On this day in 1932, Harijan Sevak Sangh was founded, when Gandhi Ji was in Yervada Jail, Pune and on fast.<br />'' <br />''The immediate historical background dates back to the Second Round Table Conference in London in 1931 when Gandhi ji opposed the segregation of the depressed classes of the Hindu community into a separate electoral group.<br />'' <br />''Gandhi Ji saw in it a sinister device of the British government to create a split in the Hindu community in furtherance of its policy of divide and rule.<br />'' <br />''The Sangh was established to combat untouchability and a new weekly paper, the Harijan, was started. Harijan means children of God,  it was Gandhi Ji's name for the untouchables.<br />'' <br />''On 20th September 1932, when the fast began, was observed as a day of fasting and prayer.<br />'' <br />''At Shantiniketan, poet Tagore, dressed in black, spoke to a large gathering on the significance of the fast and the urgency of fighting an age-old evil.<br />'' <br />''There was a spontaneous upsurge of feeling, temples, wells and public places were thrown open to the untouchables.<br />'' <br />''A number of Hindu leaders met the representatives of the untouchables; an alternative electoral arrangement was agreed upon, and received the approval of the British Government before Gandhi broke his fast.<br />''The scrapping of separate electorates was only the beginning of the end of untouchability.<br />'' <br />''Gandhi Ji always said, so long as the Hindus wilfully regard untouchability as part of their religion, so long as the mass of Hindus consider it a sin to touch a section of their brethren, Swaraj is impossible of attainment.<br />'' <br />''<span style="color: #222222;">Swaraj is as much for the untouchable as for the touchable.</span><br />