The New York herald., 1922-01-08
ves and Riches Schools Homespun Replaces Fine Clothes
Intellectuals Working
Hard as the Mahat-
mas Lieutenants in
Effort to Lift Their
Sisters to High Plane
of Thought
By BAsANTA KooMAR ROY.

~ ARISAL is Bengal city of about
~ $4,000 people Therein resides a
philosophical counterpart of
Mahatma Gandhi. His name is Srijut AS
vini Kumar Data. All the miracles that
are. attributed to Mahatma Gandhi all over
India are also attributed to Data all over
Bengal
Recently Gandhi visited Data at Bari
sal. During his stay in this stronghold Of
rationalism Mahatma Gandhi received
quite an unusual deputation. A group of
fallen women" of the city sent man to
Gandhi to inquire II he would receive a
committee of them. In expressing his
willingness to receive the delegation
Gandhi said:
Il shall be most happy to receive them.
They are my sisters and fellow country
women If they have fallen, they must
be given every opportunity to rise again.
Yes want to meet them"
Appealed to Them to Change
To Spinning and Weaving
In the course of the interview Gandhi
appealed to the members of the delegation
to change their mode. of life and to take to
the spinning wheel and to the hand loom
In compliance with this appeal of Mahat-
ma Gandhi quite a few of the women of
Barisal are to-day some of the most faith
full followers of Gandhi and Invaluable
assets to the nation. This victory OF the
modern sanity political leader of India
will ever be counted as one of his para
mount spiritual triumphs.
The women of India, as in America, are
more devotional than are the men, Mill
tant affirmation of spiritual dedication is
more a part of the life of the women of
India than of men. The call of Mahatma
Gandhi is primarily spiritual one. Con-
sequently the women of India are respond
ing to his call more readily, more spon-
taneously and more self-sacrificingly than
the men.
And India owes much of the success of
Gandhi's cooperation movement to the
untiring energy and almost superhuman
idealism of the new women of new India.
1t is not this or that section, but women
of all castes of all cfeeds and of all
classes are equally intoxicated with the
wine of self-realization by self-sacrifice
Countless Millions Helping
In Vast Ideaistic Movement
Countless millions are the women who
are helping Gandhi in his stupendous task
OF national self-realization. This great
movement Is not mere vagrant fragrance
CT our national life, but it is the Towering
of the inherent qualities of the very soul OF
India under the spiritual leadership of Ma
hatma Gandhi, a man who, as Rabindra-
nath Tagore told me, has attained mir
vana while still in flesh"
Limitation of space precludes entering
into an exhaustive account of the theme
but the activities of few leading women
lieutenants of Gandhi will indicate the
vibrant currents of feminine thought in
rejuvenated India.
During the decade of Gandhi's titanic
fight against tremendous odds in south
Africa the cooperation and vitalizing in
f1uence of his wife, Kasturibai Gandhi. was
a source of great inspiration to this then
unknown patriot and humanist.
Like her husband, Mrs. Gandhi, too, had
defied the laws of South Africa and cheer
fully gone to prison as protest against
debasing determinations against the peo-
pie of India. In his continuous peregrina-
tions around India Gandhi has the privi-
lege of the constant company of his wife,
who taxes care OF her sanity husband as
a mother does OF her helpless baby.
Mrs. Gandhi wields uncommon influence
over the worlingmen and workingwomen
OF India. She Is like mother to them.
Like Gandhi. she also believes In non-vio-
Ience and during the riotous days of 1919,
when every Englishman al Ahmedabad-
the home city of GandhI--was threatened
with instant death by the revolutionsts
II was Mrs. uandhis appeal that saved
their lives.
During the absence Of Mahatma and
Mrs. Candhi from Ahmedahad the most
influential person who carries on their
work In this great Industrial city is not a
man. but woman. Her name Is Anu
suyabai She is the daughter OF an i'm
menscly wealthy mill owner of Ahmeda-
bad and she 10 very wealthy herself Yet
she has thrown her lot with the working
people OF the city. She 10 highly educated,
and devotes her time, pen and tongue for
the educational. social and economic up
Lin OF the masses of Hindustan.