Change in Gandhi's varna view

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Gandhi's changing varNa view

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Changes in Mahatma Gandhi's views on caste interdining and

intermarriage

by Mark Lindley

http://www.sosyalbilimler.hacettepe.edu.tr/dergi/makale/02A4marklindle

y.pdf

 

In this, Lindley talks about how Gandhiji slowly abandoned his

earlier visions of maintaining interdining and intercaste distinctions

in marriage. Lindley attributes Gandhi's changes to a meeting

and later interactions with Ambedkar in 1931. However, the intercaste

interdining problems surfaced much earlier - in early 1920s

for Gandhiji. The person known in the south for raising an issue

out of interdining restrictions was E. V. Ramasamy Naicker,

the atheist leader of the Dravidian movement. The Dravidian

parties are in power from 1968, and Jayalalitha, a Brahmin herself,

heads meetings displaying large EVR pictures. A EVR party view

on the VVS Iyer gurukulam restrictions,

http://www.themronline.com/200202m7.html

 

While in 1920s EVR Naicker confronted, Gandhi wrote that interdining

and intermarriage between varNas are wrong. But, Lindley shows that

the Mahatma eventually changed.

 

Prof. Nicholas Dirks (Columbia university) did graduate study

on EVR Naicker. N. Dirks, Castes of Mind:

Colonialism and the making of modern India, Princeton, 2001

Ch. 12. The reformation of caste: Periyar, Ambedkar and Gandhi

p. 257

"He [EVR] became a critical figure in the mobilization of

political agitation in Madras around Gandhi's noncooperation

campaign, and was imprisoned by the British in November 1921.

After his release several months later, he took up various

Gandhian causes, from prohibition to the popularization of khadi.

In the spring of 1924, he entered the campaign at Vaikkam,

a temple town in the princely state of Travancore. The campaign

concerned the issue of temple entry for the "untouchable"

caste of Ezhavas." p. 258 "EVR - one of the heroes of the Vaikkam

agitation"

 

"EVR quarreled with Congress and Gandhi very soon after the

Vaikkam affair over the question of separate dining for

Brahman and non-Brahman students in a Congress-sponsored

school (Gurukulam) near Madras. The school was set up by the

nationalist leader VVS Iyer with the aim of imparting

traditional religious education in the larger context of

a commitment to patriotism and social service. After several

complaints, it became clear that Iyer had arranged for

separate dining facilities for several Brahman students

at the request of their parents."

 

p. 260 "In a later speech in Madras in 1927, Gandhi upheld

the fourfold classification of caste and the duties appropriate

to each stage of life (varnashramadharma), though he firmly

rejected the notion that caste hadanything to do with

high or low status. Further he maintained that a ban on

intermarriage or interdining was essential to the ideal

system [9]. EVR responded to Gandhi by arguing that

support for the principle of varna. in effect relegated all

caste Hindus to the position of Sudras, which implied for

him that they were "sons of prostitutes" [10]".

 

p. 266 'He [Ambedkar] greeted the untouchable victory

in Vaikkam, which had been spearheaded by EVR (Periyar),

with great enthusiasm, and subsequently he led a campaign

to open up the Thakurdwar temple in Bombay in 1927."

 

Christophe Jaffrelot's discussions on caste mention

EVR Periyar, Narayana Guru, Ambedkar, ... as well.

http://www.nd.edu/~kellogg/pdfs/Jaffrelot.pdf

http://www.ceri-sciencespo.com/archive/april01/artcj.pdf

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan