After a long debate, it was decided that the untouchable elders should meet with the village elders to get an assurance that what had happened would not happen again.
What happened when the mala and madiga elders went to meet the village elders was that they were told to go back and tell the mala-madiga bitches and sons-of-bitches to not forget where their place was. What was that teacher munda--prostitute--doing wearing a blouse? Had her eyes climbed up on her head just because she'd learned two bits of language?
When their elders came back and told the untouchables what had been said, they burned with humiliation and rage.
And in the village the uppercaste Hindus burned, too--with contempt and righteous anger. They wanted to teach the untouchables a lesson.
That Christmas morning, Adavi Kolanu turned into a battlefield. Both inside the village and in the untouchable colonies, men were raising clouds of dust in the streets and alleys as they ran here and there to gather forces. They carried swords, sickles, hoes, and hammers. Women hid inside armed with brooms, pestles, and pots of chili powder. Children clung to their mothers' sarees.
The two factions met at the border of the village in tense, sweating knots. They were ready to slit each others' throats.
Those kshatriya men who had insulted Maryamma stood at the head of the caste Hindus and on the other side the untouchables gathered behind Prasanna Rao and the giant Madiga Samson, who slapped the inside of his thighs in a mad gesture of challenge and roared, "Come on you sons-of- bitches, if you have the balls. I'll rip you to shreds!"
Maryamma and Marthamma stood tensely on the side passing Satyamoorthy, who was crying uncontrollably, back and forth between them and trying to calm him.
At that time in Adavi Kolanu there lived a diminutive brahmin who was a fervent follower of Gandhi. The British had put him in jail for working as a Congress volunteer in the East Godavari district. After he was released and returned to the village he was constantly looking for opportunities to put Gandhi's teachings into practice. Gandhi was at that time campaigning to preserve the caste system by reforming the practice of untouchablity, so every evening the brahmin would sit in the village square and gather a crowd and sing:
Malalu mathramu manushulu kaara....
(Are not the untouchables also human beings?)
Some of the villagers thought he was a joker and some admired him and said, "Aha! Oho!"
On Christmas Day 1933, when the caste and outcaste men of Adavi Kolanu faced each other with weapons in hand, ready to kill, the little brahmin saw his big chance to put his principles into practice. He came running in his white dhoti, made his way through the crowd to the eye of the storm, and right there fell to the ground on his knees. With his hands folded in supplication and tears in his eyes he begged the men to stop the violence: "Kill me before you kill each other."
Killing a brahmin is the mala pathakam--the sin of sins. It is equivalent to killing a thousand cows or sixteen sudras. The brahmin, in offering himself to be killed, was playing a subtle trick. With those words he was forcing the untouchables to drop their demand for a little dignity or commit a sin that had no redemption.
The untouchables backed down. Seeing that, the kshatriyas relented. Men and women turned around and went back to their respective places--the kshatriyas to the village and the untouchables to their segregated colony. The brahmin had restored things to normal.
Later the disciple of Gandhi went around to the untouchables and preached to them the principle of ahmisa (nonviolence). He advised them, in order to avoid conflict, not to put on nice clothes when going into the village.
Very precocious disciple he was. Three years later, a thousand miles away, Gandhi himself would resolve a similar conflict in a similar village in a similar manner.
The village was Chakawara in the northwest state of Jaipur (now Rajastan). An untouchable, as an act of piety upon returning from a pilgrimage, arranged a dinner for his fellow untouchables. As the guests sat down to enjoy the meal, several hundreds of caste Hindus, armed with clubs, attacked them, beating the untouchables as they fled and stomping in their food. The cause of the conflict: the host had dared to serve, and the guests to eat, ghee, which the caste Hindus of that village decided was too good for untouchables. When the victims approached Gandhi, whom they had heard was the uplifter of untouchables, and put their case, he chastised them for provoking caste violence by eating what was forbidden to them.