Gandhi Harijan Sevak Sangh – Founded by Mahatma Gandhi

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HARIJAN SEVAK SANGH

(Founded by Mahatma Gandhi on September 30, 1932)

The All India Harijan Sevak Sangh, is an independent National level non-profit voluntary organization with its Branches in 26 States. It is registered under Societies Registration Act 1860 with its Headquarters at Gandhi Ashram, Kingsway Camp, Delhi- 110009.

The organisation was founded by Mahatma Gandhi in the year 1932 for the welfare of the Harijans, the untouchable – oppressed class, in India.

Historic background

It was founded in September, 1932 in the wake of Gandhiji’s Epic Fast at Yerwada Jail, Pune, resulting in the historic Poona Pact. The immediate historical background dates back to the Second Round Table Conference in London in 1931 when Gandhiji opposed the segregation of the depressed classes (untouchables) of the Hindu Community into a separate electoral group. Gandhiji saw in it a sinister device of the then British Government to create a split in the Hindu Community in furtherance of its policy of ‘divide and rule’. Despite Gandhiji’s strong opposition, the British Government made a “Communal Award” in August, 1932 providing for a separate electorate for the depressed classes. The then British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald rejected Gandhi’s appeal for reconsideration of the decision