Chavdar Tank in Mahad (modern-day Maharashtra) on March 20, 1927 Or Water Satyagraha by Dr. Ambedkar

 

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar in his autobiographical essays titled ‘Waiting for a visa’ had described the horrors of untouchability practiced in his home state of Mahad (Now Maharashtra). ‘No peon, No Water’ for Mahars – vividly described Untouchables. Even Mahar School Children were not allowed to drink   from the pot – but School Peon would pour water into their cupped hands from a height so that the vessel is not polluted by their touches. 

Same was experienced by Ambedkar at a station and he could not quench his thirst from the station public tap and he had to be at the mercy of a peon at the station who could pour water into his cupped hands so as to avoid pollution. 

Ambedkar went to Columbia and went to the London School of Economics. He read Law at Gray’s Inn. And then came Home and on March 20, 1927, he launched Water Satyagraha at Chavdar Tale, a public water tank just to have a drink along with his followers. Though the Mahad Municipality had passed a resolution in 1923 allowing all communities to use public water tanks, local upper-caste resistance prevented Dalits from actually exercising this right. 

After the satyagrahis left, local priests performed a "purification" ceremony on the tank, using 108 pots of a mixture containing cow urine and dung, claiming the water had been polluted. 

Ambedkar argued that this wasn't just about water; it was about establishing the fundamental human rights and equality of the oppressed classes.

To make Water Satyagraha more effective and meaningful, Ambedkar organized a second conference in Mahad in December 1927. During this session, he took a more radical stance against the religious roots of inequality. On December 25, 1927, Ambedkar and his followers publicly burned the Manusmriti, a text they viewed as the legal and religious justification for the caste system and untouchability. 

Ambedkar’s water satyagraha remains a landmark because it shifted the focus of the Indian freedom struggle to include internal social reform, arguing that political freedom from the British would be hollow without social freedom for all Indians. 

The 100th anniversary of the Mahad Satyagraha falls on March 20, 2027 – next year and it is expected to be a grand and galla event.