Chapter 42Open Letters Published in Newspapers, 1909–1925 · To the Editor of the Standard Bearer

seems, has gone into the waste paper basket, with other scraps, I suppose.

If by unwisdom is meant the continuation of the present political struggle and what is advised, is a prudent submission and making the best of a bad matter, it seems to me that it is the latter course that will be the real unwisdom. For the struggle cannot be avoided; it can only be evaded for the moment, and if you evade it now, you will have it to-morrow or the day after, with the danger of its taking a more virulent form. At present it is only a question of agitating throughout the country for a better scheme and getting the Labour Party to take it up in England. And if the Congress does less than that, it will stultify itself entirely. I hope your lead will be generally followed; it is the only line that can be taken by a self-respecting Nation.

published 10 August 1918 In answer to your request for a statement of my opinion on the intermarriage question, I can only say that everything will have my full approval which helps to liberate and strengthen the life of the individual in the frame of a vigorous society and restore the freedom and energy which India had in her heroic times of greatness and expansion. Many of our present social forms were shaped, many of our customs originated, in a [time]3 of contraction and decline. They had their utility for self-defence and survival within narrow limits, but are a drag upon our progress in the present hour when we are called upon once again to enter upon a free and courageous self-adaptation and expansion. I believe in an aggressive and expanding, not in a narrowly defensive and self-contracting Hinduism. Whether Mr. Patel’s Bill is the best way to bring about the object intended is a question on which I can pronounce no decided opinion. I should have preferred a change from within the society rather than one brought about by legislation. But I recognise the difficulty 3 Hindustan line