The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1932. GANDHI’S SECOND FAST THREAT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 268, 12 November 1932, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1932. GANDHI’S SECOND FAST THREAT

seems to be an element of caution in the second threat, of Mr. Gandhi; he undertakes to join with another gentleman who has already started fasting, but he stipulates that his own, Gandhi’s fast, shall start on January 1. The trouble this time is that the caste Hindus have not yet opened up an important temple to the “untouchables.’’ Mr. Gandhi realises how strong is caste influence in India, and therefore he has wisely, to use sporting parlance, given himself a long handicap. The moral suasion of fasting to death is, of course, not appreciated by the Western mind. To the Westerner, if a man elected to fast to death because he could not win by argument, then he must be allowed to go so far on the way that he will change his mind. Tn the East, however, an entirely different technique has been developed. Consciences, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to use the term “sensibilities,” are more delicate, and for a man to die on one’s doorstep inflicts upon the owner of the doorstep intense misgivings concerning his own future existence. Will such an act be counted against the party living and so cause him to be reincarnated in a less desirable plane of existence? Thus does conscience make cowards! But will these sensibilities or will caste reactions prevail? Mr. Gandhi’s long handicap indicates that he is very much impressed by the strength of the latter. Mr. Gandhi holds that Varna, by which he means caste in the Vedic sense, is the law of hereditary, the predetermination of a man’s profession. The law of Varna, he asserts, is that a man shall follow the profession of his ancestors for the purpose of earning his living, and this he calls an immutable law of nature. Religious duty includes the environment in which we were placed at birth by God. It connotes living in harmony with those birth conditions and not rebelling against them or seeking to overpass their limitations. Such a view, while limiting the activities of those within the caste, also makes for a rigid exclusiveness concerning those outside the easte. The ridiculous features of the caste system are apparent to the Occidental, but it must also be remembered that it is the easte system which has held India, together despite the shocks of successive invasions. Indian culture has been preserved by it and, its precipitating influence notwithstanding, a certain unity of texture has been preserved in Indian life. To-day, it is actually the easte system which is the bulwark holding back the influences which are seeking expression there to promote class war and internecine strife in the interests of Bolshevik foreign policy. It is against this caste system which Gandhi intends in due time to measure the strength of his mana. He can hardly be said to have succeeded against the British Government on the occasion of his first fast; now his second is something in the nature of an anti-climax, and as every student of political movements is aware, anti-climaxes are dangerous experiments for I cad ci's.