Social Swaraj: Gandhi’s Fight Against Untouchability and Communal Unity

Gandhi’s vision of freedom was never limited to political independence from British rule. For him, true swaraj – self-rule – demanded a deep transformation of Indian society itself. This meant dismantling the practice of untouchability, forging unity across religious communities, and building new social structures from the ground up. This broader social dimension of swaraj is what scholars call social swaraj, and it remains one of the most ambitious – and contested – aspects of Gandhi’s legacy.

Hindu-Muslim unity and pluralism 🔗

At the heart of Gandhi’s social philosophy was a firm conviction that India’s strength lay in its diversity. He argued in Hind Swaraj that Hindus and Muslims had coexisted for centuries, that battles between medieval kings were about power and wealth rather than faith, and that ordinary people across religions had built shared cultural traditions. For Gandhi, religions were different paths leading to the same truth. Nationality, he insisted, was greater than sectarianism.

The Khilafat experiment 🔗

Gandhi’s most significant early effort at communal unity was his involvement in the Khilafat movement after World War I. Muslim leaders in India were aggrieved by the dismantling of the Ottoman Caliphate, and Gandhi threw his full support behind their cause. He joined the All-India Khilafat Committee and even served as its president for a time. This generated a genuine patriotic upsurge in which Hindus and Muslims joined forces against colonial rule at every level of society. For Gandhi, the Khilafat movement was both a moral obligation and a strategic opportunity – a chance to demonstrate that India’s communities could act as one nation.

However, this alliance was fragile. Once the Khilafat cause faded from relevance, communal tensions resurfaced. Riots broke out in many places, and the coalition Gandhi had painstakingly built began to collapse. Despite these setbacks, Gandhi never abandoned his commitment to unity. He continued to hold joint prayer meetings that included readings from the Quran, the Gita, and the Bible, a practice that symbolised his philosophy of Sarva Dharma Sahabhava – equal respect for all religions.

Religion as personal, not political 🔗

Gandhi drew a clear distinction between personal faith and public life. He maintained that religion should not be used for political goals or to justify violence. In Harijan in 1940, he wrote that religions were meant to unite people, not divide them, and that distorting religion into a cause of conflict was a great misfortune. He also envisioned a secular state in which all citizens would be equal before the law, with every individual free to practise their faith without interference – as long as it did not transgress common law.

The partition of India in 1947 was a devastating blow to this vision. Yet Gandhi persisted. In January 1948, just days before his assassination, he undertook a fast to pressure the Indian government into releasing financial assets owed to Pakistan. This act – seen as treasonous by Hindu extremists – ultimately cost him his life. It remains perhaps the starkest illustration of how seriously Gandhi took his commitment to communal harmony.

Eradicating untouchability 🔗

If Hindu-Muslim unity was one pillar of social swaraj, the abolition of untouchability was the other. Gandhi declared that political freedom would be meaningless without social freedom for those at the bottom of the caste hierarchy. He made the removal of untouchability an explicit precondition for swaraj as early as the 1920 Nagpur session of the Indian National Congress.

Personal defiance 🔗

Gandhi’s opposition to untouchability was not merely rhetorical. From the age of twelve, when he defied his mother’s instruction not to touch Uka, an “untouchable” who cleaned their latrines, Gandhi challenged caste restrictions throughout his life. In his ashrams, no caste rules were observed. He personally engaged in work considered polluting by caste Hindus – cleaning toilets, cobbling, tanning leather – and made his family do the same. He adopted Lakshmi, an untouchable girl, as his daughter and later arranged her marriage to a Brahmin.

In 1915, when Gandhi admitted an untouchable family into his Kocharab Ashram in Ahmedabad, the local Vaishnavite community withdrew all financial support. Gandhi’s response was to prepare to move into the untouchable quarters himself. This was not symbolic posturing; it reflected a lifelong pattern of putting his personal comfort and social standing on the line.

Institutional campaigns 🔗

Gandhi’s campaigns took institutional form in the 1930s. In 1932, while imprisoned, he established the All India Anti-Untouchability League (later renamed the Harijan Sevak Sangh) and launched the weekly newspaper Harijan. Between November 1933 and July 1934, he embarked on a nationwide Harijan tour covering roughly 20,000 kilometres, raising funds and urging Congress workers to engage in grassroots upliftment of marginalised communities.

One of the most dramatic episodes was the Vaikom Satyagraha in Kerala, where Gandhi personally debated orthodox Brahmins and succeeded in getting a road near the temple opened to all castes. In 1932, he undertook a fast unto death to push for the opening of the Guruvayur Temple in Malabar to untouchables.

The Ambedkar critique 🔗

Gandhi’s approach, however, was deeply contested. B.R. Ambedkar, the most prominent Dalit leader of the time, argued that Gandhi’s reforms were cosmetic. Ambedkar insisted that untouchability could not be separated from the caste system itself, which needed to be destroyed root and branch. He opposed Gandhi’s paternalistic framing – the use of the term “Harijan” (children of God) struck many Dalits as condescending – and demanded Dalit-led and Dalit-controlled initiatives rather than reform imposed from above by caste Hindus.

