Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi-XVI

[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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Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi-XVI

 

 

Q. What do you mean by ‘spinning regularly’? If one spins for a couple of hours during a month or for half an hour once or twice a week, would he be deemed to have satisfied the condition about spinning regularly?

A. ‘Regularly’ was put in the place of ‘daily’. This was meant to provide for accidental or unavoidable omissions. Therefore spinning every week or at stated intervals will not meet the case. A satyagrahi will be expected to spin daily except for valid reasons such as sickness, travelling or the like.

Q. Satyagraha camps are being organized for the training of volunteers all over the country. But the principle with regard to the renunciation of untouchability in every shape and form is not being rigorously enforced. Don’t you agree that it ought to be made an absolute rule in the camps that no one who regards the touch of Harijans as polluting and does not freely mix with them should be permitted to attend them?

A. I have no hesitation whatsoever in saying that he who has the slightest untouchability in him is wholly unfit for enrolment in the Satyagraha Sena. I regard untouchability as the root cause of our downfall and of Hindu-Muslim discord. Untouchability is the curse of Hinduism and therefore of India. The taint is so pervasive that it haunts a man even after he has changed over to another faith.

Q. You have said in Harijan that “If the eight crores of Muslims desire partition, no power on earth can prevent it.”  Does it not strike you that 25 crores of non-Muslims too might have a say in the matter? Does not your statement imply that you put a premium on the opinion of the Muslims while underrating that of Hindus?

A. I have only given my opinion. If the majority of Hindus or Christians or Sikhs or even Parsis, small though their number is, stubbornly resist the express wish of the duly-elected representatives of eight crores of Muslims, they will do so at the peril of a civil war. This is not a question of majority of minority. If we are to solve our problems non-violently, there is no other way. I say this not because the eight crores happen to be Muslims. I would say the same if the eight crores were any other community.

Q. Knowing as you do how lying and deceit have become the stock-in-trade of the legal profession in this country, would you permit practicing lawyers to enlist as active satyagrahis?

A. I am unable to subscribe to your sweeping proposition. The fact that a lawyer wants to become a satyagrahi presupposes on his part a certain standard of purification. No doubt there may be, to my knowledge there are, black sheep in the Congress. This is inevitable in any big organization. But it would be unbecoming of a satyagrahi to condemn a man because he belongs to a certain profession.

Q. Is the policy of obstructionism compatible with Satyagraha? Can a satyagrahi, who is supposed to stand for principles rather than party, adopt one attitude with regard to a measure when it is sponsored by his party, and another when the same measure is sponsored by the opposite party? Would you approve of this policy in municipalities and district boards as is being done by some Congressmen at present?

A. I have always opposed obstruction as being anti-satyagraha. Congressmen, to be correct in their behaviour, should always give cooperation to their opponents when the latter are in a majority and adopt any wise measure. The object of Congressmen should never be attainment of power for power’s sake. Indeed such discriminatory cooperation will enhance the prestige of the Congress and may even give it majority.

Q. Don’t you think that, if the Congress started a plan for training Harijans as expert cooks for Hindu homes and made it a rule to man every ashram of a mess meant for Congress workers with Harijan cooks thus trained, it would prove a short cut to the removal of untouchability?

A. Our ambition should be to enable Harijan to rise to the highest rank. But while that must be the ideal, it will be a good thing to train some Harijan to become accomplished cooks. I have observed that the move we draw them into the domestic circle the quicker is the pace of the reform. Harijans who become absorbed in our homes lose all sense of inferiority and become a living link between other Harijans and savarna Hindus.

 

 

Reference:

 

 

Harijan, 25-5-1940