for the Nagpur Congress, which was to be the great Gandhi counterblast to the Reforms, and the Extremists, who poured into the province from the neighbouring Bombay Presidency, concentrated their efforts on the creation of an atmosphere of general unrest favourable to the new line of campaign upon which the rump of the old Indian National Congress was about to enter with the open renunciation of the fundamental article of its original creed—­loyalty to the British connection.

It seems one of the strangest of the many anomalies with which the Indian situation teems that the Central Provinces should have been chosen of all others as the scene for a great spectacular demonstration of revolt against the state of “slavery” to which Indians have been reduced by a “Satanic” alien rule.  It is one of the precepts of Mr. Gandhi’s gospel of “Non-co-operation,” though doubtless only as a counsel of perfection, that Indian husbands and wives must cease to bring “slave” children into the world until India has attained Swaraj.  Yet in the Central Provinces a larger proportion of Indian children than in any other province are born every year to a state of degradation much more closely akin to slavery, which is not imposed upon them by any alien rulers, but by the ancient traditions of those of their own race and creed whose interest it is to perpetuate at the expense of their less fortunate fellow-countrymen the most cruel form of caste tyranny.  Of the total population of the Central Provinces, which numbered some sixteen millions at the last Census in 1911, one-fifth belong to that order of humanity which stands so low in the eyes of Hindus that it is unworthy to be reckoned as possessing any caste at all.  These no-castes stand at the very foot of the social ladder of Hinduism, and in theory at least they can never hope to climb even on to its lowest rungs, though in practice the most stringent laws can be gradually circumvented with the help of needy Brahmans or will yield to the pressure of changing economic conditions.  They are “untouchable,” i.e. that any physical contact with them involves defilement of which the caste Hindu can only cleanse himself by ritual ablutions and other forms of ceremonial purification.  Go into a village which is partially inhabited by these unfortunate people, mostly called Mahars in that part of India, and you will find that they are forbidden even to draw water from any but their own wells, as by drawing it from wells used by caste Hindus they would render them impure.  In the larger urban schools under Government control British laws, which recognise no caste distinctions, enforce the admission of Mahar boys, some of whom do extremely well.  But in a village school you will often see the poor little “untouchables,” if admitted at all, relegated to mats on the outside verandah, where they may pick up such scraps of teaching as they can.  The Government inspector of schools may remonstrate, but he knows that few teachers will make any serious attempt to mend matters, and that if they did the caste-boys would be withdrawn by their indignant parents.