Adi Dravidas and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Adi Dravidas and Mahatma Gandhi   

 

As you have given me an advance copy of the address, I know what it contains. As you have rightly remarked in the address, Nandanar was one of the bright stars among the satyagrahis of India. I consider myself highly honoured to have had this privilege of laying the foundation of the doorstep of this temple. I consider it to be a great honour that the first act that I am called upon to perform after entering into Chidambaram is to lay the foundation-stone of the doorstep. I am hoping that this will be really a temple where we will be able to see God face to face as Nandanar himself did I pray that this may be a temple of freedom for everyone who would everyone who would visit this. But you should understand that Nandanar was trying to enter, by giving his life-blood, not in a temple built of stone and mortar only. Nandanar saw in the temple, which he was seeking to enter, freedom in his own soul. And so by your own lives, the devotees of the temple will be expected to purify the inward atmosphere of which the visible stone and mortar should merely be the symbol.

At the present moment I know many temples, whether they be dedicated to Vishnu or Siva, entered into and visited by thousands of the so-called Brahmins, which are no temples of God. Let this temple not be an addition to those numerous temples which today disfigure this holy land. But if you want to do that; those who will be in charge of this temple will have to purify their hearts of all anger. I am glad therefore to notice that in your address you do not seem to seek to destroy Hinduism itself as I see is being done in many places in the present time. I appreciate your idea not to trample underfoot Hindu traditions whether they are bad or indifferent. But as you have decided to make use of the good faculty of discrimination, and as you seek not to destroy that which is good but only that which is bad, let me congratulate you upon your determination to win status by sheer force of merit. You rightly claim to be the descendants of the original inhabitants of this ancient land and if it belongs to any single individual as a matter of right, that right is certainly yours and yours foremost. You are therefore entitled to every consideration. It seems that you are bent upon gaining strength by reform within. Let me draw your attention to one or two points. There is that drink evil, common almost too every Adi Dravida. You must therefore try your level best to rid the community of this drink evil. If I am not mistaken Adi Dravidas are also given to beef eating. Hinduism is a tolerant religion. But tolerant though it is, it is intolerant of beef-eating on the part of its devotees.

You must therefore agitate and agitate till every Adi Dravida has given up beef eating and the slaughter of cows. Make this temple at once a seat of devotion, centre of learning and a centre from which the force should spread to every Adi Dravida and subsequently to every Hindu and still more subsequently to every Indian. You have said in your address that khaddar itself cannot be successful without the removal of the curse of untouchability. Here there is a confusion of ideas. The real untouchability will never vanish from this land until khaddar is worn. Let me inform you that there are even now people in India who are poorer and more downtrodden than many Adi Dravidas. Are there not many Adi Dravidas that I have seen in the course of my tour suffering for want of food? But in many parts of India I can show you many who are not called Adi Dravidas but do not get even a single meal a day. This untouchability, of which you complain, has not to go so much as the untouchabilities of those dying millions.

Their untouchability is in one way a far more serious affair than the one with which we are placed. So it pleases me to find mention made in your address to having a weaving institute for Adi Dravida boys and I appreciate your invitation to me to help this weaving institute. I shall do so with the greatest pleasure if you will fulfil the conditions that are imposed on every weaving institute which seeks my assistance. The first and the foremost condition I propose to mention to you is that in the weaving institute nothing but hand-spun yarn can be used. If you are serious about this, place yourself in correspondence with the Secretary, Mr. S. Ramnathan, who is in charge of the All-India Spinners’ Association in this part of the country. You will find him accessible at all times, ready to render any assistance that is in his power. He and I exist for that purpose. As you are about to make this temple a centre of devotion let me also commend to you the two things which are necessary for our children, i.e., the learning of Sanskrit and Hindi which are necessary for our children, i.e., the learning of Sanskrit and Hindi which may be helpful in life. 

 

Reference:

 

The Hindu, 12-9-1927