E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesThe conservative traditionalist and the radical iconoclast merged in Gandhi intoa tantalizing unpredictable mixtu3"6The Mahatma's successful assault on untouchability produced the mostrevolutionary change in Hinduism's millennial existence. It would seem that thecorollary of the abolition of untouchability was the abolition of caste, for if onemingled with outcasts surely the barriers between the higher castes shouldcrumble. Yet for many years Gandhi defended caste restrictions.Defending the four Hindu castes, Gandhi said in 1920, 'I consider the fourdivisions to be fundamental, natural and essential.' 'Hinduism', he wrote inYoung India of October 6, 1921, 'does most emphatically discourage interdiningand intermarriage between divisions... Prohibition against intermarriage andinterdining is essential for the rapid evolution of the soul.'The same man said, 'Restriction on intercaste dining and intercaste marriage isno part of the Hindu religion. It crept into Hinduism when perhaps it was in itsdecline, and was then probably meant to be a temporary protection against thedisintegration of Hindu society. Today those two prohibitions are weakeningHindu society.' This was on November 4, 1932.In 1921, the prohibition of intermarriage and interdining was 'essential' to thesoul; in 1932, it was 'weakening Hindu society'.Even this, however, was not Gandhi's final position. Having broken with theorthodox tradition, he characteristically continued to travel further and furtheraway from it, and on January 5, 1946, he declared, in the Hindustan Standard, Itherefore tell all boys and girls who want to marry that ey cannot be married atSevagram Ashram unless one of Parties is a Harijan.' Earlier, he had refused toattend Wedding unless it was an intercaste marriage.From 1921 to 1946 Gandhi had gone full circle; from utter disapproval ofintercaste marriages to approval of only caste marriages.He had opposed marriages between religions. But he came to favour those too.He congratulated Dr. Humayun Kabir, a Moslem writer, on taking Hindu wife,and approved of B. K. Nehru's marrying a Hungarian Jewess.www.mkgandhi.org Page 379