Thread by @sheshapatangi1

#SwamiShraddhanand – The Sanyasi who was murdered for doing Gharwapsi.

In 1922, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar famously called Swami Shraddhanand “the greatest and most sincere champion of the Untouchables”.

In Indian history, this honorific title Great Soul (Mahatma) is bestowed

upon Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi. Most historical texts characterize him as an angelic, saintly statesman who could do no wrong.
But, in reality, there was one Mahatma whose name has all but been erased in Indian history textbooks. He was ‘Mahatma Munshiram’

more famously known as Swami Shraddhanand. For long, the Swami has been portrayed by historians as just a ‘Hindu’ revivalist. But if one goes through the story of his life one will find him to be a living portrait of bravery and sacrifice.
Swami Shraddhanand’s Shuddhi mission

of reconverting Malkana Rajputs, did not go down well with late MKGandhi. In the 1922 issue of his magazine, Young India, he is reported to have criticised Swami Shraddhanand in an article, titled ‘Hindu-Muslim-Tensions: Causes and Resistance’.
Gandhi wrote:
“Swami Shraddhanand

has also become a character of disbelief. I know that his speeches are often provocative. Just as most Muslims think, that every non-Muslim will one day convert to Islam, Shraddhanand also believes that, every Muslim can be initiated into the Aryan
With the passage of time and

changing political scenarios, a conflict broke out between Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Shraddhanand (formerly Mahatma Munshiram).

The first point of disputation between the two was regarding the issue of helping the untouchables. In his address as chairman of the Amritsar Congress

session in 1919 he stated:
“Is it not true that so many among you who make the loudest noises about the acquisition of political rights, are not able to overcome their feeling of revulsion for those sixty millions of India who are suffering injustice, your brothers whom you

regard as untouchable ? How many are there who take these wretched brothers of theirs to their heart?…give deep thought…and consider how your sixty million brothers-broken fragments of your own hearts which you have cut off and thrown away- how these millions of children of

mother India can well become the anchor of the ship of a foreign government. I make this one appeal to all of you, brothers and sisters. Purify your hearts with the water of the love of the motherland in this national temple, and promise that these millions will not remain for

you untouchables, but become brothers and sisters. Their sons and daughters will study in our schools, their men and women will participate in our societies, in our fight for independence they will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us, and all of us will join hands to realize the

fulfillment of our national goal”
In the Calcutta Congress session in 1920, Swami Shraddhanand proposed a three-point program with special section on the untouchables, but the party then firmly under Gandhi’s leadership declared the program to be ill-timed. By 1921, the Swami

was frustrated with Gandhi’s negligence regarding the welfare of the untouchables. He wrote:
The Delhi and Agra Chamars simply demand that they be allowed to draw water from wells used by the Hindus and Mohammedans and that water be not served to them (from Hindu water booths)

through bamboos or leaves. Even that appears impossible for the Congress Committee to accomplish…. At Nagpur you laid down that one of the conditions for obtaining Swarajya within 12 months was to give their rights to the depressed classes and without waiting for the

accomplishment of their uplift, you have decreed that if there is a complete boycott of foreign cloth up till the 30th September, Swarajya will be an accomplished fact on the 1st of October…I want to engage my limited energy in the uplift of the depressed classes.

I do not understand whether the Swarajya obtained without the so-called Untouchable brethren of ours joining us will prove beneficial for the Indian nation.

Gandhi criticized Shraddhanand for his mission to reconvert to Hinduism all those who were forcibly converted to other

religions. Gandhi wrote: “Swami Shraddhanand has also become a character of disbelief. I know that his speeches are often provocative….” This was the period when MKG was providing full support to the Khilafat Movement with the hope that this would lead to Hindu-Muslim unity.

On 23 December 1926, Shraddhanand was assassinated by #AbdulRashid
who was angered by the work that he was doing for the Hindu cause.

Gandhi called Abdul Rashid his brother.

#ForgottenHeroes
#Gandhi_NotMyMahatma
#VANDEMATARAM