Question Boxes and Mahatma Gandhi-XXXI

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

 

Question Boxes and Mahatma Gandhi-XXXI

 

Q. It has been said that nature cure can be applied to every disease. If so, can it cure short or long-sightedness, cataract and other eye diseases? Can one avoid spectacles? Can hernia, tonsils etc., which need the surgeon’s knife be cured by nature cure?

A. I know that the claim attributed to nature cure has been made by its exponents. I do not count myself among them. This much, however, can be safely claimed. Disease springs from a willful or ignorant breach of the laws of nature. It follows, therefore, that timely return to those laws should mean restoration. A person, who has tried nature beyond endurance, must either suffer the punishment inflicted by nature or, in order to avoid it, seek the assistance of the physician or the surgeon as the case may be. Every submission to merited punishment strengthens the mind of man, every avoidance saps it.

A sister writes: What is an unwilling girl to do when her parents insist either upon her marriage or leaving the parental home? Where is she to go if she has not been educated enough to earn her own living? Whose protection is she to seek?

1. The question makes sad reading. It is wholly wrong of parents to force marriage on their daughters. It is also wrong to keep their daughters unfit for earning their living. No parent has a right to turn a daughter out on the streets for refusal to marry. Let us hope that such cruel specimens are rare. To the girl concerned, my advice would be not to look on any labour with her hands, down to scavenging, as beneath her dignity. Women may not look for protection to men. They must rely on their own strength and purity of character and on God as did Draupadi of old.

 Harijan, 15-9-1946  

Q. In these last four weeks, I have seen so much bloodshed and firing that it has left a bitter taste in my mouth. Every day since the riots started I have been on duty as a magistrate trying to maintain the peace. Now, more than ever before, I am convinced of the necessity that we should insist on every Indian wearing the same nationalist dress as you remember I had broached the subject before but at the time you had not approved of the idea. Why it is that none of the stabbings have been of people wearing a shirt and pant? This should be conclusive proof that the dress causes the difference in religion to be accentuated. Your reply to this through the Harijan for others like me who think that communal riots would disappear within a short time on our wearing the same kind of dress would be most appreciated.

A. I publish this as from a well-versed, well-meaning friend. These three qualities combined do not necessarily make for clearness of thought. What is wanted is not oneness of costume but oneness of hearts. We have only to look at Europe to demonstrate the emptiness of the idea that oneness of costume will enable us to get out of the mess we are in. Ill-will is like an ill wind. It must go and be replaced by the fresh and bracing wind of goodwill.

Q. While you have all along written very strongly in favour of prohibition, you have not spoken either often enough or with equal emphasis in the matter of smoking. This evil is increasing with alarming rapidity and even children are increasingly getting addicted to it. The crores that are literally burnt by smoking could be so well utilized in wise ways in our poor land.

A. The taunt is true but not new. The reason for want of equal emphasis is to be sought in the fact that smoking has attained alarming respectability. When a vice is reaches that state it becomes difficult to eradicate. This admission does not mean that we should not agitate for abatement of the nuisance. How to do so and when is the question. I am sorry to have to confess my inability to answer it.

Q. The demand for dowries in the marriage market is growing. None is immune from this injustice. The richer the parent of the prospective bride-groom, the heavier is the demand of the dowry. The problem now is such that many marriageable girls cannot be married and the state of their parents can better be imagined than described. Popular governments should help to check the evil through the law.

A. It is a curious phenomenon the questioner notices. Education not only does not improve the situation but makes it worse. The affected class has to wake up before the curse destroys the class which in its terrible weakness shamelessly betakes to it. Let them ceaselessly and restlessly agitate. I know no other way.

Q. Can you say why, when mutual slaughter between brother and brother is going on, the names of the respective communities should be with-held?

A. I confess that the question has often occurred to me. There seems to me to be no reason for this hush-hush policy save that it is a legacy from the autocracy which, let us hope, the national Government have displaced. Those who ought not to know know who stabs whom. And those who should know are kept in the dark. I am sure there are many Hindus and Muslims and even members of other communities taking pride in being Indians first and last without ceasing to be devoted followers of their own religions and who love to do their best to dissuade blind fanatics from making mischief. I know many such. They have no means of ascertaining facts except through the Press. Let darkness be exposed to light. It will be dispelled quicker.

Harijan, 20-10-1946

Q. Why should we insist on a Rabindranath or a Raman earning his bread by manual labour? Is it not sheer wastage? Why should not brain workers be considered on a par with manual workers, for both of them perform useful social work?

A. Intellectual work is important and has an undoubted place in the scheme of life. But what I insist on is the necessity of physical labour. No man, I claim, ought to be free from that obligation. It will serve to improve even the quality of his intellectual output. I venture to say that in ancient times Brahmins worked with their body as with their mind. But even if they did not, body labour is a proved necessity at the present time. In this connection I would refer to the life of Tolstoy and how he made famous the theory of bread-labour first propounded in his country by the Russian peasant Bondaref.

Harijan, 23-2-1947  

Q. What is the difference between your non-co-operation and the no fraternization of the Allies?

A. The answer is obvious. My non-co-operation was purely nonviolent in conception as also in effect. This does not mean that its practice was always perfect. Theory and practice hardly ever coincide even as Euclid’s line in practice never coincides with his theoretical definition. The non-fraternization policy of the Allies led to disastrous results which he who runs may see, and the pity of it is that the disaster is not yet completed. No one knows where it will lead to.

 Harijan, 16-3-1947  

QUESTION: You have often stated while you were in Noakhali that failure of your mission there would be the failure of your own ahimsa and not of ahimsa itself. In the light of what has been achieved here (Calcutta), do you think that your ahimsa has succeeded or is on the way to success?

ANSWER: It is a correct statement that has been attributed to me. Ahimsa is always infallible. When, therefore, it appears to have failed, the failure is due to the inaptitude of the votary. I have never felt that my ahimsa has failed in Noakhali, nor can it be said that it has succeeded. It is on its trial. And when I talk of my ahimsa I do not think of it as limited to myself. It must include all my co-workers in Noakhali. Success or failure would, therefore, be attributable to the aggregate of the activities of my co-workers and me. What I have said about Noakhali applies to Calcutta. It is too early to state that the application of ahimsa to the communal problem in this great city has succeeded beyond doubt. As I have already remarked, it is wrong to contend that the establishment of friendliness between the two communities was a miracle. Circumstances were ready and Shaheed Saheb and I appeared on the scene to take the credit for what has happened. Anyway, it is premature to predicate anything about the application. The first thing naturally is that we, the two partners, have one mind and are believers in ahimsa that being assured, I would say that if we know the science and its application, it is bound to succeed.

Harijan, 7-9-1947  

Q. Why does Gandhiji resort to a fast when he faces extreme difficulties? What is the effect of this action on the life of the public of India?

A. Such a question has been put to me before but never, perhaps, precisely in the same terms. The answer, however, is easy. It is the last weapon in the armory of the votary of ahimsa. When human ingenuity fails, the votary fasts. This fasting quickens the spirit of prayer, that is to say, the fasting is a spiritual act and, therefore, addressed to God. The effect of such action on the life of the people is that when the person fasting is at all known to them their sleeping conscience is awakened. But there is the danger that the people through mistaken sympathy may act against their will in order to save the life of the loved one. This danger has got to be faced. One ought not to be deterred from right action when one is sure of the rightness. It can but promote circumspection. Such a fast is undertaken in obedience to the dictates of the inner voice and, therefore, prevents haste.

Harijan, 21-12-1947