What they Teach – 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

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What they Teach – Mahatma Gandhi 

 

The reader should study the tell-tale figures, collected by the Editor and published in another column, of the ‘depressed classes’, otherwise called the ‘exterior castes’ of the Madras Presidency. They have eighty-six sub-divisions among them. The sanatanists would claim that they are all untouchables by birth!!! What were they before they were so classified in the census? It is interesting, too, to note that the criterion of untouchability has not been the same for all the Provinces, or the same in every part of the same Province, nor is the untouchable of Madras necessarily untouchable in Bombay or Bengal. The more one studies these figures, the stronger will grow the conviction that this untouchability is purely man-made. The census superintendents have been the sole judges. The reader will note also that the various Governments have differed in their views as to the classification if the untouchables are God-made, why all these differences? The time is coming when there will be a bid on the part of caste Hindus for being classified as ‘untouchables’.

Signs have already begun to appear on the horizon. If untouchables were God made, we should be able unfailingly to distinguish them without effort from the rest, as we distinguish one species from another. And who will answer for these sub-divisions if not caste Hindus? If they will give up untouchability, there is every hope of untouchables giving up the sub-untouchability among them. A graduate correspondent wants to know why I say that the practice of untouchability is common to all mankind and religions and that it is a necessary institution. When we perform natural functions involving uncleanness or have unclean diseases, we are untouchable till we have become clean. The extent of untouchability and the methods of becoming clean no doubt varied among the nations, but the practice of such untouchability, be its extent ever so small, is common to all, including the so-called savage nations. It is a sound hygienic rule when it is intelligently observed. But it was reserved to modern Hinduism to brand a person as untouchable by birth and call him an offspring of sin. It is a most tragic spectacle that a religion which boasts that ahimsa is the highest thing in life should carry vindictiveness into the other world. It is against this insane untouchability that I have invited all Hindus who are proud of their faith and jealous of its purity to wage relentless war. The same correspondent further asks, “Does not your varnadharma deprive people of all chances of rise in the social scale? Should not everyone have the permission to follow what occupation he likes?”

According to my conception of Varna, all inequality is ruled out of life. Inequality of intellect or in material possessions ought not to mean inequality of social status. I do most emphatically maintain that man is not made to choose his occupation for ‘rising in the social scale’. He is made to serve his fellow-men and earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. And since the primary wants of all are the same, all labour should carry the same value. This law Hinduism discovered and called the law of Varna, and carried it out in practice more or less perfectly with amazing success. What we see today in Hinduism is its caricature. It is my certain conviction that obedience to that law alone can save the perishing world. Its conscious recognition means contentment and consequent freeing of human energy for the moral uplift. Its disregard spells unhealthy discontent, greed, cut-throat competition and moral stagnation ending in spiritual suicide. This law, as I understand it, is not and never has been a mere ceremonial rule regulating the restrictions on eating and marrying. When you write about the spirit, the spiritual progress of Harijans, what do you mean? And why is such progress of the world retarded because that of Harijans is? Why the spiritual progress of Harijans is retarded if they are not admitted to temples, Asks a persistent correspondent who has many other questions which need not engage us just now. Spirit is that moral being which informs the human body and which is imperishable. Spiritual progress is that which promotes the realization of that imperishable essence. What retards the progress of my neighbour must retard mine. India is a big neighbour of other parts of the world. India’s spiritual progress cannot but be retarded if that of forty million Harijans and, therefore, of the two hundred and thirty million Hindus is. As to temples, I have discussed elsewhere in this issue what a large part they play in the life of mankind. Spirit itself is capable of intellectual dissection only up to a point.

It transcends reason; hence it is a matter of faith. Even so are places of worship matters of faith in the last resort. Two issues of the Bengali Harijan are already out. It is published in the form of a magazine with an attractive cover with a Harijan woman carrying a basket of refuse on her head. It is published under the auspices of the Khadi Pratishthan, College Square, Calcutta, and the annual subscription is Rs. 4 including postage, and Rs. 3 without. The first and second issues contain either full translations or substance of all the articles that have hitherto appeared in the English edition. It contains also translations of some of my previous writings on Hindu religion and editorials or editorial notes from Satisbabu’s pen, such as, “Result of Neglect”, “Solution of Some Problems of Untouchability”, “The Sanatanists’ Prayer”, “Responsibility of Municipality”, “Depressed Classes and Untouchability”. It came out with 2,000 copies the first week, all of which were sold out. It came out with 3,000 the second week. I hope that it will receive generous support from the Bengali public.

 

Reference:

Harijan, 11-3-1933