Congress fielded Untouchables as mock election candidates to embarrass boycott-breakers

Evidence

Notwithstanding the admirable principles of the Resolution of Fundamental Rights that had been passed, the view from the bottom was slightly different. The 1930 elections to the provincial legislatures coincided with the Salt Satyagraha. The Congress had boycotted the elections. In order to embarrass ‘respectable’ Hindus who did not heed the boycott and stood as independent candidates, the Congress fielded mock candidates who were Untouchables—two cobblers, a barber, a milkman and a sweeper. The idea was that no self-respecting, privileged-caste Hindu would want to be part of an institution where he or she was put on a par with Untouchables. Putting up Untouchables as mock candidates was a Congress party tactic that had begun with the 1920 elections and went on right up to 1943. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 381

Categorization

• XREF: Direct contrast with the lofty Karachi Resolution rhetoric in the prior paragraph — shows the Congress party using Untouchables as political tools, key evidence for how caste was weaponized instrumentally.
• SEED: An essay angle: how a party that canonized equality on paper deployed caste humiliation as a tactical bloc vote — the instrumental use of marginalized people as spoilers in electoral politics.