ABSTRACT
This essay discusses, with particular reference to Gujarat, the changes that have taken place in the phenomenon of untouchability and in the status of the Untouchables in modem India. The discussions of this problem not only in Gujarat but all over the country have been focussed in recent years on the legal, political, economic and educational aspects and are concerned only marginally with the social, cultural and religious aspects. The main aim of the essay is to point out the importance of understanding the latter aspects in a more comprehensive view of the problem. It tries to show, for example, the implications of the fact that untouchability is part of the entire complex of purity/impurity in Hindu society, and of the linked fact that untouchability exists among the Untouchables themselves. It pleads for studying intensively the internal social organization of the Untouchables and the relations between them and the lower ‘touchable’ castes. In so doing, it examines whether the line dividing the Untouchables from the rest of the castes is as rigid as it is generally assumed to be, and how valid is the equation between the term Untouchable on the one hand and the terms Depressed Class, Scheduled Caste (hereafter SC) and Harijan on the other. In the end
the essay tries to show the signifi cance of the religious and cultural specialists among the Untouchables.
