Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi-XVIII

[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];

[e-mail]

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

 

 

Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi-XVIII

 

 

Q. My mother died last month. I have for a long time been following the practice of eating food cooked by Harijan. The orthodox did not like it, but they tolerated my practice. Three years ago I accepted an invitation for a funeral dinner given by a Muslim friend on the occasion of his mother’s demise. Now my mother is dead. My communities have now boycotted all functions in connection with my mother’s demise. What am I to do?

A. If you have courage, you will let the caste men do their worst, but you will befriend your Muslim friend at all costs and dine with him as often as is necessary. Such boycotts should not be feared at all.

Q. When the rich become callous and selfish and the evil continues unchecked, a revolution of the masses with all the attendant horrors inevitably results. Since life, as you have put it, is often a choice between evils, won’t you, in view of the lesson which the history of revolutions inculcates, welcome the rise of a benevolent dictatorship which would with the minimum use of force “soak the rich”, give justice to the poor, and thereby serve both?

 A. I cannot accept benevolent or any other dictatorship. Neither will the rich vanish nor will the poor be protected. Some rich men will certainly be killed out and some poor men will be spoon-fed. As a class the rich will remain, and the poor also, in spite of dictatorship labelled benevolent. The real remedy is non-violent democracy, otherwise spelt true education of all. The rich should be taught the doctrine of stewardship and the poor that of self-help.

Q. The beggar problem has become a social nuisance everywhere, especially in the cities. India can ill bear the burden of this army of drones. They use self-torture, sometimes even threats and menaces, to work upon the sympathy and fear of our simple folk and extract alms from them. Some of them have in this way accumulated a secret hoard and lead a life of vice and immorality. What solution would you suggest for this problem?

A. Begging is an age-old institution in India. It was not always a nuisance. It was not always a profession. Now it has become a profession to which cheats have taken. No person who is capable of working for his bread should be allowed to beg. The way to deal with the problem will be to penalize those who give alms to professional beggars. Of course begging itself by the able-bodied should be penalized. But this reform is possible only when municipalities conduct factories where they will feed people against work. The Salvation Army people are or were experts in this class of work. They had opened a match factory in London in which any person who came found work and food. What I have, however, suggested is an immediate palliative. The real remedy lies in discovering the root cause and dealing with it. This means equalizing the economic condition of the people. The present extremes have to be dealt with as a serious social disease. In a healthy society concentration of riches in a few people and unemployment among millions is a great social crime or disease which needs to be remedied.

Q. Some people oppose a modification of laws relating to the right of a married woman to own property on the ground that economic independence of woman would lead to the spread of immorality among women and disruption of domestic life. What is your attitude on the question?

A. I would answer the question by a counter question: Has not independence of man and his holding property led to the spread of immorality among men? If you answer ‘yes’, then let it be so also with women. And when women have rights of ownership and the rest like men, it would be found that the enjoyment of such rights is not responsible for their vices or their virtues. Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.

Q. I am a member of the A. I. C. C. Personally I neither believe in nor observe taboos relating to untouchability. But I am trustee of a temple built by my ancestors who were thoroughly orthodox in their religious outlook. I feel that it would be a breach of trust to throw it open to Harijans. Would that stand in the way of my signing the Satyagraha pledge?

A. It would stand very much in the way of your signing the pledge. It would be no breach of trust if the law allows you to open the temple. The condition was immoral as we have now discovered and hence invalid.

 Q. You say that a person buying or using mill cloth cannot take the Satyagraha pledge. Can a person using, buying or dealing in uncertified khadi take the pledge or hold offices in Congress committee? Is a person or an association other than the A. I. S. A. entitled to certify khadi dealers?

A. Certainly not, I repeatedly said that a person who uses or deals in uncertified khadi damages khadi and directly exploits the spinners and weavers whose lot the A. I. S. A. is striving to improve. Such persons can neither take the pledge nor hold any office in a Congress organization. No person or institution other than the A. I. S. A. can issue the required certificates.

Q. We are students in Poona. We are taking part in the drive against illiteracy. Now in the parts we are visiting there are drunkards who threaten us if we go to teach people. Those among whom we are working are Harijans. They get frightened. Some suggest that proceedings should be taken against these drunkards. Some suggest we should try your method of wooing them. Will you advise?

A. You are doing good work. Literacy drive and many such things are by-products of the big reform, perhaps the biggest of modern times. As to the drunkards they must be treated as diseased person entitled to our sympathy and service. You should, therefore, reason with them when they are sober, and take even the beating, if any, with good grace. I do not rule out court proceedings, but they will be evidence of want of enough ahimsa in you. But you cannot go against your nature. If you do not evoke response from them to your wooing, your work must not be held up because of the obstruction referred to by you. Recourse to legal proceedings is then indicated. But you must make all honest effort before you go to law.

 

Reference:

 

 

Harijan, 8-6-1940