When Mahathma Gandhi Met Sree Narayana Guru
In the history of there is no other man who worked as much as Sree Narayana Guru for the upliftment of the backward caste but he has been pinned down to the name of a particular caste group in Kerala as their benefactor; while Mahatma Gandiji is considered as the greatest campaigner against casteism and untouchability was a person who always supported the four Varnas (Caste) in the society as he believed there should be people for every walks of life and every jobs in society but he did oppose the suppression of the lower castes.
Some followers of Narayana Guru who were congress leaders wanted to include in the policy and program of the Indian National Congress, the abolition of taboos in the society and the eradication of castism. Mahatma Gandhi was not fully convinced of Narayana Guru’s doctrine of “One Caste, One Religion, and One God.” However, Mahatma Gandhi found it was of great political advantage to include the program of abolishing untouchability in the general schedule of the Indian National Congress as it can arise all sections of the society and make the national movement a mass movement. Mahatma Gandhi called himself a Vaishnavite and he wanted to see India as a people of Vishnu (Vaishnava Janata). In spite of Gandiji’s love for all and his universal outlook and brotherhood, he hated Hindus embracing Christianity or Islam.
And thus abolition of untouchability was included in the national program of the Congress. T. K. Madhavan and others congress leader from Kerala did not want to wait for the fate of the program to come on its own. They wanted to get involved in direct action and make it a mass movement. Mahatma Gandhi gave his approval too. The venue of the action was Vaikam, and this campaign for the rights of lower caste became famous as the VaikamSatyagraha. Narayana Guru placed his land at the disposal of the Satyagrahis to make their camp at Vaikam. Manhath Padmanabhan and Changanasseri Parameswaran Pillai were the other Kerala leaders who participated in it. Afterwards, when Mahatma Gandhi met Narayana Guru at Varkala, the sage of Sabarmati and the Guru of Varkala had an interesting discussion which was of great significance as it helped to form new visions and changes in Indian freedom movement. When Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Cochin, some Hindu enthusiasts who were alarmed at the rate of spread of Christianity in Kerala wanted Gandhi to impress upon Narayana Guru the need to stop low caste Hindus from getting converted to Christianity. Mahatma Gandhi presented the subject in a tactful manner to Narayana Guru. He said ‘The caste-Hindus and the low caste-Hindus are both the sons of Hinduism. The caste-Hindu is the elder brother who shoulders responsibility, and he therefore exercises certain privileges. The low caste-Hindu is his younger brother who is to be cared for. If the elder brother turns out to be somewhat rough and aggressive that should not make the younger brother a runaway from his mother Hinduism’.
Narayana Guru could not agree with the logic of Mahatma Gandhi’s suggestion. The Guru said If a Hindu has no belief in his religion and has belief in another religion, it is good that he embraces the religion in which he believes. Such a conversion will help Hinduism in getting rid of a non-believer, and the religion to which the man gets converted will have the benefit of adding one more believer to it. Moreover the man will be benefited with love and sympathy which he will get from his fellow-believers. There is nothing wrong in such conversions. On hearing this Mahatma Gandhi approached the subject from another angle. He said: ‘The convert is embracing Christianity not for the spiritual worth of that religion but for the social and economic benefits he gets from that religion. Narayana Guru agreed to that and he wanted Mahatma Gandhi to understand it as a socio-economic problem, which could be met only by taking adequate measures that, could give social and economic justice to the aggrieved members of the society. This point went home to Mahatma Gandhi and it was even responsible for making a big change in Gandhi’s attitude .towards the entire problem of caste-conflict in India. It was significant that Mahatma Gandhi afterwards changed the name of his paper Navajovan to Harijan and even called himself a Harijan.
