| Formation | 30 September 1932 Pune, India |
|---|---|
| Founder | Mahatma Gandhi |
| Headquarters | Gandhi Ashram, Kingsway, Delhi (today Rajpath, Delhi) |
President | Prof. Dr. Sankar Kumar Sanyal |
| Website | gandhicreationhss.org |
Harijan Sevak Sangh is a non-profit organisation founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1932 to eradicate untouchability in India, working for Harijan or Dalit people and upliftment of Depressed Class of India. [1] It is headquartered at Kingsway Camp in Delhi, with branches in 26 states across India. [2]
After the Second Round Table Conference, British government agreed to give Communal Award to the depressed classes on the request of B. R. Ambedkar. Gandhi opposed the government's decision which he considered it would divide the Hindu society and subsequently went on to the indefinite fast in Yerwada Jail. He ended his fast after signed Poona Pact with Ambedkar on 24 September 1932. On 30 September, Gandhi founded All India Anti Untouchability League, to remove untouchability in the society, which later renamed as Harijan Sevak Sangh ("Servants of Harijan Society"). [3] At the time industrialist Ghanshyam Das Birla was its founding president with Amritlal Takkar as its secretary. [4]
Harijan Sevak Sangh runs two schools in the state of Tamil Nadu, a residential middle school in Villupuram district and N M R Subbaraman memorial residential primary school in Madurai. The school in Villupuram was set up in 1993 and currently has 180 scheduled caste and 109 other backward classes students. The students mostly belong to migrant labourers. The school has got 9 teaching and non-teaching staff. The Madurai's school was built in 1979. It presently has 5 teaching and non-teaching faculty members. [5]
The Sangh is headquartered at Kingsway Camp in Delhi. It was Valmiki Bhawan within the campus, which functioned as Gandhiji's one-room ashram, Kasturba Gandhi and their children stayed at the nearby Kasturba Kutir, between April 1946 and June 1947, before he moved to Birla House. Today, the 20-acre campus includes the Gandhi ashram, Harijan Basti, Lala Hans Raj Gupta Industrial Training Institute and also has a residential school for boys and girls. [6] [7] Its headquarters, Gandhi Ashram, Kingsway Camp is listed as Gandhian Heritage Site by the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India.
Complete list of President of Harijan Sevak Sangh
| Sr. No. | Image | Name | Start of Term | End of Term |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Ghanshyamdas Birla | September 1932 | April 1959 |
| 2 |  | Rameshwari Nehru | April 1959 | November 1965 |
| 3 | Viyogī Hari | November 1965 | May 1975 | |
| 4 |  | Shyamlal | June 1975 | October 1978 |
| 5 | R. K. Yarde | December 1978 | April 1983 | |
| 6 |  | Nirmala Deshpande | June 1983 | May 2008 |
| 7 | Radhakrishn Malviya | May 2008 | February 2013 | |
| 8 |  | Shankar Kumar Sanyal | April 2013 | contd. till now |
| 9 |
The Sangh helped the depressed classes to access public places such as temples, schools, roads and water resources, also conducted inter dining and inter caste marriages. [8] It constructed and maintains several schools and hostels across the country. [9]
In 1939, Harijan Sevak Sangh of Tamil Nadu headed by A. Vaidyanatha Iyer entered the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai, with members of depressed class including P. Kakkan despite opposition from the upper caste Hindus. The Sangh led by Iyer organised several temple entry movements in other Parts of Tamil Nadu and in Travancore. [10] [11] Through their movements, more than 100 temples were opened to all sections of the society. [12]
Dalit is a term used for untouchables and outcasts, who represented the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. They are also called Harijans. Dalits were excluded from the fourfold varna of the caste hierarchy and were seen as forming a fifth varna, also known by the name of Panchama. Several scholars have drawn parallels between Dalits and the Burakumin of Japan, the Baekjeong of Korea and the peasant class of the medieval European feudal system.
The Temple Entry Proclamation was issued by Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma on November 12, 1936. The Proclamation abolished the ban on the backward and marginalised communities, from entering Hindu temples in the Princely State of Travancore, now part of Kerala, India.
Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, formerly known as the Dalit Panthers of India or the Dalit Panthers Iyyakkam, is an Indian social movement and political party that seeks to combat caste based discrimination, active in the state of Tamil Nadu. The party also has a strong emphasis on Tamil nationalism. Its chairman is Thol. Thirumavalavan, a lawyer from Chennai, and its general secretary is the writer Ravikumar.
The 1981 Meenakshipuram Conversion was a mass religious conversion that took place in the Indian village of Meenakshipuram, Tamil Nadu, in which hundreds of "oppressed" caste Hindus converted to Islam. This incident sparked debate over freedom of religion in India and the government decided to introduce anti-conversion legislation. Later, many converts converted back to Hinduism, citing the lack of fulfillment of promises made during the conversions.
