For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Harijan Children and Mahatma Gandhi

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

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

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net;

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

Harijan Children and Mahatma Gandhi

God is a wonderful watch-maker. He alone can set right his watch that has gone out of order. Harijan children are my adopted children; therefore they should keep themselves very clean. One should have a pure tongue, a pure mind and a pure body. 1 The Harijan Samiti’s resolution seemed shocking to me. What guidance, however, can I give from here? How can a single school for Harijan children be closed while the members of the Samiti are alive? If they are sincere, they would sell themselves into slavery, would sell their property but continue to run every school. Instead of accepting defeat, therefore, you should have hope that when you come forward to sell yourselves, the people will buy you and pay the Samiti all the money it needs. You may doubt this, but I do not. Don’t you remember Bhoja Bhagat’s lash? 2 The matter of opening facilities for the technical training of Harijan children and offering scholarships to deserving Harijan youths, I propose to discuss with Seth Ghanshyamdas Birla and the other members of the A.I.A.U. League when they come here to see me. 3

They certainly can do one thing. They can find out the custom about the disposal of such carcasses and see that the tanners are assured of a proper wage for the service they rendered. Those who have capacity and time can conduct day or night schools, take Harijan children for picnics and sightseeing on holidays or whenever an opportunity occurs, visit Harijans in their own homes, procure medical aid where necessary and generally let them feel that a new page has been opened in their lives and that they need no longer regard themselves as the neglected and despised portion of Hindu humanity. 4 I have an idea of the situation there. We can help only those who spin of their own volition and spin well. Can’t you get children or adults who are prepared to take up spinning as yajna? Did you try in the schools there? If you are not able to persuade anyone, but can look after the Harijan children, even that would do, or, if you want to set up an ashram, do so. Confer with Narandas. 5

Therefore, whether it is slow or quick, expensive or inexpensive, I have no doubt it must be the integral part of the activities of the society. It may not be able to overtake all Harijan children, or all Harijan sick needing medical aid but whatever is done in that direction will count and should be an earnest of more to come. 6 The students of your school can fraternize with the Harijan children, play with them, go in for excursions with them, clean them if they are dirty, share their own refreshments with them if they are hungry and their own clothes with them if they are ill-clad. He is an ideal teacher who has a spotless character and loves his pupils as his own children. 7 The way your students can help is by doing regular, steady service to the Harijans as by conducting night schools, by organizing not expensive but indigenous sports for Harijan children in which the students would play side by side with the children, by penetrating Harijan homes and finding out their difficulties and solving them where they are able to do so. These are only some of the ways. They will no doubt discover many others. 8

Harijan children won’t listen to talk on abstinence from liquor. But coming in contact with you, they will gradually be influenced. It is a nice idea to visit them on Sundays. Try if possible to make this arrangement. It would be enough if the Friday programme is shifted to Sunday. Discuss it with Narandas. If your conduct is spotless, it will definitely influence them. It is inevitable that you should mix with older people. They also will be won over by love and service. Sometimes you may invite the Harijan children to the Ashram. Before inviting they take permission from Narandas. 9 There is one special consideration in favour of opening what may be called preparatory schools for Harijan children. I cannot do better than quote the reason in the words of a co-worker who has gone to live in their midst and who writes: This is but a sample of the condition of raw Harijan children. We want every one of these children to learn to live in a clean and decent manner. We want them all to attend the common public schools. Therefore, preparatory schools for them are an absolute essential if we mean honest business. 10 You are taking Harijan children for excursions, showing them sights near their villages and teaching them how to study nature, and generally interesting them in their surroundings, giving them by the way a working knowledge of geography and history. 11

The reader need not be startled by this teacher’s enthusiastic language. He is an emotional person. His experience is very new. We hope the English proverb about new brooms will not apply to this teacher and his enthusiasm will grow day by day. And it will only grow if he has faith. The sun of faith can melt mountains of ice. If this teacher has towards these Harijan children the same feeling of love that a mother has for her child suffering from a repulsive disease, he will not be repulsed by their uncleanliness but will make them tidy and clean like other cultured children. 12 We shall have to have the same patience with them even as we have for our own. Whatever may be said to the contrary, I shall proclaim from the housetops that, unless we remove the scourge of untouchability from our hearts, Hinduism is doomed. The Shastras do not warrant the neglect of a single human being in the way in which we have neglected over 40 millions, and if we would repent of our sins, I would like to have an army of voluntary workers, drawn from the so-called higher classes, offering to teach and take care of Harijan children. 13

