AFFAIRS IN INDIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18626, 23 July 1930, Page 9

AFFAIRS IN INDIA.

THE UNTOUCHABLES. Sir Sidney Low. the well-known writer on Imperial and foreign affairs, writes in the London “Daily Mail":— If you want to grasp the gravest or India's social problems—that of the “Untouchables." the hereditary underdogs—you must go into an up-country village. There you may see something of the Man who Matters in India—the cultivator of the soil, and of him there are some 200,000,000 —and also of the men who ought to matter but in Hindu eyes do not —the “untouchables," who number 60.000,000 or perhaps more. I took two photographs, years ago, in an Upper Bengal village. One is of the zemindars and ryots, the small land-owners and farmers, reputablelooking, self-respecting, and rather dignified. The other, which is not so nice, was taken in the hamlet of the "sweepers." the outcasts who do the dirty work of the village, and perform menial and unpleasant jobs. The outcasts were ragged scarecrows, their worldly goods a few sticks and earthen pots, their dwellings miserable hovels. They were civil and kindly, but filthy, which is not surprising, as they wers not allowed to use the village "tank,” but had to walk a mile or two to fetch water from a jungle pool. According to the Indian Army List companies in certain regiments were composed of “Pariahs and Christians." Pariahs was the official name for the Untouchables, who had to be grouped with the native Christians because no soldiers of the other sects would associate with them. Viscount Rothermere’s statement on the number of Indian Christians was no doubt a revelation to many English readers. These people are increasing much faster t’-.an the Hindus, and before many yeers may number 20,000,000. If they are left at the mercy of a ruling oligarchy of bigoted Hindus and a sprinkling of Communists, fed with literature from Moscow, they will probably find they can only remain Christians if they submit to being treated as Pariahs.