Kingsway Camp, officially Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar since 1970, is a historic area located in North West Delhi, near Civil Lines and Delhi University. It starts from Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar (GTB) intersection, and has residential areas like Hudson Lines and Outram Lines. Neighboring localities include Dhaka Village, Mukherjee Nagar and Hakikat Nagar. The foundation of the new capital of British India, New Delhi, was laid at Coronation Park by King George V in December, 1911, making this area historically significant.
G. Ramachandhran was a soldier for the Gandhian cause, social reformer and a teacher. With his wife, Dr. T. S. Soundram, daughter of T V Sundaram Iyengar, founder of TVS Group, he started the Gandhigram, Tamil Nadu in 1945. He authored several books. Viswabharati, Rabindranath Tagore's University, in Santhiniketan awarded him the higher title "Desikottama".
P. Jeevanandham also called Jeeva, was a social reformer, political leader, litterateur and one of the pioneers of the Communist and socialist movements in the state of Tamil Nadu, India.
Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy, revered by his followers as Periyar or Thanthai Periyar, was an Indian social activist and politician who started the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam. He is known as the 'Father of the Dravidian movement'. He rebelled against Brahmin dominance and gender and caste inequality in Tamil Nadu. Since 2021, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu celebrates his birth anniversary as 'Social Justice Day'.
C. Iyothee Thass was an Indian anti-caste activist and a practitioner of Siddha medicine. He famously converted to Buddhism and called upon the Paraiyars to do the same, arguing that this was their original religion. He also founded the Panchamar Mahajana Sabha in 1891 along with Rettamalai Srinivasan. Panchamas are the ones who are outcastes.
Diwan Bahadur Rettamalai Srinivasan, commonly known as R. Srinivasan, was a scheduled caste activist and politician from then Madras Presidency of British India. He is a Paraiyar icon and was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and was also an associate of B. R. Ambedkar. He is remembered today as one of the pioneers of the Scheduled caste movement in India. He founded the Adi dravida mahajana sabha in 1893.
P. Kakkan or fondly known as Kakkan, was an Indian politician and freedom fighter who served as a member of the Constituent Assembly of India, Member of Parliament, President of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee and in various ministerial posts in Congress governments in the erstwhile Madras state between 1957 and 1967.
A. Vaidyanatha Iyer, also known as Madurai Vaidyanatha Iyer or Ayyar was an Indian activist, politician and freedom-fighter who spearheaded the temple entry movement in Madras Presidency in 1939.
Amritlal Vithaldas Thakkar, widely recognized as Thakkar Bapa, was a prominent Indian social worker dedicated to the upliftment of tribal communities in what is now Gujarat, India. He became a member of the Servants of India Society in 1914 founded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale in 1905. In 1922, he founded the Bhil Seva Mandal. Later, he became the general secretary of the Harijan Sevak Sangh founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1932. The Bharatiya Adimjati Sevak Sangh was founded on 24 October 1948 on his initiative. When Indian constitution was being framed, Kenvi visited the most remote and difficult parts of India and conducted investigations into the situation of tribal and Harijan people. He was appointed the chairman of "Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas ", a sub committee of the constituent assembly. Mahatma Gandhi would call him 'bapa'. In one of his appeals in 1939 Mahatma Gandhi called him "Father of Harijans".
Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF) is one of the organisations of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). It works to eradicate the untouchability and other forms of caste oppression. It was the key organisation which worked in razing the untouchability wall at Uthapuram.
N. M. R. Subbaraman was an Indian freedom fighter and politician from Tamil Nadu. He was a member of Parliament from the Madurai constituency (1962–1967). He was also called "Madurai Gandhi" for his Gandhian principles.
Uthapuram is a village in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, India. It is known for a wall which segregated Dalits from the village for two decades.
The 2004 Kalapatti violence refers to the violence against Dalits by dominant-caste villagers in the village of Kalapatti, Tamil Nadu on 16 May 2004. About 100 Dalit houses have been burned down by a mob of 200 villagers and Dalits who attempted to escape were attacked. The attacks lasted for 2 hours and 14 people were seriously injured in the violence including a man's arm reportedly hacked off.
Muldas Vaishya was an Indian politician, activist and social reformer.
The 1978 Villupuram atrocity was an incident of caste based violence which happened in July 1978 in Villupuram, Tamil Nadu. The violence resulted in 12 Dalits being killed and more than 100 Dalit houses burned down in Periyaparaichery, a Dalit settlement. The violence was caused when a group of Dalits allegedly attacked a dominant caste man after he allegedly molested a Dalit women. Later, dominant caste people attacked the settlement with rocket fireworks and indulged in arsoning and assault. The Dalits also retaliated by setting fire to several dominant caste houses.
Harijan was a weekly magazine founded by Mahatma Gandhi that was published from 1933 to 1955 except for a hiatus during the Quit India movement of the 1940s. The newspaper aimed to support the campaign by its publisher, Harijan Sevak Sangh for the abolition of untouchability in India. Issues of Harijan were usually released on Saturday, initially priced at one anna, and consisted of eight foolscap pages. Companion publications in Hindi and Gujarati (Harijanbandhu) were also established.