For the first time in nine months journalists were permitted to see Mahatma Gandhi in Yeravda Jail this evening at 5.30 when they were treated to one of the most easily delivered and seriously thoughtful interviews to which it has ever been my fortune to listen. No journalist could see Mahatma Gandhi today and discuss the position with him five hours after he had commenced "a fast unto death" without being immensely impressed . . .
When asked if he was hopeful about a happy ending to the affair,he said:
I am an irrepressible optimist. Unless God has forsaken me, I hope that it will not be a fast unto death.
Mahatma Gandhi said that he had many telegrams from people who had decided or wished to enter upon a fast in sympathy with him.
I urge everybody not to fast in sympathy. I have undertaken it at God's call, and, therefore, unless there is a similar definite call of these people they have no business to fast. For one day, for the sake of purificationor identification with thecause, it is a good thing; but that is all. Such a fast is both a privilege and a duty, and the privilege accrues only to those who have dsciplined themselves for it.
The interview then turned to the question of the day, the representation of the Depressed Classes, or as Mahtma Gandhi calls them,the Suppressed Classes.
First of all he expressed surprise that the statement given to the Government of Bombay had not been released.That had been given five days ago. Had he to redraft it today it would be rather different in the light of happenings since then, and he said at the end of the interview that his new statement was suppplementary to the other, but not dependent on it. He said :
My cards are on the table, but, so far as the present instance is concerned, I could say nothing from behind prison bars. Now that the restrictions are removed, I have answered the first call of the Press. My fast is only against separate electorrates, and not against statutory reservation of seats. To say that I am damaging the cause by uncompromising opposition to statutory reservation of seats is only partly true. Opposed I was, and am even now, but there was never put before me for any acceptance or rejection a scheme for statutory reservation of seats. Therefore, there is no question of my having to decide upon that point. When I developed my own idea about that point, I certainly expressed disappointment, and in my humble opinion, such statutory reservation, short of doing service any do harm in the sense that it will stop natural evolution. Statutory reservation is like a support to a man. Relying on such support to any extent he weakens himself.
If people won't laugh at me, I would gently put forward a claim, which I have always asserted, that I am a ΓÇÿtouchableΓÇÖ by birth but an untouchable by choice; and I have endeavoured to qualify myself to represent, not the upper ten even among the untouchables, because be it said to their shame there are castes and classes among them, but my ambition is to represent and identify myself with, as far as possible, the lowest strata of untouchables, namely, the ΓÇÿinvisiblesΓÇÖ and the ΓÇÿunapproachablesΓÇÖ, whom I have always before my mind's eye wherever I go; for they have indeed drunk deep of the poisoned cup. I have met them in Malabar and in Orissa, and am convinced that if they are ever to rise, it will not be by reservation of seats but will be by the strenuous work of Hindu reformers in their midst, and it is because I feel that this separation would have killed all prospect of reform that my whole soul has rebelled against it; and, let me make it plain, that the withdrawal of separate electorates will satisfy the letter of my vow but will never satisfy the spirit behind it, and in my capacity of being a self-chosen untouchable, I am not going to rest content with a patched-up pact between the ΓÇÿtouchablesΓÇÖ and the untouchables.
What I want, what I am living for, and what I should delight in dying for, is the eradication of untouchability root and branch. I want, therefore, a living pact whose life-giving effect should be felt not in the distant tomorrow but today, and, therefore, that pact should be sealed by an all-India demonstration of ΓÇÿtouchablesΓÇÖ and untouchables meeting together, not by way of a theatrical show, but in real brotherly embrace. It is in order to achieve this, the dream of my life for the past fifty years, that I have entered today the fiery gates. The British Government's decision was the last straw. It was a decisive symptom, and with the unerring eye of the physician that I claim to be in such maters, I detected the symptom. Therefore, for me the abolition of separate electorates would be but the beginning of the end, and I would warn all those leaders assembled at Bombay and others against coming to any hasty decision.
My life I count of no consequence. One hundred lives given for this noble cause would, in my opinion, be poor penance done by Hindus for the atrocious wrongs they have heaped upon helpless men and women of their own faith. I, therefore,would urge them not to swerve an inch from the path of strictest justice. My fast I want to throw in the scales of justice, and if it wakes up caste Hindus from their slumber, and if they are roused to a sense of their duty, it will haveserved its purpose. Whereas, if out of lind affection for me, they would somehow or other come to a rough and ready agreement so as to secure the abrogation and then go off to sleep, they will commit a grievous blunder and will have made my life a misery. For, while the abrogation of separate electorates would result in my breaking the fast, it would be living death for me if the vital pact for which I am striving is not arrived at. It would simply mean that, as soon as I called off the fast, I would have to give notice of another in order to achieve the spirit of the vow to the fullest extent.
This may look childish to the onlooker but not so to me. If I had anything more to give, I would throw that in also to remove this curse, but I have nothing more than my life.
I believe that if untouchability is really rooted out, it will not only purge Hinduism of a terrible blot but its repercussions will be world-wide. My fight against untouchability is a fight against the impure in humanity, and, therefore, when I penned my letter to Sir Samuel Hoare I did so in the full faith that the very best in human family will come to my assistance if I have embarked onthis thing with a heart,so far as it is possible for a human being to achieve, free of impurity, free of all malice and all anger. You will, therefore, see that my fast is based first of all in the cause of faith in the Hindu community, faith in human nature itself, and faith even in the official world.
In attacking untouchability I have gone to the very root of the matter, and, therefore, it is an issue of transcendental value, far surpassing swaraj interms of political constitutions, and I would say that such a constitution would be a dead weight if it was not backed by a moral basis, in the shape of the present hope engendered in the breasts of the downtrodden millions that weight is going to be lifted from their shoulders. It is only because the English officials cannot possibly see this living side of the picture that in their ignorance and self-satisfaction they dare to sit as judges upon quetions that affect the fundamental being of millions of people, and here I mean both caste Hindus and untouchables; that is, the suppressor and the suppressed; and it was in order to wake up even officialdom from its gross ignorance, if I may make use of such an expression without being guilty of offence, that I felt impelled by a voice from within to offer resistance with the whole of my being.
He stated that he had made definite suggestions to the deputation from the Emergency Committee whom he received yesterday and he presumed that these would have been communicated to the Press today in Bombay.
Referring to a possible photograph Mahatma Gandhi made a jocular remark concerning his funeral rites whereupon I asked him he had made any preparations for such rites when visited by his son Devdas yesterday if the very worst happeneed, and I received a dramatic reply.
I have asked my son to say in my name at the Bombay Conference that he as his father's son was prepared to forfeit his father's life rather than see any injury being done to the Suppressed Classes in mad haste.
What did he really think about the possibilities of his fast lasting? He replied:
I am as anxious as anyone to live. Water has an infinite capacity for prolonging life, and I will take water whenever I feel I require it. You can depend upon me to make a supreme effort to hold myself together so that theHindu conscience may be quickened as also the British conscience and this agony may end. My cry will rise to the throne of the Almighty God.
