Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/495

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for the man who will infect us with his power and enable us to feel clearly through the heart, things we are to-day unable to perceive through our reason.

Looking then at the classes I find that our Rajahs and Maharajahs squander their resources after so called useless sport and drink. I was told the other day that the cocaine habit was sapping the nation's manhood and that like the drink habit it was on the increase and in its effect more deadly than drink. It is impossible for a social worker to blind himself to the evil. We dare not ape the W^est. We are a nation that has lost its prestige and its self-respect. Whilst a tenth of our population is living on the verge of starvation, we have no time for indulging ourselves. What the West may do with impunity is like in our case to prove omr ruin. The evils that are corroding the higher strata of society are difficult for an ordinary worker to tackle. They have acquired a certain degree of respectability. But they ought not to be beyond the reach of this Con- ference.

Equally important is the question of the status oi women both Hindu and Mahomedan- Are they or are they not to play their full part in the plain of regenera- tion alongside of their husimnd ? They must be enfran- chised. They can no longer be treated either as dolls or slaves without the social body remaining in a condi- tion of social paralysis. And here again I would venture to suggest to the reformer that the way to women's freedom is not througri education but through the change of attitude on the part of men and corresponding action. Education is necessary but it must follow the freedom. We dare not wait for literary education to restore our womanhood to its proper state. Even without

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