Volume Ninety-Two : (Aug 9, 1946
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1. COMPENSATION FOR MURDER1 I have been asked whether the brother or other relatives of the late Rajabali should demand compensation from the Government for his murder. The deceased himself would not have considered such a death a loss. He would have held that such a murder, if allowed to go unavenged, would ultimately put an end to further murders and was therefore beneficial. To demand even the smallest compensation for the death of such a man is bound to wash away to some extent the good that it might do. How can the spirit of the deceased tolerate this? I find much substance in this argument. Murder cannot be avenged by accepting compensation for it. The proper way to avenge murder is not to answer murder with murder. Those who hold this view will not demand money for murder or commit murder in retaliation. Avenging murder with murder will only lead to an increase in murders. We can see it clearly today. It may satisfy the individual but I am certain that is can never bring peace to society or advance it. The question can certainly arise what an individual can do in a society where murder for murder is the rule. The answer would lie not in precept but in setting an example. And only those have a right to set an example who have the right to avenge, namely, the relatives of Rajabali. In the end the decision has to be theirs. I have only pointed out the way of ahimsa as I have understood it. SEVAGRAM, August 9, 1946 [From Gujarati] Harijanbandhu, 18-8-1946 2. WHAT A CHILD CAN GIVE2 In Madras there is a little girl of five years called Aruna.3 Last January when I was in Madras she watched me spin and was seized with the desire to do so herself. The atmosphere in which she is being reared has a spinning bias, but her cultured parents have been averse to forcing anything on her. They were content with what they were 1 A translation of this was also published in Harijan, 18-8-1946. 2 A translation of this was also published in Harijan, 18-8-1946, under the title “what a Child Can Teach Us”. 3 Vide “Letter to Vinodini”, 9-8-1946 VOL. 92 : 9 AUGUST, 1946 - 6 NOVEMBER, 1946 1 able to make her do by suggestion and example. When Aruna evinced enthusiasm for spinning they were very pleased to give her encouragement. The result was that in a single day Aruna had prepared a sliver and brought it to me. Then when she saw me spin that sliver her joy knew no bounds. I explained to her the defects of the sliver and her parents helped her to remove them. Since then she has been making slivers and spinning quite well. Thus this five-year- old girl learnt two things at the same time : to clean and card cotton and make slivers and also to give to others the produce of her labour. When children take money from their parents to give it to others all the merit goes to the parents. A child truly gives when it gives what it has earned with its own labour, be it slivers or some other thing. SEVAGRAM, August 9, 1946 [From Gujarati] Harijanbandhu, 18-8-1946 3. LETTER TO KONDA VENKATAPPAYYA SEVAGRAM, via WARDHA, C.P., August 9, 1946 DEAR FRIEND, I am acknowledging your letter to Bapuji on his behalf. He hopes it will not be necessary for Shri Shriramulu to fast again. I hope Shrimati Parvati will have an interesting and successful time in Switzerland. Yours sincerely, AMRIT KAUR From a photostat : G. N. 3231 4. LETTER TO VINODINI SEVAGRAM, August 9, 1947 CHI. VINODINI, I preserved your article Arunani Puni till today. My first reading of it was cursory but interesting at it is, I do not consider it fit for publication. I see a mother’s love in every single line, yet I would not call it literature. I cannot claim to know much about literature. 2 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI Besides, your article is, however unconsciously, laden with praise for me; no one is likely to gain from the publication of such an article. I therefore refrained from publishing it but preserved it because I had a mind to draw a lesson from it— how much a child can accomplish if it is led along the right way. You will find it in Harijan.1 You might not have a copy and I can understand that as a mother you would value it, hence I am returning the article. Blessings from BAPU VINODINIBEHN MADRAS From a copy of the Gujarati : Pyarelal Papers. Courtesy : Pyarelal 5. SPEECH AT SEKSARIA COLLEGE OF COMMERCE2 WARDHA, August 9, 1946 Giving a severe castigation to the unruly crowd that had indulged in window smashing and would have smashed in the roof too if they could, in the afternoon, Gandhiji remarked that it augured ill for the independence to come.3 The Working Committee which was holding its meeting in their city was considering how to win Independence for the people of India in the shortest time. It was not labouring for a change of masters. If the masses wanted to enjoy independence, they had first to learn the secret of observing voluntary discipline. Otherwise discipline would have to be imposed upon them by the powers that be. That would not be independence but its negation. Every people got the Government they deserved. If they indulged in hooliganism, so would the Government and its officials in the name of law and order. The result would not be freedom or independence but a balancing of anarchies, each trying to keep the other in check. Voluntary discipline was the first requisite of corporate freedom. If the people were well-behaved the Government officials would 1 Vide “What a Child Can Give”, 18-8-1946 2 Extracted from Pyarelal’s “Weekly Letter”. The occasion was the inauguration of the change from English to Marathi as the medium of instruction. Those attending included Ravi Shanker Shukla, Premier of C.P., and the Vice- Chancellor of the Nagpur University. 3 According to the source nearly ten thousand people had come to Wardha from outside and the crowd was so unmanageable and undisciplined that the time and venue of the function had to be shifted and it was held in the open instead of in the College hall. VOL. 92 : 9 AUGUST, 1946 - 6 NOVEMBER, 1946 3 become their true servants. Otherwise they would ride on their necks, not without a semblance of justification. During the Boer War he had seen thousands of soldiers perform a noiseless march through a dense, tropical jungle in the middle of the night, in pitch darkness for not even match-stick was to be struck to light a cigarette, lest it should betray their movements to the enemy. The whole troop formation moved like one man in perfect silence and harmony. The need for discipline for a nation on its march towards independence was infinitely greater. Without it, Ramarajya which meant the kingdom of God on earth would remain an empty dream. The principal and the Management of the Seksaria College had taken a big step in deciding to make the mother tongue the medium of instruction in their college. But the reform would be still-born if they were lazy or if the public did not co-operate. A fear had been expressed, observed Gandhiji, that the propagation of Rashtrabhasha or the national tongue would prove inimical to the provincial languages. That fear was rooted in ignorance. The present step of the Seksaria college was a living refutation of that suspicion. Provincial tongues provided the sure foundation on which the edifice of the national tongue should rest. The two were intended to complement, not supplant each other. He deprecated the suggestion that it would need a lot of research and preparation to enable them to impart technical education through the medium of the mother tongue. Those who argued like that were unaware of the rich treasure of expressions and idioms that were buried in the dialects of our villages. In Gandhiji’s opinion there was no need to go to Sanskrit or Persian in search for many expressions. He had been in Champaran and he had found that the village folk there could fully express themselves with ease and without the help of a single foreign expression or idiom. As an illustration of their resourcefulness, he mentioned the word have gadi which they had coined to denote a motor car. He challenged university scholars to coin a more poetic expression than that for a motor car. One of the speakers had remarked that the reform would mean a saving of at least there years to the alumni of the College. But Gandhiji was of opinion that the saving in time and labour would be even greater. Moreover, what they learnt through the mother tongue, they would easily be able to communicate to their mothers and sisters at home and thereby bring the latter into line with themselves. Woman had been described as man’s better half. Today there was a hiatus between the thought world of men and women respectively in India, thanks to the intrusion of the foreign medium. Our womenfolk were backward and ignorant with the result that India was today like a patient with paralysis of the better side. India could not realize her full 4 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI stature unless that handicap was removed.