ffort from within. It would not
be non-co-operation to insist on visiting prohibited areas. That may be
civil disobedience if it is peacefully carried out. But I have found to
my cost that civil disobedience requires far greater preliminary
training and self-control. All can non-co-operate, but few only can
offer civil disobedience. Therefore, by way of protest against Hinduism,
the Panchamas can certainly stop all contact and connection with the
other Hindus so long as special grievances are maintained. But this
means organised intelligent effort. And so far as I can see, there is no
leader among the Panchamas who can lead them to victory through
non-co-operation.

The better way, therefore, perhaps, is for the Panchamas heartily to
join the great national movement that is now going on for throwing off
the slavery of the present Government. It is easy enough for the
Panchama friends to see that non-co-operation against this evil
government presupposes co-operation between the different sections
forming the Indian nation. The Hindus must realise that if they wish to
offer successful non-co-operation against the Government, they must make
common cause with the Panchamas, even as they have made common cause
with the Mussalmans. Non-co-operation with it is free from violence, is
essentially a movement of intensive self-purification. That process has
commenced and whether the Panchamas deliberately take part in it or
not, the rest of the Hindus dare not neglect them without hampering
their own progress. Hence though the Panchama problem is as dear to me
as life itself, I rest satisfied with the exclusive attention to
national non-co-operation. I feel sure that the greater includes
the less.

Closely allied to this question is the non-Brahmin question. I wish I
had studied it more closely than I have been able to. A quotation from
my speech delivered at a private meeting in Madras has been torn from
its context and misused to further the antagonism between the so-called
Brahmins and the so-called non-Brahmins. I do not wish to retract a word
of what I said at that meeting, I was appealing to those who are
accepted as Brahmins. I told them that in my opinion the treatment of
non-Brahmins by the Brahmins was as satanic as the treatment of us by
the British. I added that the non-Brahmins should be placated without
any ado or bargaining. But my remarks were never intended to encourage
the powerful non-Brahmins of Maharashira o