Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi-XIV

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- [e-mail];

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

 

 

Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi-XIV

 

 

Q. You can do Harijan work, you can organize khadi and village industries, but when it comes to Hindu-Muslim unity, you find many excuses for not organizing it.

A. This charge has been brought against me by several Muslim correspondents unknown to me. But latterly it has been repeated with considerable vehemence by one who knows me intimately. The complainant challenges me to deal with the charge in Harijan. There can be no comparison between Harijans and Muslims. I owe a debt to Harijans in need of any assistance that can be given to them. Harijan work is humanitarian work. Muslims stand in no need of my humanitarianism. They are a powerful community standing in no such need. Any work done for Muslims after the Harijan style will be resented. To cite khadi and village industries against me is thought-less. These can be organized and are organized for all who will care to profit by them. As a matter of fact both Hindus and Muslims, and indeed others too, profit by these activities. Hindu-Muslims unity stands on it own footing. I have tried and am still trying to do my share of the work. I may have achieved no visible success, but I have no doubt that the direction in which I am working is the right one and is bound to lead us to the goal.

 Q. You feel keenly about Bidar. You ask for justice about it and you want Muslims outside Hyderabad to see that justice is done. Do you feel equally keenly if Muslims are ill-treated as they were in Bihar?

A. I do not know what the exact reference to Bihar is. All I can say is that not one single case of maltreatment of Muslims by Hindus having been reported to me has remained without investigation by me. This has been my practice since the days of the Khilafat. I have not always succeeded in finding the truth or giving satisfaction to the aggrieved parties that I had done my best. The Bihar charge is too vague to be answered more fully. If a particular instance were mentioned, I should be able to say what I had done about it. But supposing that I had failed in my duty to do justice, supposing further that I did not “feel equally keenly about Hindu injustice to Muslims” would that justify indifference about Bidar? I have said that there is nothing like Bidar in all the previous cases of Hindu-Muslim clashes, assuming of course that the allegations we made were true. All I have asked is that full justice and reparation should be made through a tribunal admittedly impartial. My proposal in the case of Bidar should be applicable to all such cases.

 

Reference:

 

Harijan, 11-5-1940