Democracy is not merely a form of Government... It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen.
I am convinced that the real remedy is intermarriage. Fusion of blood can alone create the feeling of being kith and kin, and unless this feeling of kinship, of being kindred, becomes paramount, the separatist feeling – the feeling of being aliens – created by caste will not vanish.
Nothing is infallible. Nothing is binding forever. Everything is subject to inquiry and examination.
Everything, you see, is impermanent.
The Hindus accuse the Muslims of contumacy. The Muslims accuse Hindus of meanness. Both, however, forget that the communal problem exists not because the Muslims are extravagant and insolent in their demands and the Hindus are mean and grudging in their concessions. It exists and will exist wherever a hostile majority is brought face to face against a hostile minority. Controversies.
But once a missionary religion, Hinduism perforce ceased to be a missionary religion after the time when the Hindu society developed its system of castes. For, caste is incompatible with conversion. To.
The conception of secular state is derived from the liberal democratic tradition of west. No institution which is maintained wholly out of state funds shall be used for the purpose of religious instruction irrespective of the question whether the religious instruction is given by the state or any other body.
Untouchability shuts all doors of opportunities for betterment in life for Untouchables. It does not offer an Untouchable any opportunity to move freely in society; it compels him to live in dungeons and seclusion; it prevents him from educating himself and following a profession of his choice.
Siddharth Gautama rose in his seat and said, “I oppose this resolution. War does not solve any question. Waging war will not serve our purpose. It will sow the seeds of another war. The slayer gets a slayer in his turn; the conqueror gets one who conquers him; a man who despoils is despoiled in his turn.
For myself I shall find as much pleasure in a positive destruction of my own ideology, as in a rational disagreement on a topic, which, notwithstanding many learned disquisitions is likely to remain controversial forever.
Hinduism is not interested in the common man. Hinduism is not interested in Society as a whole. The centre of its interest lies in a class and its philosophy is concerned in sustaining and supporting the rights of that class.
It took Gautama four weeks of meditation to obtain enlightenment. He reached final enlightenment in four stages. 4. In the first stage he called forth reason and investigation. His seclusion helped him to attain it easily. 5. In the second stage he added concentration. 6. In the third stage he brought to his aid equanimity and mindfulness. 7. In the fourth and final stage he added purity to equanimity and equanimity to mindfulness.
Pakistan is merely another manifestation of a cultural unit demanding freedom for the growth of its own distinctive culture.
In the fight for swaraj you fight with the whole nation on your side. In this, you have to fight against the whole nation – and that too, your own.
Asceticism he found to be useless. It was vain to attempt to escape from the world. There is no escape from the world even for an ascetic. He realised that what is necessary is not escape from the world. What is necessary is to change the world and to make it better.
Any Government which denied this elementary right of freedom of speech and freedom of action did not deserve allegiance from the people.
I measure the progress of the community by the degree of progress that women had achieved. Let every girl who marries stand by her husband, claim to be her husband’s friend and equal, and refuse to be his slave. I am sure if you follow this advice, you will bring honour and glory to yourselves.
There is no doubt, in my opinion, that unless you change your social order you can achieve little by way of progress. You cannot mobilize the community either for defence or for offence. You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole.
Caste has however done one thing. It has completely disorganized and demoralized the Hindus.
On the other hand, every Hindu is taught to believe that his civilisation is not only the most ancient but that it is also in many respects altogether unique.
These will suffice to show that the emancipation of the mind and the soul is a necessary preliminary for the political expansion of the people.