Up Untouchables!

The groveling social and religious lepers of Mother India are her famed 50,000,000 Untouchables with whom there is nothing physically the matter and with some of whom King Edward, when Prince of Wales, shook hands, to their incredulous delight.

It would be impractical for the Emperor of India to intervene in this most delicate Hindu matter but last week His Highness Sir Rama Varma, Maharaja of Travancore celebrated his 24th birthday by issuing a proclamation hailed as the most important Hindu reform in almost a millennium.

"We have decided and hereby declare, ordain and command," proclaimed the Maharaja, "that henceforth there shall be no restriction placed on any Hindu by birth or religion from entering or worshipping at temples controlled by the Government of Travancore."

The neighboring States of Cochin and Mysore were expected to follow the lead of Travancore, but this lead went only a short way toward solving the problem of Untouchability. Travancore is a South Indian State of 5,000,000 total population, of whom 1,765,000 are Untouchables and, although they may now worship in the State's temples, they will continue to be scorned and ostracized by most caste Hindus, even in Travancore. They will continue to earn meagre livelihoods by performing the "degrading tasks" no caste Hindu will touch, such as cleaning latrines, barbering, cobbling, laundering and Cremating. If an orthodox caste Hindu chances to touch an Untouchable he must cleanse himself by bathing and he is socially ostracized by other caste Hindus until he has been purified by Hindu priests. Their charges for this amount to a pious racket.

Whatever they thought of his Untouchable decree, all subjects of the progressive Maharaja of Travancore like his "basket system." Tradition decrees that an Indian subject calling upon his ruler must present a gift and the Nizam of Hyderabad is notorious for extorting enormous sums by this means from his subjects. A subject of the Maharaja of Travancore is met by a servant with a basket containing gifts purchased by the Maharaja for "presentation" to himself. The subject chooses one of these gifts, enters, presents it, and the gift then goes back into the Maharaja's basket to be presented innumerable times to His Highness by subsequent happy subjects.

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