advise it without hesitation. But religion is a
matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment
of one's own religion. If the inhuman treatment of the Panchamas were a
part of Hinduism, its rejection would be a paramount duty both for them
and for those like me who would not make a fetish even of religion and
condone every evil in its sacred name. But, I believe that
untouchability is no part of Hinduism. It is rather its excrescence to
be removed by every effort. And there is quite an army of Hindu
reformers who have set their heart upon ridding Hinduism of this blot.
Conversion, therefore, I hold, is no remedy whatsoever.

Then there remains, finally, self-help and self-dependence, with such
aid as the non-Panchama Hindus will render of their own motion, not as a
matter of patronage but as a matter of duty. And herein comes the use of
non-co-operation. My correspondent was correctly informed by Mr.
Rajagopaluchari and Mr. Hanumantarao that I would favour well-regulated
non-co-operation for this acknowledged evil. But non-co-operation means
independence of outside help, it means e