Free The Hope of Shridula by Kay Marshall Strom Page B

breaking backs as they stooped over in the paddies hour after hour, planting the rice seedlings. Of their hands, blistered and raw, as they hoed the ground under the scorching sun. Of their parched mouths as they cried out for water that didn't come. Of their head-swimming weariness with no rest in sight.
    "Yes, yes! That is our plight!" the laborers called back. "You know! You understand!"
    "And you have no hope. That is the worst of it," Nihal Amos said sadly. "With the curse of karma hanging heavy over you, how can you hope that your lot will improve? It will not. Not for you and not for your children."
    "No," the people murmured. "We have no hope. No hope at all."
     

     
    Ashish watched the energy with which Nihal Amos waved his twig-thin arms about and listened to the amazing passion of Nihal Amos's message. He looked around at the intensity of the crowd, too. How easily his friends and neighbors called out their agreement to this son of the landlord's brother! All the people he knew so well suddenly seemed complete strangers to him.
    "It does not have to be this way!" Nihal Amos said. "You do not have to be slaves to the high castes!"
    The crowd grew hushed. Ashish could tell they did not quite believe what Nihal Amos had just said, even though they badly wanted to believe it. He could see the disbelief in the slump of their shoulders and the way they turned their eyes away from Nihal Amos.
    Nihal Amos saw it too, so he quickly changed his approach. "Who of you knows of Mr. B. R. Ambedkar?" he bellowed.
    The gathered workers all stared back at him with curious eyes.
    "No one? But every one of you should know of this man! He is one of you—an Untouchable. But he is no slave to a landowner! He does not spend his days groveling in the stinking mud of rice paddies or his nights in the shabby hut of a laborer. No, he practices law at the Bombay High Court."
    A gasp of disbelief arose from the crowd.
    "I tell you the truth! This important lawyer is an Untouchable, the same as you!"
    Nihal Amos paused to let the enormity of this revelation sink in.
    "Mr. B. R. Ambedkar is not exactly like you, however, for he insists before everyone that the caste system is a terrible evil."
    The crowd stared in shocked silence. Could the landowner's nephew actually be saying such a thing?
    "Mr. B. R. Ambedkar stands up in public and calls the members of the Indian Congress hypocrites. Yes, and he says the same of Mr. Gandhi, too! Mr. B. R. Ambedkar insists that every person who is a member of the upper caste must be required to pay for what they have done to you Untouchables!"
    Ashish glanced around at the rapt faces. This had to be some sort of a trick. Yes, surely the landlord's nephew was attempting to fool the workers, to get something more out of them.
    "So you see, to pull free from your bonds of oppression is more than just a wishful hope. It is a real possibility! Mr. B. R. Ambedkar has made a path to freedom for you. He has shown Untouchables the way to a whole new future!"
     

     
    As long as Nihal Amos talked, the workers listened eagerly. Men pushed up close to Nihal Amos while the women held back, but they also listened. Even the children, who couldn't begin to understand the concepts, listened to the words and grasped the excitement.
    Finally, Nihal Amos stopped talking. He wiped the dripping perspiration from his face with the sleeve of his shirt, and gratefully accepted the cup of water a worker held out to him. To everyone's amazement, the son of the landlord's brother actually drank water from an Untouchable cup!
    "Mr. B. R. Ambedkar may not know it, but in his heart he is a Marxist," Nihal Amos said. "For Marxists also believe all people should be treated the same. Everyone who expects to eat should toil in the fields and paddies, regardless of the caste of his birth. And every person who works, in whatever capacity, should enjoy and share equally in the fruits of his labor."
    Yes, the workers agreed. What the