Mahatma Gandhi speech at women’s meeting, Patna

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Mahatma Gandhi speech at women’s meeting, Patna

 

 

 Mahatmaji then began addressing them in Hindi, seated on a chair, on account of his ill health, for which he begged their pardon. He begged four things of them. He and Maulana Shaukat Ali, whom he considered as his own brother, had appeared before them to beg of them some service in the cause of the Motherland. He knew that they were more humble and kindhearted than men and so he hoped not to be disappointed at the hands of their mothers and sisters. First of all he begged of the Hindu and Mussulman ladies not to consider each other as enemies and also to teach the same to their children from boyhood so that they might not even ever think the two to be each other’s enemy. By this he did not mean that the two should be one, that Hindus should take to reading and believing in the Koran, giving up the study of and belief in the Vedas and Shastras; nor that the Mussulmans should discard the Koran and begin studying and believing in the Hindu Shastras and Vedas.

Every one of them should remain firm to their religion. As there could be no marriage between a brother and a sister but all the same they could love each other, so Hindus and Mussulmans also should have love and respect for each other. His second bhiksha was that every woman should take to spinning yarn on the charkha. Those who wanted to sell that yarn might do so, but those who did not want to sell that should give it away as charity to others because of all the charities the charity of cloth was the best. India became poorer all the more from the time this charkha was given up. Women, who formerly used to live upon the charkha, were now leading a very miserable life in the bondage of slavery, breaking bricks and stones and being abused by overseers. He had come across many women in Champaran who had got only one sari to cover their body with and hence they could not go for a bath in the Ganges when they wanted to do so. Their life of freedom, when they used to have clothes made of the yarn spun by their own hands, was no more. The third bhiksha which he begged of them was that they should not allow their sons and brothers to remain in a school owned and aided by the Government as that only meant fettering oneself with the chain of dependence and slavery. They did not receive any social or religious instruction in such institutions. They learnt only to drink wine, to visit theatres and to lead the life of a vagabond. Proceeding, he said that co-operation with a government, so unjust, so treacherous to our Mussulman brethren, so cruel to our mothers and sisters in the Punjab, was absolutely impossible. How could they ever like to remain under such an administration? There could be no cooperation between Satan and God. Likewise they also could not help the Government, nor take any kind of help from it. That raj was no better than the Ravanarajya. He wanted to establish Ramarajya. In other words he wanted to have full, complete swaraj and that could not be achieved without non-co-operation. His fourth bhiksha was for money. India, he said, was very badly in need of money.

There were three crores of people here who barely got one meal a day. They had not got sufficient money to buy a charkha or cotton. They should be supplied with both so that they might spin yarn and thus once again spread swadeshi cloth in the country. Then again, for boys national universities must be started. And for those money was very badly needed. Proceeding, he remarked that it pained him much to see that many had gone to the meeting with plenty of valuable ornaments on their bodies. In that very country there were so many who actually starved while there were others who had got plenty to spare for their ornaments, etc. He begged of them to give as much money as they could and also those ornaments which they desired. But they must remember that in place of the ornaments which they would give away, they should not get others made until India had won full swaraj. 

 

Reference:

 The Searchlight, 8-12-1920