Gandhi, for his part, evolved on this question over time. His early writings in the 1920s did defend aspects of the varna system, and critics like Ambedkar, Kancha Ilaiah, and Christophe Jaffrelot have cited these as evidence of his conservatism. But by the 1930s and 1940s, Gandhi was explicitly writing that “caste has to go.” He opposed separate electorates for untouchables, however, believing that the problem must be solved through the moral awakening of Hindu society rather than through state-imposed divisions – a position that remains controversial.

Constructive programme for social reform 🔗

Gandhi’s social swaraj found its most systematic expression in his Constructive Programme, first published in 1941 and revised in 1945. This document laid out the practical groundwork for what he called poorna swaraj – complete independence – achieved through truth and non-violence.

The 18 items 🔗

The programme listed eighteen specific areas of action: communal unity, removal of untouchability, prohibition of alcohol, promotion of khadi (homespun cloth), development of village industries, village sanitation, basic and adult education, health and hygiene education, emancipation of women, promotion of provincial and national languages, economic equality, and the upliftment of peasants and labourers, among others.

What made this programme distinctive was its insistence that political freedom was incomplete – even meaningless – without social and economic transformation. Gandhi believed that lasting change must come from within communities, not from government directives. He viewed civil disobedience as merely an aid to this deeper constructive effort. As he wrote to his supporter Jamnalal Bajaj, his “real politics” was constructive work.

Education and village self-reliance 🔗

Education was central to the programme. Gandhi advocated for basic education (Nai Talim) that combined academic learning with vocational skills, rooting children in their communities rather than preparing them to leave for cities. Adult education programmes targeted illiteracy in villages, while health and hygiene initiatives aimed to address the sanitation crises that reinforced caste hierarchies – since “unclean” work was the very basis of untouchable status.

The emphasis on khadi and village industries was not mere nostalgia. Gandhi saw economic self-reliance as a form of resistance against both colonial exploitation and the centralised industrialism that concentrated wealth in few hands. Spinning cloth at home was simultaneously a political act, an economic strategy, and a tool for building solidarity across caste and class lines.

Women’s emancipation 🔗

Gandhi included the emancipation of women as a distinct item in the Constructive Programme. He acknowledged that women had been suppressed under customs and laws shaped entirely by men, and he argued that in a non-violent society, women had an equal right to shape their own destiny. He credited the satyagraha movement with bringing Indian women out of social seclusion, but recognised that Congress leaders had not done enough to make women equal partners in the struggle.

Failures and legacy 🔗

Honesty requires acknowledging that Gandhi’s social reform programme achieved only partial success. The Constructive Programme, while inspiring in concept, faced significant resistance in practice. Congress leaders often treated it as a political necessity rather than a genuine commitment. As Gandhi himself noted with frustration, the party had not paid sufficient attention to constructive work, preferring direct political action.

Untouchability persists 🔗

Despite decades of campaigning, untouchability was not eradicated during Gandhi’s lifetime – nor has it been fully eliminated since. While the Indian Constitution of 1950 formally abolished the practice, caste-based discrimination persists in education, employment, housing, and social interactions across much of India. Ambedkar’s critique – that reform from within the Hindu fold was insufficient – has gained renewed force in contemporary Dalit politics.

Communal unity remains elusive 🔗

The partition of India in 1947 represented the most visible failure of Gandhi’s communal harmony project. The catastrophic violence that accompanied it – with mass killings, displacement, and forced migration on both sides – was the opposite of everything Gandhi had worked for. Communal tensions have continued to flare in post-independence India, and political mobilisation along religious lines remains a potent force.

Why it still matters 🔗

Yet Gandhi’s framework retains considerable relevance. His insistence that political freedom without social equality is hollow resonates in contemporary debates about caste justice, minority rights, and inclusive development. The Constructive Programme’s grassroots approach – building change village by village, community by community – anticipates modern thinking about participatory development and community-led governance. And his conviction that different religions represent different paths to the same truth offers a philosophical foundation for pluralism that remains urgently needed.

Gandhi did not succeed in building the socially transformed India he envisioned. But the questions he raised – about whether a nation can be truly free while parts of its population remain oppressed, about whether law alone can change deeply embedded social hierarchies, about how diverse communities can live together with mutual respect – have not gone away. If anything, they have become more pressing.

What do you think? Can deep-rooted social hierarchies like caste be reformed from within a tradition, as Gandhi believed, or do they require the kind of structural dismantling that Ambedkar advocated? And in an era of rising religious polarisation, does Gandhi’s model of pluralism offer a viable path forward – or was it always too idealistic to work?

References

1. https://janataweekly.org/gandhi-and-communal-harmony/
2. https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/media/isas_papers/ISAS%20Insights%2025%20-%20Email%20-%20The%20Legacy%20of%20Gandhi.pdf
3. https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/mind-of-mahatma-gandhi/communal-harmony.php
4. https://janataweekly.org/gandhis-approach-to-caste-and-untouchability-a-reappraisal/
5. https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/gandhi-denounced-caste-and-untouchability
6. https://pwonlyias.com/upsc-notes/gandhi-caste-untouchability-reform/
7. https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/Gandhi-Ambedkar-and-eradication-of-Untouchability.php
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_Program
9. http://gandhismriti.gov.in/programmes/constructive-programme
10. https://www.gandhi-manibhavan.org/educational-resources/philosophy-constructive-programmes-bookwritten.html