330

The Hindustan Times

19th January 1935
Page:12
MASQUES AND SOULS

Halide Hanum's Discussion

With Gandhiji

M.D. writes in 'Harijan':_

Even greater perhaps than the meeting with Dr.Maude
Royden was the meeting of Gandhiji with that choice spirit
of the age, Madame Halide Edib Hanum, whose has been a life
of intense suffering and sacrifice. There is a shadow of
subdued melancholy over this fighter in the cause of freedom,
and in her benignant eyes is a glint and a flash sufficient
to scorch all impurity and injustice. She has laboured and
suffered all her life, written great books and striven to
bring her people nearer to that freedom which is "a thing
that we have to conquer afresh for ourselves everyday, like
love," and which we are losing "because after each victory,we
think we can settle down and enjoy it without furtehr struggle."
Hope of Mankind
This remarkable lady who typifies the best in the womanhood of Turkey has come at the invitation of the Jamia Millia
Islamia to deliver a course of lectures on what one may call
the reconciliation between the East and the West, the cultures of which are so beautifully blended in her. But in
her utmost humility wherein lies the strength of the truly
strong she came and sat down near Gandhiji and said:"I have
come to learn from you and take what I can for my own people."
I will not, I dare not, describe the talks that have taken
place between them. They are too sacred for my pen. But let
the reader know that having known what violence is, she seems
definitely to have turned her back on it and found that in

331

non-violence alone lies the hope of mankind.

Nationalism - Right and Wrong
Hers is no narrow nationalism. Suffering has with her
no value unless it is pure and undefiled. In her great book
of Memoirs she says: "The individual or the nationin order
to understand its fellowmen or its fellow nations, in order
to create beauty and to express its personality, must go
deep down to the roots of its being and study itself sincerely. The process of this deep self-duty,as well as its results,
is nationalism. I believe with all earnestness that such
a national self-duty and the exchange of its results is
the first and right step to international understanding and
love of the peoples and nations. It is after I have loved
my own people and tried to understand their virtues and their
faults with open-minded humility taht I begin to have a better
understanding of other people's sufferings and joys, and
of their personality expressed in their national life. I
will also admit that there is a narrow, negative and destructive nationalism in the world, which has deluded itself with
the belief that a nation can only grow and thrive by exterminating and oppressing the peoples under its rule, or by
conquering and suppressing the nations around it. Both are
forms of wrongly understood nationalism which can be called
by the names of chauvenism and imperialism. And the peoples
who exercised them have themselves suffered materially and
morally more than the people they have tried to hurt.
The hypocarcy and personal unworthiness of many
of the world's leaders, whether national or international,
can lead to a complete and final destruction of all that
has been the outcome of infinite suffering and experience
of thousands of years." Also: "Nationalism used for political
purposes is an ideal turned into a monstrosity." It is for
a moral and material reconstruction of her nation that she
is striving, and it is to that end that she would like to
shape all her educational and social reform activities. The
school in her opinion must conform as much as possible to
a home. "Bad or good,humanity has not yet discovered a better

332

place than a family nook, or a better caretaker than a mother.

No institution however scientifically run can replace these
and only that society which is free from mechanisation and
industrialisation can, in her view be free from the anomaly
of hagard and underfed poor living under the blighting shadow
of gorgeously dressed and overfed rich, free from conditions
where "The prosperity of the rich hurts one's eyes."
Curse of Mechanisation
"How will you fight the curse of mechanisation, Gandhiji?"
she asked with a painful tremor in her voice in which the
chords of her sensitive self seemed to tremble. "How will
you keep human beings human souls?"
"It is all implied," said Gandhiji, "in non-violence.Hindu-Muslim unity, the removal of untouchability and giving
back to the villagers what belongs to them,-the Harijan activity and the movement for the revival of village industriescome naturally to me because of non-violence.It is cruel,
it is sinful, to think of mechanisation in a country of 350
million human beings. Every human being is a machine, only
it should be kept oiled and in proper trim. That is what I am
trying to do."
"Political freedom, I am sure you are going to win," she
said, "but mechanisation, I am afraid might get hold of India."
"Then there is no escape
"I saw it as long ago as 1908
my activities in the terms of
sation is impossible in India
in some shape or other."

from violence," said Gandhiji.

and ever since I have shaped all
non-violence. Complete mechaniwithout resulting in violence

A Nursery of Souls
"I know, I know. But it's so difficult. The soul has to
be preserved. I have written a play called 'Masques and Souls'.
There are more masques than souls, but if you will prepare a
nursery of souls, it will be all to good."

