Yesterdate: This day from Kolkata’s past, January 29, 1921
Telegraph | 30 January 2025
On this day, M.K. Gandhi wrote a letter to C.F. Andrews, a missionary who participated in India’s freedom movement.
In the letter, Gandhi addresses Andrews as “My dearest Charlie” and speaks about untouchability. It reads:
“…I look at the problem as an Indian and a Hindu, you as an Englishman and a Christian. You look at it with the eye of an observer, I as an affected and afflicted party. You can be patient, and I cannot. Or you as a disinterested reformer can afford to be impatient whereas I as a sinner must be patient if I would get rid of the sin. I may talk glibly of the Englishman’s sin in Jallianwala. But as a Hindu, I may not talk about the sin of Hinduism against the untouchables. I have to deal with the Hindu Dyers. I must act.... You act, you do not speak, when you feel most. Not knowing Gujarati, you do not know how furiously the question is raging in Gujarat....”
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