Dissecting Memory/Challenging the Narrative: Mary Edward King’s Appraisal of Gandhian Struggle at Vykom

Abstract

Often hailed as a watershed moment in India’s struggle against untouchability and as a triumph of Gandhian mode of struggle rooted firmly on the pillars of truth, love and nonviolence, the 1924-25 Vykom Satyagraha was purported to annihilate caste differences and eliminate the evil practices of untouchability, unapproachability and unseeability. A narrative that emerged in no time after the end of the struggle corroborated M.K. Gandhi’s claim that the “sheer force of character and suffering” of the campaigners would effect a change of heart in the dominant castes, making them not only to reduce the severity of casteist practices but also willing participants in the campaign for social equality. This paper proposes to read Mary Elizabeth King’s Gandhian Nonviolent Struggle and Untouchability in South India: The 1924-25 Vykom Satyagraha and the Mechanisms of Change (2015) to challenge this simplistic narrative, to posit the notion that conversion is rarely a mechanism of change and to unravel the inadequacies in the leadership Gandhi provided to the struggle. The methodology adopted would be interdisciplinary and would employ the tools of historiographical and political-theoretical analysis.