Provinces has exercised the right conferred upon
him to nominate a certain number of members to the Provincial
Legislative Council in order to give some representation to communities
too backward to secure any for themselves under the existing franchise.

One of the best results of British governance and of Western education
has been to stimulate even amongst the "untouchables" a new sense of
self-respect and self-reliance and a wholesome desire to emerge from the
degradation to which the custom of centuries has condemned them. It is
amongst them that of late years Christian and even Mahomedan
missionaries have found all over India their most fruitful field, and in
some provinces mass-movements to Christianity have taken place, which
are admittedly due in the first place to a desire for social
emancipation, but will steadily lead, if properly handled, to moral and
religious advancement. One of the great problems now before the
missionary societies of all Christian denominations is how these tens of
thousands of converts can be taught and trained, and it is of great
promise for the future that a Commission of Inquiry composed of British
and American and Indian Christian missionaries has recently issued a
report on Village Education in India which has approached this problem,
amongst others, with a broad-minded appreciation of its economic and
social as well as purely religious aspects.

Is it surprising that when the Indian National Congress, that has
hitherto done nothing for them beyond embodying in its programme vague
expressions of sympathy, is agitating for the severance of the British
connection, and Extremist orators perambulate the country to preach a
boycott of British officials, the Mahars should have sent in petitions
imploring the Governor not to abandon them or surrender the power which
has alone done something to raise them out of the slough of despond? Mr.
Gandhi, however, who would be a great social reformer had he not
preferred to plunge into a dangerous political agitation, is not himself
blind to such an awful blot as "untouchability" has made on Hindu
civilisation, and some of his followers, prompted perhaps less than he
is himself by a generous reforming spirit, have not been slow to see
what abundant materials lie ready to their hand in these vast masses,
profoundly ignorant and superstitious, if they can only be drawn into
the turbid stream of "Non-co-operation" by some novel and ingenious
appeal