THE CONDITION OF THE CONVERT 449
“I hope that the pamphlet has no support from thoughtful Musalmans who should read it to realize the mischief such pamphlets can create.
“My correspondent asks me how to deal with the menace. One remedy I have applied, viz, to bring hereby the villifying propaganda to the notice of the responsible Muslim world. He himself can claim the attention of the local Musalman leaders to the publication. The second and the most important thing to do is purification from within. So long as the position of untouchability remains in the Hindu body it will be liable to attacks from outside. It will be proof against such attacks only when a solid and impregnable wall of purification is erected in the shape of complete removal of untouchability.”
The ferocity of the former and the timidity and softness of the latter are obvious enough. Surely Gandhi must be regarded as an astute “respecter of persons”.
But apart from this difference in his attitude towards Muslim and Christian propaganda, have Mr. Gandhi’s arguments against Christian Missions, which I have summarized above, any validity ? They are just clever. There is nothing profound about them. They are the desperate arguments of a man who is driven to wall. Mr. Gandhi starts out by making a distinction between equal tolerance and equal respect. The phrase “equal respect” is a new phrase. What distinction he wants to make thereby is difficult to recognize. But the new phraseology is not without significance. The old phrase “equal tolerance” indicated the possibility of error. “Equal respect” on the other hand postulates that all religions are equally true and equally valuable. If I have understood him correctly then his premise is utterly fallacious, both logically as well as historically. Assuming the aim of religion is to reach God—which I do not think it is—and religion is the road to reach him, it cannot be said that every road is sure to lead to God. Nor can it be said that every road, though it may ultimately lead to God, is the right road. It may be that (all existing religions are false and) the perfect religion is still to be revealed. But the fact is that religions are not all true and therefore the adherents of one faith have a right, indeed a duty, to tell their erring friends what they conceive to be the truth. That Untouchables are no better than a cow is a statement which only an ignoramus, or an arrogant person, can venture to make. It is arrant nonsense. Mr. Gandhi dares to make it because he has come to regard himself as so great a man that the ignorant masses will not question his declarations and the dishonest intelligentsia will uphold him in whatever he says. Strangest part of his argument lies in wishing to