Question Box and Mahatma Gandhi-XXV

[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-XXV

 

Q. You seem to be advocating what you call the unitary method in the solution of many questions. Will you explain it a little more fully than you have done?

A. It is as simple as it is sure. A contract or pact is between two parties. There is also consideration passing from one to the other. Such was the Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the Muslim League. The same thing could have been accomplished by the unitary method. Only then there would have been no compromise dictated by fear and distrust. The Congress could have done, according to its notion, absolute justice, i.e., yielded the maximum consistent with the welfare of the whole nation without the expectation of any consideration from the League. In a well-regulated family the relations are governed by the unitary method. Thus a father gives to his children not as a result of a pact. He gives out of love, a sense of justice without expecting any return therefore. Not that there is none. But everything is natural, nothing is forced. Nothing is done out of fear or distrust. What is true of a well-regulated family is equally true of a well regulated society which is but an extended family. My advice about the adoption of two scripts by Hindus and Muslims is based on the unitary method. My equal love for all communities dictates its adoption. Properly applied, the method never fails. It disarms criticism and opposition. It presupposes a clean conscience and clean action. I propose to unfold in these columns the application of the method in all our communal relations. The views will be personal to me, as are all such since the Bardoli Resolution. They will be addressed to Congressmen for adoption only in so far as they appeal to their reason.

Q. What has come over Rajaji? You and he seem to be drifting away from each other.

A. Yes, we seem to be and yet we are not. The seeming drift is but a prelude to a closer bond and clearer understanding. His loyalty is above suspicion. He would have gladly suppressed himself, if I had not strongly encouraged him to propound his views with a view to their adoption by the public. We owe allegiance to the same goddess. Our interpretations differ. If he is erring, he will retrace his steps as soon as he discovers it. And he knows that I would do likewise, if I discover mine. I feel, therefore, absolutely safe with him, and I ask all questioners to do likewise.

Q. Do you know that you are reported to have said at Benares that it is sinful for any Indian ever to study or speak in English and you are charged with insincerity in that you make such liberal use of the hated language when it suits you?

A. The report is wholly untrue. But once an untruth gets a start it is most difficult to overtake. Many untruths about me have had such a start. They created a temporary sensation and got a decent burial without any effort on my part. So will this one. No untruth has ever done any harm to anyone if there was no bottom to it. I am answering the question, not to protect my reputation but to carry my point further. The charge of insincerity is itself the best refutation of the untruth. For my free use of the English language is not a thing of today. The charge should have been regarded as unworthy of belief. Let it be known that I am a lover of the English language and the English. But my love is wise and intelligent. Therefore I give both the place they deserve. Thus I do not allow the English language to displace the mother tongue or the natural all-India language Hindustani. Nor do I let my love of the English displace my fellow-countrymen whose interest I can in no way allow to be injured. I recognize the great importance of the English language for international intercourse. I hold its knowledge as a second language to be indispensable for specified Indians who have to represent the country’s interest in the international domain. I regard the English language as an open window for peeping into Western thought and sciences. For this too I should set apart a class. Through them I would spread through the Indian languages the knowledge they have gained from the West. But I would not burden India’s children and sap their youthful energy by expecting the expansion of their brains through the medium of a foreign language. I do hold it to be a sin on the part of those who are responsible for producing the unnatural condition under which we are being educated. Such a thing is unknown in any other part of the world. Being too near the scene of the wreck we are unaware of the damage the nation has suffered by it. I can see the enormity of the damage because of my daily and close contact with the dumb and suppressed millions.

Q. You are reported by the Press to have approvingly referred to the progress made by the Japanese in adopting Western methods with thoroughness hitherto unknown in the East. Is not this a contradiction of all you have written about the West? Or are there one law for India and another for Japan?

A. This is another untruth like the one about the English language. The reader will find out for himself from Mahadev Desai’s report of my Benares speech as to what I actually said about the Japanese. The burden of my speech was the undesirability of making English the medium of instruction and all-India speech. I said in this connection that, however harmful in my opinion the Japanese adaptation of the West was, the rapid progress was due to the restriction of the learning of the Western mode to a select few and using them for transmission of the new knowledge among the Japanese through their own mother tongue. Surely it is easy enough to understand that the Japanese could never have adapted themselves to the new mode, if they had had to do so through a foreign medium.

 

Reference:

Harijan, 1-2-1942