E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & Times'Surrender', he answered, 'has no room in my plan of life. A woman should mostcertainly take her own life rather than surrender.'Was she to carry poison with her or a knife?'It is not for me to prescribe the means,' Gandhi said. 'And behind the approvalof suicide in such circumstances is the belief that one whose mind is preparedfor even suicide will have the requisite coin-age for such mental resistance andsuch internal purity that her assailant will be disarmed.'Sometimes economic questions were raised at prayer meetings. Did Gandhithink the landowners' share in crops should be reduced from one-half to onethird?Yes, he welcomed the move. 'The land belongs to the Lord of us all andtherefore to the worker on it. But until that ideal state of things came aboutthe movement towards the reduction of the landlord's portion was in the rightdirection.' Many of the landlords were Hindus, and the riots were partly causedby resentment against high rents.Dr. Sushila Nayyar was stationed in the village of Changirgaon. She wanted togo to the hospital in the Sevagram Ashram which she had set up, but theMoslem patients begged her to stay and she stayed. She also reported thatMoslems were, of their own accord, returning some of the loot they took inOctober. 'A happy omen,' Gandhi called it. If the infection spread, the courtswould have less work to do. He aspired to no truce imposed by the military; hewanted a change of heart.Four young Moslem men came to Gandhi's hut for an exchange of views. Theirvisit gave him joy; he sought intimate contact with the people. He told them,incidentally that the figures on Moslem killings of Hindus in Noakhali has beenexaggerated; there were not thousands. The Hindus had behaved much worse inBihar.At Srinagar village on February 5 the volunteers had erected a platform andcanopy. This was a waste of labour and money, Gandhi chided them. 'All Ineed,' he told the prayer meeting, 'is a raised seat with something clean andwww.mkgandhi.org Page 514