Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha: The organisation that marked the birth of a remarkable career

The formation of Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha in 1924 that marked the birth of the exceptionally remarkable career of public service of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar must be regarded as a  milestone in India’s Dalit movement. The month of July this year will mark the ninetieth anniversary of the event.

While Dr Ambedkar had started a fortnightly journal Mooknayak (Leader of the Dumb) earlier in 1920, the formation of the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha (‘Society for the Uplift of the Depressed Classes’) on 20 July 1924 was Dr Ambedkar’s first organisational effort for the betterment of the conditions of the untouchables. The Sabha was the first ever organisation he started for giving vent to and represent the grievances of the untouchable community.

The formation of the organisation was preceded by a meeting of the concerned persons called by Dr Ambedkar about four months earlier on 9 March at Damodar Hall, Parel, Mumbai which also became the official address of the Society on its formal establishment. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the need to establish an organisation which could place the social and political problems of the untouchables before the government. As another precursor to the formation of the Sabha, a conference was also held at Barshi in May where Dr Ambedkar laid emphasis on the political awakening and rights of the untouchables, and the need for an organisation.

The logo of the Sabha featuring the famous slogan:
Educate, Agitate, Organise

Dr Ambedkar worded ‘Educate, Agitate and Organise’ as the motto of the organisation, indicating very clearly that the key to the improvement in the conditions of the untouchables lay in their own hands. Thus Dr Ambedkar was very clear as to the means the organisation wanted to employ to achieve its objective of uplifting the untouchable community. It was to bring about a change in the untouchable community itself rather than make efforts for a favourable change in the attitude of the caste Hindus.

The main objectives of the Sabha were conceived as follows:

1. To accumulate information with regard to the present state of the untouchables and publicise it with a view to moulding public opinion.

2. To make efforts so that the government feels called upon to defend the rights of the untouchable community, and to secure such facilities from the government as are needed for its development.

3. To undertake programmes to create awareness of their rights among the untouchables and to engage a cadre of workers for the purpose.

4.  To promote education among the untouchables, establish libraries and hostels, endow  scholarships for the deserving candidates, organise kirtanas to foster public awareness and prepare plans for the economic betterment of the untouchables with a view to submitting them to the concerned authorities for action.

5. To make efforts to bring about by any other means an overall improvement in the conditions of the untouchables.   

Some of the members of the Sabha from left to right: G. K. Nariman, Sir R. P. Paranjpe, Sir Chimanlal Setalwad
and B. G. Kher 

The Board of Trustees of the organisation consisted of well-known public figures of the day.It was presided over by Sir Chimanlal Setalwad, eminent lawyer of the day who had served as a member of the Hunter Commission of Inquiry following the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in 1919. The six Vice-residents were: Meyer Nissim, Justice of the Peace, actively involved in Jewish communal affaitrs, who later became Mayor of Bombay; Rustomji Jinwala, Solicitor; G. K. Nariman; Dr.R. P. Paranjape, famous mathematician who later became Vice Chancellor of the Pune and Lucknow Universities; Dr. V. P. Chavan, renowned linguist and anthropologist, and B. G. Kher who later became the first Prime Minister of Bombay Province.

The Managing Committee was chaired by Dr Ambedkar himself with Sitaram Namdev Shivtarkar as Secretary and Nivritti Tulshiram Jadhav as Treasurer.

The composition of these two important bodies thus seems to be very carefully devised. The Board of Trustees consisted of Parsis and high caste Hindus so that the organisation gains respectability in the eyes of the wider community cutting across the barriers of caste and faith. On the other hand, in view of the fact that the Managing Committee of an organisation is generally responsible for its ground activities and the implementation of its programmes and policies, all the three members of the Managing Committee of the Sabha were untouchables.Thus the main initiative of the Sabha rested in the hands of those whose interests were directly affected by the success and failure of its programmes.

The annual report of the Sabha for the year 1925 mentioned a range of activities undertaken by it:

1. A hostel for the depressed classes near Sholapur which accommodated free of cost 15 high school students.

2. General work among the Mahars in the Nasik district with regard to the redress of their grievances in the Watandari matters.

3. A library and a reading room  for the depressed classes in the Improvement Trust Chawl in Byculla, a suburb of Bombay.

4. A Mahar Hockey Club presumably to wean away the Mahar youth from unhealthy habits like drinking and gambling.

5. Bahishkrit Vidyarthi Sammelan (Depressed Class Students’ Association) that aimed at cultivating a taste for knowledge and learning among the students and with this in mind brought out a students’ monthly called Saraswati Vilas.

6. Formation of three cooperative credit societies for the depressed classes.

For a general view of the Sabha’s work during its existence, the representations that Dr Ambedkar made as the leader of the untouchables and a range of conferences of depressed classes that he addressed as the founder of the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha during its tenure of around 4 years may be added to this list.

In one of the communications to the govemobilise them behind him. The high point of these conferences was reached during the large scale mobilisation of untouchables that was effected by him during the Mahad Satyagraha (March 19-20 and December 25, 1927). The epic event confirmed Dr Ambedkar’s stature as the unquestionable leader of the untouchable community.

Dr Ambedkar may be said to have owed much to this fledgling though short-lived effort of his for the uplift of his community. For it gave him a formal platform to air the grievances of the untouchable community, helped him crystallise his views on the problem of untouchables and shaped the person he was for the next 32 years that he dominated as the most prominent leader of India’s Dalit movement.