Read the short passage and answer the questions that follow. Rajkumar Shukla led Gandhi to the house of a Patna lawyer named Rajendra Prasad. The servants knew Shukla as a poor yeoman who pestered their master to help the indigo sharecroppers. They let him stay on the grounds with his companion Gandhi, whom they took to be another peasant. But Gandhi was not permitted to draw water from the well lest some drops from his bucket pollute the entire source; for how did they know that he was not an untouchable? Adapted from Louis Fischer, 'The Life of Mahatma Gandhi'. Q3. The episode at the well illustrates
AThe pervasive caste prejudice of the time — the servants could not risk water-source pollution by serving someone whose caste they did not know
BModern plumbing arrangements
CReligious dietary practices
DThe hospitality of the house
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. The pervasive caste prejudice of the time — the servants could not risk water-source pollution by serving someone whose caste they did not know
The reluctance to allow Gandhi water 'lest some drops from his bucket pollute the entire source' captures the caste anxiety about purity. Gandhi's later anti-untouchability campaign owed much to such direct encounters.
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