333

"Oh yes, if we can find even one true witness to the

Truth," said Gandhiji.
"I am not very optimistic, for the opposite side is
very strong," said Madame Halide.
"I have never lost my optimism," said Gandhiji assuring
her. "In seemingly darkest hours hope has burnt bright within
me.
"You cannot kill your own hope, I know," she said in
serene exaltation.
"You are absolutely right. I cannot kill the hope myself.
I must say I cannot give an ocular demonstration to justify
the hope. But there is no defeat in me."
"There will never be I am sure, there will never be."

334

The Hindustan Times

20th January 1935 Page : 11
Badge of Real Heroism

Distress and Suffering

Lessons of Turkey's Sacrifices

Gandhiji's Views

NEW DELHI, Saturday

"Those who die in utter distress and suffering are the

real heroes and heroins of the world, and not the monarchs
and kings, however high their empires might be," said Mahatma Gandhi presiding over the second series of lectures Madame Halide Edib Hanum at the Jamia Millia Islamia to-day.
Yazxnm bundan sonraki kismi The Bombay Chronicle'in
21 Ocak 1935 tarihli sayismda cikan yazmin aynidir.

335

The Bombay Chronicle

21st January 1935 Page
GANDHIJI'S GLOWING TRIBUTE
TO HALIDE'S SERVICE

"Musalmans, Bones Of Our Bones"

INDISSOLUBLE TIE BETWEEN TWO NATIONS

(From our Correspondent) NEW DELHI- Jan.19.

"True history is the history of the individual men
and women who die in utter neglect and are true heroes and
heroins and not that of great kings who bring destruction,"
said Gandhiji presiding over the second extension lecture
on 'the conflict of East and West in Turkey' delivered by
Madame Halide Edib Hanum, in the Jamia Millia Islamia tonight.
"The Living Link"
Continuing Gandhiji said: "When our sister was presented the other day I immediately betrayed ignorance of the
subject and as I was trying to listen to-night I could again
see how ignorant I was of the outside history. Having immersed
in a life of perpetual activity, I am unable to keep abreast
with history of the present times. But I could not resist
the idea of listening to Begum Sahiba and it became irresistable when I met her. She is the living link between India
and Turkey. If I had not come to-day, I would have missed
the address and lost the opportunity of realising my ignorance . "
"These extension lectures are not meant for seasoned soldiers
but for young students of this college. If these youngsters

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337

SPEECH AT JAMIA MILLIA, DELHI1(*^

January 19, 1935

I do not know whether, while you listened to the story

unfolded by the Begum Saheba, you were, like me, drawing a
comparison between the history of Turkey and India. I could
not fail to draw many a parallel between the two stories. No
birth comes without agony, and as I listened to the story,
not yet finished by the speaker, and not yet finished in action, I found that all is in the melting pot, all is transitory in this transitory world. One could not say what would
be the end of the world in which Turkey and India were but
insignificant spots. But it is best to know that what matters
to India and to everybody is his or her own individual action.
For we must know that true history is not the history of kings
and dynasties, but of individual men and women in general.
Some who died in utter neglect and misery were great heroes
and heroins, not great kings, however big the empires they
had founded and whatever the destruction they wrought on the
3
face of the earth. The history of man and woman is still in
the making. What are a thousand or even a million years in the
limitless cycle of time? They are but a speck, and as I listened to the story of Turkey, I derived hope that, if we modelled our action according to the Right and nothing but the
Right, there would be nothing but a bright future for us all.
There is an indissoluble tie that binds India to Turkey,
not because we have suffered alike, but because Turkey has a
(*)Speech at Jamia Millia Delhi(The Collected Works of Mahatma
Gandhi)India,Ahmedabad: 1974-p.93-93. Prof.Dr.inci Enginiin
arivi
1-Extracted from Mahadev Desai's"Weekly Notes".Gandhiji presided
over the lectures delivered by Halide Edib Hanum on January
18 and 19,1935.
2-From 'Gandhijini Dinwari'
3-The Hindustan Times,20-1-1935 reports Gandhiji as having said:
'Those who die in utter distress and suffering are the real heroes and
heroines and not the monarchs and kings,however high their empires might
be."

338

Muslim population which has so much in common with India

because of her millions of Muslims, who are flesh of our flesh
and blood of our blood and bone of our bone. May Begum Saheba's
coming in our midst result in binding Hindus and Muslims in an
indissoluble bond.
Harijan,1-2-1935