Gandhi's Campaign Against Untouchability, 1933-34 : An Account from the Raj's Secret Official Reports/edited by Baren Ray. 1996, 254 p., $19.
Contents: Preface. 1. Gandhi against untouchability: an introductory essay by Baren Ray. 2. British official reports of Gandhi's speaking tour. 3. Minutes by Whitehall officials. Appendix--Why Gandhi was not allowed to visit Midnapore.
"The period 1931-34 marked a most important crossroad both in Gandhi's own life as well as in the annals of the Indian national movement. Coming shortly after the high-water mark of mass participation attained by the Salt Satyagraha, his year-long campaign against untouchability (1933-34) was not only perhaps the most intensely and passionately carried out of all his campaigns, but one which also provided the occasion for Gandhi to work out his wider economic and constructive programmes.
"Apart from recording Gandhi's critique as well as his praxis against what was the most decadent and exploitative in the traditional Indian social reality, these accounts from the Raj's own secret official reports provide irrefutable evidence of Gandhi's heroic struggle and at the same time of the failure of his contemporaries to take up the challenge of the time--during the years of the depression." (jacket)