1. Letter to Hermann Kallenbach 2. Letter To
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1. LETTER TO HERMANN KALLENBACH PHOENIX, [March 12, 1913] MY DEAR LOWER HOUSE, The above1 is soul-stirring. I was teaching one of the boys this morning and came upon it. I thought it so fitted your case at many points that I would have it copied. Please read and reread and come out of Doubting Castle after having killed Giant Despair. With Love, UPPER HOUSE [PS.] I have not written to the Countess2. I thought I would await Mrs. Mayo’s letter. As you will soon be on the tramp I am not sending the agricultural books. It is right? From the original: Gandhi-Kallenbach Correspondence. Courtesy: National Archives of India 2. LETTER TO HARILAL GANDHI Phagan Sud 6 [March 14, 1913]3 CHI. HARILAL, After many months I have has a letter from you. Every time yu express regret and say you are sorry for not writing regularly.Your repentace has no meaning either for you or for me. Repentance will bear fruit ony when it relates to one’s failure to do a thing despite one’s best effort and when it is followed by greater vigilance in guarding against further failure. Your regret amounts to mere formality. Do children naveto be formal with parents? As soon as I knew of yur examination [result] from another 1 An extract from John Bunyan’s allegorical work The Pilgrim’s Progress. 2 Presumably Countless Tolstoy 3 In his letter to Harilal Gandhi of January 26, 1913 (p. 449), Gandhiji had discussed Harilal’s examination result and asked for the question-papers. Here he repeats the request and adds that the two letters are being posted together. This was, therefore, written shorlty after the letter of January 26. VOL. 13 : 12 MARCH, 1913 - 25 DECEMBER, 1913 1 source, I wrote you a letter1. But it could not be posted until now,. because the diary2 containing your address had been misplaced. You will therefore get that letter as well as this one about the same time. I am not the only one to wait anxiously for a letter from you. Ba keeps on inquiring, and so do Miss Schlesin and the others. Your mind has not become calm even there. I do not understand what it is that you want. All that I can make out is that you want to live in Ahmedabad and with Chanchi. Perhaps you wrote to the Doctor3 too, about this, You may live as suits you best. In reply to the second portion of yur letter, I shall say only this: “Live in any way that suits you,.[but] strive to realize God anyhow.” I shall not argue. Our paths may well be different. If our destination is the same, we shall meet there. What would it matter even if we should follow contrary paths? I am not so arrogant as to believe that I am wholly right and others, in the wrong. Of course, I hold on to the idea that I must do what seems to be my duty. Though I know that we do not become equal even if I give you this freedom, because, in following a course opposed to my ideas, you have to depend on me for money. I wish I could release you even from this situation [of dependence] and then argue with you as an equal. But how is this possible? If, impelled by my sense of duty, I have erred in giving up the source of my income, I shall of course have to repent for that. Have I not, however, done an injustice because in doing this I failed to take my sons’ interests into account? My answer is “No” I did consider their interests, too, accordingly to my own lights. Whether my judgement was right or wrong time alone will show to us both. I observe that England is still on your lips. Please overcome the desire. Your time is not yet. Send me the question-papers of your examination if you have preserved them. Manilal is deep in his studies. He is interested in them. I give him an hour and a half every day. Let me know what books you read—for your examination, I mean. Send me some samples of your 1 Vide “Letter to Harilal Gandhi”, 26-1-1913. 2 Vide “Diary, 1912”, end of 1912. 3 Dr. Pranjivan Mehta 2 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI English composition. Blessings from BAPU PS. Ramdas and Devdas also study fairly well, but they have developed no interest in their studies. Ba is well, more or less. Anandlal has left Phoenix that he may be able to look after Abhechand’s business. From a photostat of the Gujarati original in Gandhiji’s hand: S. N. 9539 3. LETTER TO JAMNADAS GANDHI Phagan Sud 6 [March 14, 1913]1 CHI. JAMNADAS, The letters you wrote from India have arrived now. They were read with great interest. I know the restrictions you have placed. But in these letters you have given me permission to show them to Chhaganlal and Maganlal. They were also shown to Manilal. I thought it was in his interest that he should read them, so admirable they appeared to be. I shall not show them to anyone else. If any letter of yours contains only personal reflections of an intimate nature, I alone will read it and then destroy it. Your boils must have disappeared by now. You will continue to have one ailment or another till your blood is completely purified and you have suitable diet as dictated by experience. With effort, this [trouble] can be overcome. This desire [that you should recover] was one of my reasons for wanting you to be with me. Ginger, according to our rule, need not be avoided, but it is not beneficial either. Its undesirable effects will be immediately observed in those who live on a fruit diet. “If we must know English we should know it well”—from this we cannot conclude that if we must travel by railway, we should travel first or second. Studying English is not bad in itself, travelling by railway is wholly so; if we must travel, therefore, we should just huddle 1 Jamnadas Gandhi left South Africa on December 14, 1912 and any letter from him could not have reached Gandhiji before January 15 of the following year at the earliest. In 1913, Phagan Sud 6 corresponds to March 14. VOL. 13 : 12 MARCH, 1913 - 25 DECEMBER, 1913 3 ourselves in and mind no discomforts. Moreover, where countless people are forced to put up with hardships, we should submit to them voluntarily—that is, on occasions when it is not immoral to suffer. All the items of the diet on the Farm may not be suitable in Phoenix. You fell ill because you did not wait long enough for necessary adjustments to be made. A ship is bound to look after the needs of deck passengers. I agree that you should not give up milk or curds, but do not give them the chief place. They make us more indolent. Our friend Kotwal is now in India. Cultivate contact with him. He still lives on fruit diet. You may profit by his experience. He is likely to go deep into the matter and discover things which you will not. While doing honour to Brahmins, one must maintain a reverential attitude and not treat them with contempt, in the same way that we would respect a person born in a noble family even while we pity him. We would, naturally, feel no respect for a prostitute’s son. I do not mean, however, that we should support any Brahmins in their wicked ways. If you interrupted your studies to offer some little flour to Brahmin beggars who had no business to go begging, you would only be sacrificing your studies. I would not think that in doing so you had done honour to the Brahmins; I would rather count it as your timidity or want of judgement. Question me again if you have not followed this. Give up the afternoon nap, forcing yourself if need be. When you feel the urge coming over you, take a bath. I am not against schools or against education, but against the stamp. This is one ground of objection against government schools. A second objection is the lack of character in teachers and the fact that pupils have no intimate contact with them. The wasting of time over certain subjects is the third objection, and the fourth that quite often these schools become symbols of our slavery. The Parsi cap is not the Parsis’ but ours, though an adopted one. Our forefathers may have erred in adopting it. The error, however, is not one that need be corrected now. But why should we take the trouble of adopting a fresh one? Putting on a Hungarian or Moghul cap is suggestive, in a way, of pride and conceit—that we are different from others. 4 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI I imagine that even after my going [to India] the press1 will continue as before. There is a possibility that Miss Schlesin and Miss West may go over to India ultimately. Mr. Polak and Mr. Ritch will of course practise and live on in South Africa. About Mr. Kallenbach, nothing is certain. Kotwal, it seems, will remain with me. Manilal, probably, will be where I am. He is going strong with his studies. They will still continue. I cherish the fond notion that no one else can, and will, teach him as quickly and as well as I.