Harijan quarters should be visited in each place and they should be cleaned wherever necessary. Meetings of Harijans should be held and their wants noted. They should be advised as to the part they have to play in the removal of untouchability. Dr. Deshmukh authoritative opinion should be used in support of the plea for the giving up of carrion-eating. Children can arrange meetings and excursions for Harijan children. Possibilities of an inauguration of improved methods of sanitation should be explored and wherever possible, the scheme of Sjt. Hiralal Shah should be given effect to. It is neither difficult nor expensive if the people will shoulder the burden willingly. In the end it means a visible addition to the health and wealth of the community. 14 Let us take the case of the school mentioned above. That the Harijan children left it does not worry me. It was necessary that they should have joined it. If their parents are willing to entrust the children to us, we should take charge of them and educate them elsewhere. If the teacher is courageous, he should face boycott, if beaten he should put up with the beating, and bring back the Harijan children at the first opportunity. He should reason with the sanatanists. If the teacher has regard for his dharma, he should lay down his life for the sake of those three children who were under his charge. But supposing the teacher does not have so much spirit, and then Shri Chhotalal should keep this village in mind and seek opportunities of once again establishing good relations with its sanatanists or Harijans or both. Those opportunities should be sought through service of both. He should seek out their friends and make use of those who carry weight with the respective parties, to awaken the sense of justice of one and removing the fear of the other. In short, while serving in other places, he should not forget either those three children or that village. He should make it his chief aim to protect the former. 15

I am awaiting your suggestions regarding the Ashram diet. I want to make the diet there complete in respect of health requirements. The idea of keeping Harijan children in the Ashram has always been there but not many such children can be found you can advise those who conceal their ailments to bring it to light; and those who cannot subdue their passions may leave for good. 16 Dr. Agrawal is an eye-specialist. He has specialized in teaching people how to improve eye-sight and do without glasses. He is coming there to see the Ashram. If he wants to examine the children’s eyes, let him do so. Bhagwanji may accompany him when he visits the Harijan children. Request the doctor to explain to the people who wear glasses how they can dispense with them. If he wants a letter of recommendation to anybody outside the Ashram, please do not give any. I don’t know anything about his abilities. He seems to be a good mans but he did not succeed in his experiment on me. He will stay there for three or four days. 17

Untouchability or what is today known as Varnashram adharma has no place at all in the Jain philosophy. They must vehemently point it out, and before they talk about it, they must be fully convinced about it. There is no restriction on a Jain muni teaching anyone. Hence, he must get around at least a few Harijan children and educate them. If he has been convinced that Jainism is not different from Hinduism, he must establish it. If this leads to boycott, he must lovingly face it and continue in his path of service. I think this includes everything. 18 We have to recognize that we get Harijan children with great difficulty to attend any school at all. We cannot expect any degree of regularity in them and, thanks to our past criminal neglect; they are so unkempt that we have, in the beginning stages, to handle them in a manner wholly different from the ordinary. 19 There seems to me to be no doubt that in the public schools the books used, especially for children, are for the most part useless when they are not harmful. That many of them are cleverly written cannot be denied. They might even be the best for the people and the environment for which they are written. But they are not written for Indian boys and girls, or for the Indian environment. When they are so written, they are generally undigested imitations hardly answering the wants of the scholars. In this country, wants vary according to the provinces and the classes of children. For instance, wants of Harijan children are, in the beginning stages at least, different from those of the others. 20

The Harijan cause is like fire. The more ghee you put into fire, the more it requires. So also, the more you give to the Harijan cause, the more it requires. Those who give to the cause gain, they never lose; and those who do not give undoubtedly lose. What you gain by giving is merit. What you lose by not giving is yourself. For men and women belonging to savarna Hindu castes have been persecuting Harijans now for ages. And if we are just now passing through evil times, I am convinced that our treatment of Harijans has not a little to do with it. I have, therefore, been asking the women of India to drive away the ghost of untouchability from their hearts. It is wrong, it is sinful, to consider some people lower than ourselves. On God’s earth nobody is low and nobody is high. We are all His creatures; and just as in the eyes of parents all their children are absolutely equal, so also in God’s eyes all His creatures must be equal. Therefore I ask you to believe me when I tell you that there is no sanction in religion for untouchability. I would, therefore, ask you to give a place in your hearts to all the Harijans around you. Welcome Harijan children in your own homes. Go to Harijan quarters and look after their children and their homes; speak to Harijan women as to your own sisters. 21

