The Danish Peace Academy

GANDHI AND NORDIC COUNTRIES

Edited by E. S. Reddy - ereddy@aol.com and Holger Terp

LETTER TO ADA RASENGREN, APRIL 23, 1926

Ashram, Sabarmati,

April 23, 1926

Dear friend,

I have your letter. I must not publish the article you have sent me. Almost every Indian believes that England was in the wrong and responsible for the calamitous war. I do not now wish to rake up an old controversy without any occasion for it.

As desired I have sent a copy of your essay to Mr. Natesan, Madras. I have given your card to the Manager of Young India.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Ada Rasengren

Ro, Lidingo Villastad

From: SN 12466; Collected Works, Volume 30, page 347

LETTER TO ADA ROSENGREEN, DECEMBER 11, 1927

As at the Ashram,

Sabarmati,

December 11, 1927

Dear friend,

I have your letter for which I thank you. You may translate the book Self-restraint v. Self-indulgence. As to the terms, I leave them to you. Whatever is given will be devoted to public use.

What you say about the women of the West is only partly true and true also perhaps to an extent for the women of India. But these are society women and very few. So far as the vast majority of women are concerned, they are too engrossed in their own occupations even to think of animal passions. It is reserved for man to become aggressive when animal passion forces him. What you say about passivity is unfortunately too true all the world over, and I do not know that the majority of women will ever be able to overcome that passivity. Perhaps the very construction of their bodies prevents the development of active resistance except under certain well-defined circumstances which are created by special culture. And it is because woman is passive that I have contended that it is man who is the more to blame than woman. And even the society woman of the West does not go beyond subtle attraction and blandishments. I have not known many cases of violence done by women to men. She has a remarkable capacity for controlling herself and pining away rather than be aggressive even under raging passion within her breast.

Yours sincerely,

M. Ada Rosengreen

Lidingo, Sweden.

LETTER TO ADA ROSENGREEN, JULY 13, 1928

Satyagraha Ashram,

Sabarmati,

July 13, 1928

Dear friend,

I thank you for your letter and the German book.⁶ I think I have told you that I do not know German.

Nothing is yet settled about my visit to Europe next year.

I hold strong views about divorce. My own opinion is that if husband and wife do not agree temperamentally and there is always a jar between them, they should live in voluntary separation. But I do not accept the propriety of either party remarrying. Being a believer in the necessity of celibacy, I naturally incline to the view that the greater [the restraint] the man or woman exercises the better it is for himself or herself.

Yours sincerely,

M. Ada Rosergreen

Lidingo, Sweden.

Notes

From: SN12541; Collected Works, Volume 35, page 373.

From: SN14346; Collected Works, Volume 37, pages 49-50

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