Khojas Muslim and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Khojas Muslim and Mahatma Gandhi

 

Poonawala says that all Muslims, Khojas, Bohras and others owe it as duty to give the fullest co-operation in swadeshi; if they do not, they will have to suffer in future. This is my belief too. Those who do not adopt swadeshi fully will certainly be left behind. The appeal is a long one. I have only mentioned the central idea. I have not considered it necessary to publish the whole of it as the other arguments advanced in it are well-known. 1 I have not addressed a special appeal to the Khojas till now, as I had no occasion to do so. We cannot ignore even a group of five men in this national and religious struggle, not to speak of a group of 2, 50,000. We should accept what people give and then appeal to them for more. The Khojas are in fact a prominent community. They have money and also ability; some of them are men of wide outlook. They have some liberal-hearted gentlemen among them. Sometimes I even meet open-hearted men and women belonging to that community. Some of them, I know, read Navajivan carefully and regularly. If I could, I would certainly draw the Khoja brothers and sisters towards non-co-operation or, if not to that, at least towards swadeshi. Swadeshi is such an all-embracing and simple duty which everyone can discharge that no Indian should ever forsake it.

An eight-year-old Telugu girl writes: “Having faith that swaraj can be won through the spinning-wheel; I play it regularly and spin. I believe that we shall get swaraj if we do this.” I have told this girl in reply that my faith in the spinning-wheel is the same as before. I certainly believe that, only if the people start spinning daily as a matter of religious duty, give up foreign cloth, wear khadi and all the time pray to God for help while spinning and do no more, we shall win swaraj. Those people, therefore, who do not understand all the items in the non-co-operation programme, or if they understand them, do not have the strength to act as required, should at any rate start following the swadeshi-dharma immediately. Many Khoja sisters have told me that, owing to the custom of wearing silk and fine cloth, the poorer among them are not able to attend Khoja gatherings. Some fail, out of timidity, to give up foreign cloth and some are so much enamored of silk clothes and fine muslin that they turn up their noses at the very thought of khadi. People who thus despise anything belonging to their own country practically become foreigners though native born. Those people, especially, who give up the use of swadeshi cloth cloth woven by women from whatever quality of yarn is available—should certainly be regarded as traitors to the country. If all Hindus and Muslims behave in this manner, how can the country’s poverty be abolished what occupation but stone-breaking will poor women then have?

Even a famous chemist like Dr. P. C. Ray has been convinced that famine will vanish from Bengal not through his researches in chemistry but through the spinning-wheel. He has only recently got designed a spinning-wheel called the Khulna spinning-wheel and supplies such spinning-wheels to the famine-stricken people through his numerous factories. He no more gives them free rice but tells them that they should spin in order to get rice. In this way, he has been introducing the spinning-wheel in the poverty-stricken villages of Khulna. He has taken a pledge that, if the four villages there with which he is in very close contact do not, within six months, spin enough yarn to meet their requirements, he will have nothing to do with them. This saintly chemist now wears only khadi and takes pride in doing so. He feels ashamed to wear anything except khadi.

Khoja brothers and sisters should ponder over such examples and follow them. I know that in a small community like the Khojas, among whom poverty is practically unknown, it is difficult for anyone to adopt simplicity all at once. They make donations to charities and feel that they have done their duty. I shall say this to them. “Why do you believe that you are a small community? Do you not include yourselves among the thirty crores of Indians? You certainly have your share of their joys and sorrows. As long as even one brother out of these thirty crores is only skin-and-bone and even one sister has to sell her honour for want of employment, you, I and all others should feel ashamed.” I hope, therefore, that the Khojas and such other communities which have not yet appreciated the importance of swadeshi will come to appreciate it immediately and that the spinning-wheel and khadi will be introduced in all Khoja homes, be they rich or poor and I hope also that not only will no one feel ashamed to wear khadi but actually everyone will look upon it as a real ornament. 2 Moreover, they assured me that no one is ever offered material inducement to become a Khoja. I was very glad to hear this and assured them that I would repeat this to my informants and, if they failed to prove their charge, I would state that, too, in Navajivan. Finally, they also said that readers of Navajivan were likely to get the impression that the Khojas’ belief in a perfect incarnation was of recent origin. The truth of the matter according to them is that this belief of theirs, as also their belief about Om, dates back to very ancient times and that they have proof in support of this. 3

The foregoing is a literal translation of what appears in the current issue of Navajivan. I now invite the correspondents to support what they have written to me about worldly inducements said to have been offered by Khoja preachers to those who would be converted to their faith. 4 I know the Khojas, Meenas, Vaghers and some Kumbis among the peasants, and Mahers. After all, I was born there and lived there for almost 17 years. In fact I lived there for full 17 years, because I did not go out to study anywhere. My father never sent me anywhere. I completed my studies there and attended college for a few months, and that too at Bhavnagar. Even for the examination I could not go beyond Ahmadabad. That was my condition. I saw everything that happened there and, later too, kept contact with the people by visiting them. So, the sender of that telegram says that I am greatly worried on their account, and, in turn, my worry has become their worry. He says it is true that some Hindus in Kathiawar had lost their balance, but is there any place where this has not happened. They resorted to violence and even harmed some Muslims. They destroyed their houses and even burnt them down. But, he says, the Congressmen did not let the situation go far. They were under the leadership of Dhebarbhai. I know him very well. He went forward to protect the Muslims and succeeded to a great extent. Not all Hindus were involved in those acts of loot and arson. Had that been the case, all Muslim houses in Rajkot would have been set ablaze, there would have been large-scale violence and some people would have been killed. But things did not reach that point. The Congressmen and others took every precaution. Dhebarbhai was abused and manhandled. Even though he is a big man and also a lawyer, when the mob gets excited all considerations of big and small are forgotten. They harassed him because he was trying to protect the Muslims. Some people who accompanied Dhebarbhai write, that, though some injury was caused, Dhebarbhai was saved by other people. 5

 

References:

 

1. Navajivan, 30-10-1921
2. Navajivan, 2-2-1922 
3. Navajivan, 8-6-1924
4. Young India, 12-6-1924
5. Prarthana Pravachan—II, pp. 144