My opinion is that, whilst every facility should be provided for the admission of Harijans to public schools, for some time to come preparatory schools will be absolutely necessary for preparing Harijan children for the primary schools. It is futile to expect Harijan children all at once to flood public primary schools. There is also a possibility of opposition to wholesale admission. Hence preparatory schools are necessary if we honestly want to foster the education of Harijan children. 22 There should be a more real appreciation of the difficulties and disabilities of the Harijans in the villages visited. There should be more temples opened, more Harijan children brought to public schools. Let the workers and the villagers believe that, in as much as I am walking to the Utkal villages, I am walking to theirs also. If mine is a spiritual act, it should have that value; the people should feel impelled to intensify their effort on behalf of the cause. This pilgrimage should result in the discovery of more workers and the increasing dedication of the existing ones. 23 Bee-keeping seems to me to possess immense possibilities. Apart from its village value, it may be cultivated as a hobby by moneyed young men and women. They will add to the wealth of the country and produce the finest health-giving sugar for themselves. If they are philanthropically inclined, they can distribute it as health-giving food among sickly Harijan children. There is no reason why it should be a luxury of the rich or an expensive medicinal vehicle in the hands of the hakims and vaidyas. No doubt, my hope is based on inferences drawn from meagre data. Experiments are that may be made in villages and in cities by young men and women should show whether honey can become a common article of food or has to remain an uncommon article, which it is today. 24

The question of primary education is in many respects much more difficult than secondary and college education. And Harijan education is the most difficult for all. Be it in the crudest manner possible, a non-Harijan child receives some home culture. A Harijan child, being shunned by society, has none. Even when, therefore, all primary schools are open to Harijan children, as they must be sooner or later and in my opinion sooner rather than later, preliminary schools will be needed for Harijan children if they are not to labour under a perpetual handicap. This preliminary training can be discovered and tried in all the numerous Harijan schools conducted under the aegis of Harijan Sevak Sanghs scattered throughout India. That preliminary training should consist in teaching Harijan children manners, good speech and good conduct. A Harijan child sits anyhow; dresses anyhow; his eyes, ears, teeth, hair, nails, nose are often full of dirt; many never know what it is to have a wash. I remember what I did when in 1915 I picked up a Harijan boy at Tranquebar and took him with me to Kochrab where the Ashram was then situated. I had him shaved. He was then thoroughly washed and given a simple dhoti, vest and a cap. In a few minutes in appearance he became indistinguishable from any child from a cultured home. His head, eyes, ears, nose were thoroughly cleaned. His nails which had become repositories of dirt were pared and cleaned. His feet which were laden with dust were rubbed and cleaned out. Such a process has to be gone through every day, if need be, with Harijan children attending schools. Their lesson should begin for the first three months with teaching them cleanliness.

They should be taught also how to eat properly, though as I write this sentence I recall what I had seen during the walking pilgrimage in Orissa. Harijan boys and grown-ups, who were fed at some of the stages, ate with much better cleanliness than the others who soiled their fingers, scattered about the savings and left their plates in a messy condition. Harijans had no savings and their dishes were left thoroughly clean. Their fingers, whilst they were eating, were after every morsel taken licked clean. I know that all Harijan children do not eat so cleanly as the particular ones I have described. If this preliminary training is to be given in all Harijan schools, pamphlets giving detailed instructions for teachers in their languages should be prepared and distributed and inspectors of schools be required during their inspection to examine teachers and pupils on this head and to send full reports of the progress made in this direction. This programme involves care in the selection of teachers and the training of the present staff. But all this is well worth the attention, if the Sangh is to discharge its trust by the thousands of Harijan children that are brought under its care. 25 What if there are all kinds of stories about you? Are you sure it is not your suspicious nature that is at work here again? You are concerned with your work alone. Tell me what other work can be better than cooking for the Harijan children, feeding them and keeping all things clean. Moreover, you have Tyagi and Rajkishori with you and you should therefore experience no difficulty. 26

Harijan children here are living without any discrimination. The superintendent also lives and mixes with them freely without any inhibition. It is certainly desirable of them if all pray together in harmony and rhythm. But the value of true prayer is never lost for want of any rhythm or harmony. Prayer should proceed from the depth of one’s heart. If one perseveres, success is assured. The very purpose of opening a temple is to strengthen religious feeling. If this is fulfilled, the people who have built it will be content. May our goodwill bear fruit? It ought to be the primary duty of the Sangh to give to Harijan children and adults grounding in the essentials of Hindu religion. If they were brought up in ignorance of these, they would not continue to remain in the Hindu fold, and the responsibility for it would rest on those who had failed to give them the necessary instruction. I am responsible for the policy of conducting Harijan uplift work through the agency of the savarna Hindus. They had to do expiation. All of them, I argued to myself, could help with money even if they could not, owing to lack of necessary qualifications, render direct service. For instance, they might not be able themselves to do teaching work, but they could engage a competent teacher to give education to Harijan children. That would be one way of doing expiation. They would be able to penetrate Harijan society and help in its progress. 27

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