Untouchables financed the Mahad conference by small village contributions totaling Rs 143

Evidence

In the town of Mahad, the municipality declared that it had no objection if Untouchables used the Chavadar Tank in the town. Passing a resolution was one thing, acting on it quite another. After four years of mobilisation, the Untouchables gathered courage and, in March 1927, held a two-day conference in Mahad. Money for the conference was raised by public contribution. In an unpublished manuscript, the scholar Anand Teltumbde quotes Anant Vinayak Chitre, one of the organisers of the Mahad Satyagraha, saying that forty villages contributed Rs 3 each, and a play about Tukaram was staged in Bombay that made Rs 23, making the total collection Rs 143. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 322

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Contrast of grassroots funding for Ambedkar’s movement versus Gandhi’s reliance on industrialist patrons bears on how movements scale.

Related

• The Mahad Satyagraha ran on Rs 143 of grassroots donations (similarity 0.90)