The Danish Peace Academy

GANDHI AND NORDIC COUNTRIES

Letter, June 27, 1919

Laburnum Road,

Bombay,

June 27, 1919

My dear child,

Your letter just received makes me extremely sad. I cannot conceive the possibility of their deporting you.⁶⁹ But if they should, you have to cheerfully submit to the fate. If you wish me to, I shall gladly correspond with the Government. I may fail in my attempt. That would not matter. My advice to you also is that if they impose conditions on which alone you could stay, you should accept the conditions in so far as they are not humiliating.

I may commence in my person civil disobedience next week. It is therefore at the present moment hardly possible for us to meet.

As for swadeshi, there is no need for you to discard what you have from home. It is enough for you to confine all your present need to swadeshi things. The vow is only restricted to personal clothing.

Subject to your Board’s⁷⁰ consent, you should introduce spinning-wheels in your school.

Regarding yourself, I suggest also your consulting Mr. Bittmann and being guided by him. Shall I write to him? I am so anxious that not a single step be taken by you in haste or in anger. Then whatsoever happens will be for the best. Please write to me often.

With deep love,

Written in haste and unrevised.

Yours,

Bapu

Source:My Dear Child, pages 36-37; Collected Works, Volume 15, pages 393-94

[ Gandhi wrote to Mr. Sundaram on August 17: “When are you going to Miss Faering?” (SN3199)

He wrote to Lord Willingdon, Governor of Bombay, through his private secretary, on August 22, appealing against the deportation of Miss Faering:

“Probably the name of Miss Esther Faering, of Danish extraction and, up to recently, if not still, working as Superintendent of a Girls’ School belonging to the mission in Tirucoilur, has been brought to His Excellency’s notice. It was probably two years ago that she, along with another Danish lady, visited my ashram at Ahmedabad. Both the ladies took a special fancy for the ashram and its ideals. Miss Faering has since then met me three or four times and she has visited the ashram, I believe, once after her first visit. She has been a fairly regular correspondent and I believe she is attached to me like a child to its father, simply because, in her opinion, I represent in action the ideals she would fain enforce in her own life and is ever trying to. She loves India as her own motherland and I know it would be a terrible wrench to her if she is ever banished from India, as she dreads she might. Latterly, it seems she has been a suspect, very much shadowed.

It was her intention some time ago to leave the Danish mission, if she could. I think I succeeded in weaning her from the desire. I told her that it was her duty to fulfil her contract with the mission, so long as she was permitted to do so. I have just heard that she is no longer in the mission. If this is true and if she is permitted, I would be pleased to take her into the ashram where she would be associated with me in my non-political work. I believe her to be as truthful and straight a person as is to be found anywhere. She ever lives in the fear of God and does her best to live a Christian life. As her desire is to pass her life mostly in the midst of the people of India, I advised her to become naturalized. I know she took steps in the direction and I revised for her the petition for naturalization. But I do not know whether she has sent it. I can only hope that His Excellency will meet her and form the same opinion about her that I have. If any undertaking is required about her, it can be easily given. If an assurance is necessary, I wish to assure His Excellency that I have not the slightest desire to avail myself of her services in the political field.

As probably Lord Willingdon is aware, the largest part of my work is social and moral or religious. My most intimate associates take hardly any part in my political work. The inmates of the ashram are engaged in agricultural, industrial and educational work, and if Miss Faering comes to the ashram, she will take part in these activities, and if need be, I will undertake, in no other.

“Miss Faering knows nothing about this letter but I am sending her a copy for the consolation that I am not unmindful of my duty to her as a privileged friend, as also for her endorsement of theundertaking I am promising herein.

“I tender my apology for troubling His Excellency on a matter of a partly personal nature.” (SN6823; Collected Works, Volume 16, pages 57-58 )

He also wrote to the Governor of Madras. (C.B. Dalal, compiler, Gandhi, 1915-1948; A Detailed Chronology.)⁷¹

On the same day, he wrote to C.F. Andrews who was at Santiniketan, an educational institution established by poet Rabindranath Tagore in Bengal:

“I have most disquieting news about Miss Faering from Sundaram. I asked him specially to go and see her. He has been thereand he tells me she is no longer in the Danish mission and that she is in distress lest she might have to leave India. It would be almost deathto her if she is forced to do so. Here is a copy of my letter to LordWillingdon. I feel most keenly about her. Will you not immediatelygo to Madras and do what you can to prevent her banishment?

I am more and more becoming convinced of the correctness of the non-violence doctrine. The greater the possession of brute force, the greater coward does the possessor become. Fancy moving the contemptible machinery of the C.I.D.⁷² to watch over the doings of one of the most harmless persons living. I would be riddled by bullets a hundred times rather than, in trying to be bullet-proof, be party to injuring innocent people, whether in body or mind.

“Today our Government stops at nothing. It does not require a philosopher to understand the utter futility of physical force. But you may not agree with my conclusions or inferences. I do want you to agree with me that it is just as important to do our best to protect Miss Faering from harm as it is for me to resist the Rowlatt Act with my life and for you to be at Santiniketan.” (SN6822; Collected Works, Volume 16, pages 58-59)

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