UNIT 2- PROSE LS-1. WOMEN NOT THE WEAKER SEX: M.K. GANDHI

UNIT 2- PROSE

WOMEN NOT THE WEAKER SEX

: M.K. GANDHI

 

• Woman is more fitted than man to make exploration and take bolder action in nonviolence.
• There is no occasion for women to consider themselves subordinate or inferior to men.
• Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacity.
• If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior.
• If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with women.
• Woman, I hold, is the personification of self-sacrifice, but unfortunately today she does not realize what tremendous advantage she has over man.

These are some of the most famous quotes from Gandhiji’s writings and speeches. Gandhiji believed that India’s salvation depends on the sacrifice and enlightenment of her women. Any tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, the Great Soul, would be an empty one, if we were to take no cue for our own guidance from his words and from his life; for him ideas and ideals had no value if they were not translated into action. He saw man and women as equals, complementing each other. And he saw himself not as a visionary, but as a practical idealist. If then, men and women work together selflessly and sincerely as equals with a faith like Gandhi’s, they may indeed realize Ram Rajya, the perfect state. Traditionally, woman has been called abala (without strength). In Sanskrit and many other Indian languages bala means strength. Abala means one without strength. If by strength we do not mean brutish strength, but strength of character, steadfastness, and endurance, she should be called sabala, strong. His message almost six decades ago at the All India Women’s Conference on December 23, 1936 was: “When woman, whom we call abala becomes sabala, all those who are helpless will become powerful.”

Gandhi was not only a great political leader but a passionate lover of humanity. An implacable enemy of all injustice and inequalities, he was a friend of the lowly and the downtrodden. Harijans, women and the poor commanded his most tender attention. He had almost an instinctive understanding of women and their problems and had a deep abiding sympathy for them.
The oppressive custom of dowry too came under fire from Gandhi. He preferred girls to remain unmarried all their lives than to be humiliated and dishonored by marrying men who demanded dowry… He found dowry marriages “heartless”. Gandhi wished for mutual consent, mutual love, and mutual respect between husband and wife. He said: Marriage must cease to be a matter of arrangement made by parents for money. The system is intimately connected with caste. So long as the choice is limited to a few hundred young men or young women of a particular caste, the system will persist, no matter what is said against it. The girls or boys or their parents will have to break the bonds of caste if the evil is to be eradicated.
Injustice, like exploitation, has to be resisted wherever it is found, not only in the political field. For the fight against foreign domination, women by the thousands rallied to Gandhi’s call for civil disobedience. Women set aside their traditional roles, they came out of seclusion, they cast off their purdah. They entered the public domain along with men, and offered satyagraha; they remained undaunted by police beatings and extreme hardships in prison. Even illiterate tribal women from the forests joined the freedom movement. That is the Truth-force Gandhi urged in private matters as well. In fact, that is where he wanted it to begin. The first condition of non-violence is justice all round in every department of life. Perhaps it is too much to expect of human nature. I do not, however, think so. In Harijan, October 3, 1936 we find the reason for his faith: I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she will make the same effort, and have the same hope and faith.
Though pre-occupied with heavy responsibilities his views in this regard were clear and he tried to educate the public to accept women as equal partners. He said:
“I am uncompromising in the matter of woman’s rights. In my opinion she should labour under no legal disability not suffered by man. I should treat daughters and sons on an equal footing of perfect equality.”
Again he said:
“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is a man’s injustice to woman. If by strength it is meant moral power then woman is immeasurably man’s superior. Has she not more self-sacrificing, has she not great powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her man could not be. If non- violence is the law of our being, the future is with women.” Women could play a significant part in the freedom fight under his inspiring leadership, his fostering care and loving guidance. According to RajkumariAmritKaur, of all the factors contributing to the awakening of women in India none has been so potent as the field of nonviolence which Gandhijioffered to women in his “war” against British domination of India. It brought them out in their hundreds from sheltered homes, to stand the furnace of a fiery trial without flinching. It proved to the hilt that woman was as much able as man to resist evil or aggression.
The greatest tragedy of present day situation is that even after almost 53 years of our development work we have not been able to clothe our women.
This problem was brought to our notice in 1917 by Mahatma Gandhi. He said: “I happened to visit a village in the Champaran district of Bihar. I found some of the women dressed very dirtily. So I told my wife to ask them why they did not wash their clothes. She spoke to them. One of women took her into her hut and said: look now there is no box or cupboard here containing other clothes. The Sari I am wearing is the only one I have. How am I to wash it? Tell Mahatmaji to get me another sari, and I shall then promise to bathe and put clean clothes everyday. This cottage has no exception, but a type to be found in many Indian villages.”
He took to spinning so that every poor woman could be clothed and he promoted production of khadi as an economic activity.