E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & Timessay that no matter how sympathetic you may be, you cannot come to a correctdecision on a matter of vital and religious importance to the parties concerned.I should not be against even over-representation of the Depressed Classes.What I am against is their statutory separation, even in a limited form, fromthe Hindu fold, so long as they choose to belong to it. Do you realize that ifyour decision stands and the constitution come into being, you arrest themarvelous growth of the work of Hindu.Reformers who have dedicated themselves to their suppressed brethren inevery walk of life?Gandhi added that he was also opposed to the other separate electorates 'only Ido not consider them to be any warrant for calling from me such selfimmolationas my conscience has prompted me in the matter of the DepressedClasses'.That ended Gandhi's correspondence with London.MacDonald was not alone in his bewilderment. Many Indians, some Hindus, wereperplexed. Jawaharlal Nehru was in prison when he heard Gandhi would fast. 'Ifelt angry with him', he writes in his autobiography, 'at his religious andsentimental approach to a political issue, and his frequent references to God inconnection with it.' Nehru 'felt annoyed with him for choosing a side issue forhis final sacrifice'. Untouchability was a side issue, independence the centralissue. For two days, Nehru 'was in darkness'. He thought with sorrow of neverseeing Bapu anymore.Then a strange thing happened to me,' Nehru continues. 'I had quite anemotional crisis, and at the end of it I felt calmer, and the future seemed notso dark. Bapu had a curious knack of doing the right thing at the psychologicalmoment, and it might be that his action—impossible as it was from my point ofview—would lead to great results not only in the narrow field in which it wasconfined, but in the wider aspects of our national struggle... Then came thenews of the tremendous upheaval all over the country... What a magician, Iwww.mkgandhi.org Page 348