# Gandhi founds the weekly Harijan after the Poona Pact

Date: 1933

## The fact

On 11 February 1933 the weekly Harijan appeared under Gandhi’s direction as a campaign paper against untouchability, after the Yeravda fast. The word Harijan is itself later criticised as patronising; that criticism is noted, not used to delete the anti-untouchability copy.

## Context

Opposing scavenger exclusion and defending varna as a division of labour can sit in one career. The improving path here is public agitation against civic exclusion of ‘untouchables’. Varna apology is a worsening row.

[Mahatma Gandhi](/people/mahatma-gandhi) is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Official archival, ashram, or government pages and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Harijan journal pages — MKGandhi.org (https://www.mkgandhi.org/harijan/harijan.htm; MKGandhi.org / Harijan tradition).

## Significance

A weekly is not a caste abolition. Ambedkar’s book remains the independent indictment.

A weekly is not a caste abolition. Ambedkar’s book remains the independent indictment.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is [protection-of-minority-rights](/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights). The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here. Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is protection-of-minority-rights. The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Mahatma Gandhi: https://factrail.ai/people/mahatma-gandhi

## Drivers

- Protection of Minority Rights: https://factrail.ai/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights

## Sources

- https://www.mkgandhi.org/harijan/harijan.htm
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ga-harijan-1933